On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 7:32:53 PM UTC-4, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Three years ago when I got back into soaring I talked to serveral riggers about a round vs square chute. The riggers, including Allen Silver, all talked me out of a square for safety reasons. If you are seriously considering a square rig, I highly recommend you speak with a qualified rigger and discuss your needs and experience. For me, with a round chute, if you exit the aircraft and pull the rip cord, the chute will open and bring you to earth. With a square you have to fly and it can deploy in a stated where it is already in a death spiral. I figure if I am under silk I am done flying for the day.

The riggers that sell parachutes to pilots are either really old school or feel that their stock options would be too limited if they suggested squares. Or a combo of both. Look at it this way we've been chucking students out of airplanes with square mains and square reserves for over 30 years and it works. Millions of jumps, untold numbers of ugly deployments and overwhelmed students performing poorly. I'd guess most racing pilots post bail out could fly a square parachute as well as the average skydive student. If you want a second opinion go to a large dropzone on a rainy/windy day and ask the instructors round or square. The only reason to buy a round is price and that only matters used, if you are buying new the extra 500 bucks is a no brainer(That's coming from a cheap 1-26 driver.)
If I was in the business of selling glider pilots parachutes I'd hire a young tough dumb jumper to demo a typical round and then jump a square at the big races, guarantee everyone who saw the difference live would pull out a credit card.