Sounds like a good idea.

As an aside, I have many chute only landings in an Elfe S-3 and a Libelle 301. Besides being great pattern & speed control practice (I slip around the pattern from downwind through final until I'm at about 50ft before deploying the chute) its a hell of a lot of fun!

On Thursday, February 4, 2016 at 3:32:51 AM UTC-5, Surge wrote:
One wonders if the inclusion of a tail parachute would have been a better option on these slippery open class ships with tricky recovery envelopes?
Accidental or unreliable deployment issues aside, a drag chute could probably be used to recover from a spin or spiral dive without exceeding Vne.

For example the Nimbus 2 has a terminal velocity in a vertical dive of 200 to 220 km/h (108 to 119 knots) with the tail chute deployed, air brakes and landing gear extended. So assuming one popped the chute within a couple of seconds (giving extra time to extend air brakes and lower the landing gear) the glider would be able to exit the spin/spiral vertically and then gently pull out of the dive without breaking anything in the process.

Is this a crazy idea or feasible?