Flying with Parachutes

On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 16:58:07 +0000, Anthony McDermott wrote:

At 00:22 11 August 2018, John Huthmaker wrote:
I'm just starting out with soaring. Simple question for you guys. How
man=
y of you fly with an emergency parachute? It looks like they cost
around $=
2000 online. Pretty steep price; although the cost is insignificant if
it
=
saves your life. Is this something I should be looking to purchase?


Absolutely wear a parachute. Skydivers carry a reserve because they
recognise that, occasionally, main parachutes fail. Our main parachute
is the glider and we all know that, occasionally they also fail
(mid-air/rigging failure/lightning strike etc). A few years ago, I came
off AT and climbed to 3k and switched to the XC frequency. I immediately
heard "Mayday, Mayday, two gliders collided and I see one parachute".
Subsequently, I found out both pilots survived, the second pilot managed
to land his glider.
Enough said I think!

Fully agree. In my club nobody flies without one, be they trial flighters,
ab initios, instructors or just plain members.

I wasn't yet flying in 1999 when the Dunstable ASK-21 got destroyed by a
lightning strike at 2500 AGL, but both its pilots were wearing parachutes
and both survived. When I started learning in 2000 everybody in my club
was using parachutes for all flying[1] and fairly soon this was the norm
for all UK clubs.

[1] the exception was flying in our Slingsby T.21. I'm unsure of the
rationale for this: it seems to be some combination of: extreme
discomfort flying it in a 'chute and/or difficulty in getting out due the
the cockpit being under the wing leading edge.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org