SNS3Guppy - the most mass-produced aircraft you flew and four (flying?) left - was that the B17, or what?
I can go along with:
"if you've got no choices left, then it's better than nothing. Such events should be reserved for situations such as a wing which is no longer attached to the airplane,"
Fine- a second-chance (not gauranteed) at surviving what would otherwise appear to the pilot (for whatever reason) to be, or is, a life-threatening situation.So, most people I guess would have common ground thus far?
Now then what about....
IF someone has undertaken a foolish and risky flight beyond one's own capabilities and that of the airplane.
1) Well did they REALLY do that BECAUSE they had the chute? Somehow you are quite certain that is consistently the case, but I can't see how you can assert that other than as a personal interpretation and opinion. Your experience leads you to draw such conslusions but we dont know what that experience is it is - making it hard to follow your thinking as you reverse-engineer from effect to cause. Would like to know more 'history' please.
2) Consider how many pilots without airframe parachutes have flown themselves into the same circumstances and been killed. They flew into those circumstances and they DIDN'T have a parachute? Now just how DUMB/IMPERFECT is that!? Pilots have been getting themselves into big trouble one way or another - with or without a chute. Sadly, they will keep doing so. We can probably all agree on that too, but WHY do they (we) do that? Beacuse they are not like SN3Guppy seems to be the answer. Just HOW did you get to be many multi-thousand hours experence knowing how many many threads should show beyond a nut? If only we could all be like that - but I guess you have military/professional flying behind you that got you to that skygod (for light GA) level? The rest of us don't and won't get that benefit and we are going to keep missing things like a safety-wire having been put in wrong. Maybe if you write a book for us that would be a better alternative to a chute? Seriously. Why not?
You seem to be applying the expectations/standard of whatever aviation world you come from to light GA. I wish more of us could reach those heady heights. The chute isnt a cop out not to try to do so, but it is a last chance (possibly) which might save life when we fail to attain them. Mistakes are going to keep happening, not BECAUSE of the chute, but because of pilot error - and that includes if a pilot allows his judgement to be inappropriately influenced by the equipment aboard.
For me, the chute is a acknowledgement of an unpleasant realities - pilots make mistakes and aviation can be very unmerciful - and offers a last ditch possibility of survival.
Here is the dividing line - you think so lowly of pilots that you feel more of them will kill themselves BECAUSE they have a chute, than those who will be saved that got into difficulty for the same old reasons pilots have, do and will. I don't share that view of the pilot community as a whole. There might be the odd nutter out there I agree. All the more reason to have a chute in case I come across one mid-air I guess. In fact if they all have as much poor judgement as you suggest perhaps I'd be fool to fly without one!