On Sep 11, 7:01 am, Dan G wrote:
You've had a whack, but everything feels fine. Do you stay in the
glider, or leave? Just how reliable are the parachutes we use? I
understand that they're fairly simple quick-opening designs, but
there's no reserve, right? Has a glider-pilot parachute ever failed?

Dan

Dan,
I had the unfortunate experience of having to leave my glider in
January after a mid air. The other glider had impacted my left wing
and severed it about half a metre from the root,and also broke the
tail boom midway between the wing and the tail. He was able to land
but I had to make a quick exit, which was my first parachuting
experience. I had no doubts that I would have to jump, and previous
training and preparation took over.
The glider had started a spin to the left and it took some time to
get rid of the canopy (PUSH on it after you activate the releases!),
but I was actually surprised how easy it was to get out of the
cockpit. Having undone the harness it seemed like no trouble at all to
just roll over the canopy rail and out into the wild blue yonder. I
have a below knee artificial right leg so I had considered this
scenario for some time, expecting to have a lot of trouble just
getting my leg past the instrument panel, but no, it was really a
piece of cake. I put it down to the fact the gravitational force was
less as the glider was diving and all I had to do was push away from
it. A NOAH sytem would have been redundant I feel. Luckily, the spin
hadn't developed to the stage where the centrifugal forces were high,
even though it had seemed to take forever to get out; in fact it was
probably only seconds.
The chute worked as advertised (it had been repacked 2 months
previously), opening in 3 seconds (or so it seemed) and there was no
way I was going to do any stabilising. I used that ripcord as soon as
I could. Adrenalin does amazing things. I was upside down when the
chute opened, but the shock of it soon had me the right way up. I did
get some pretty severe bruising around the groin and shoulders, but I
was alive and thats what counted. Then there was the landing. I
couldn't see the ground properly because the shock of the opening
chute ripped my glasses off, and I hit before I was ready, and I hit
very heavily, once again with absolutely no proper tecnique, but I was
alive.
As far as I am concerned everything worked and the end result was
good. I just hope no one else has to try out their parachute.

Phil