At 19:46 24 October 2015, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 16:28 24 October 2015, Dan Marotta wrote:


On a personal note, I used to unbuckle my parachute before getting out
of the glider because it's easier physically. About a year ago I
decided that it would be better to always leave the glider with the
'chute on to avoid unbuckling out of habit before an emergency exit.
Since then, I've been refining my method for getting out and it's much
easier now. I realize that g-loading can have quite an impact on exit,
either positive or negative.

I have always climbed out of the glider complete with parachute for th
reasons described above.
With the advancing years I have, on occasion, unbuckled the parachute t
make getting out easier. I found that to do this is very difficult. The
le
clips are difficult to reach to unclip so perhaps the danger of unclippin
in the event of an abandonment is less that it would appear.
It would be interesting to know whether in the case under discussio

I believe that the "don't unbuckle the 'chute and leave it in the aircraft
when you get out" advice, is based on one incident with a Spitfire in WWII
in which the pilot was believed to have done just that when abandoning the
aircraft. It seems a very small sample on which to base considerable
inconvenience for tens of thousands of pilots over a period of 75 years.

whether the parachute was unclipped in the cockpit or the pilot go in wit
his chute not secure, I suspect the latter is the more likely.