About the Janus tail chute. I had a share of a Janus A back in the 80's. The sum total of the instruction I had in the use of the tail chute was poor at best, i.e. "get the nose down when deploying the chute or you'll never get the speed back"

After some flying around higher up with the chute deployed (deliberately) before joining the pattern one day I found the following; at low speed it would still glide as well or better than a Blanik as long as you kept the speed back, it would still thermal ok with the same caveat, keep the speed low and that the chute risers at slow speed would stream one side of the rudder or the other meaning a hefty push was needed to initiate a turn at which point they would pop under to the other side.

Would have been nice if someone had been able to share that with me right from the start. I didn't find it necessary to land it fast either, a quick check of the airbrakes at the flare would suffice if it was sinking on too quickly. Best field landing over a 4'6" fence was under 100 yards with everything hanging out and the useless drum brake giving a small amount of assistance

In all the flying in the Janus I did, the chute got used on about 75% of the flights and the ONLY failure I ever experienced was when deploying the chute while dumping water. (Karl and Iris were visiting New Zealand at the time and I had her as a passenger on that flight while Karl was off flying a borrowed ASW 20)

Ah the good old days. . .
Colin