Originally Posted by
SNS3Guppy
Many who wear parachutes, either for gliders, sailplanes, or aerobatics, have never actually used a parachute, and this is peculiar.
I think we've done this one before, haven't we?
My rather light-hearted points about wearing a helmet or fireproof clothing should not require you to slam your head against the instrument panel as hard as you can before setting yourself on fire so as to become familiar with those particular items of safety equipment - so why do the same with an emergency parachute? - were met as I recall with your valid points that a parachute is an active piece of equipment that may require some training to make best use of - and I think we left it disagreeing over the risk/benefit ratio of deliberately turning yourself into a willing meat-bomb for the required number of jumps to have some benefit for the off-chance that you might have be an unwilling meat-bomb.
As it happens, after that exchange I did have a conversation with one of our local aerobatic fraternity who cheerfully threw himself out of aeroplanes for fun for years about whether I should take your advice and do some jump training. He said something about 'palletised-cargo triple-canopy heavy drop systems', and laughed a lot. I took that as a "No".