Myron, If you want to get out of your Europa and it's still under control,
then I suspect the answer is: Undo Canopy & Seat belt, Pause to make sure
you didn't undo parachute straps by mistake, roll to inverted & push the
stick forward. The rest is easy apart from learning to land a parachute.
On the other hand if the plane is still under control and not on
fire I would stay seated in virtually all circumstances and look to land it
somewhere. Survival rates are high (over 90%) landing in trees or water and
should be 100% if you just have a few hundred yds of flattish land.
Having been following Europa crashes closely for over 10 years, I
can only think of one situation where I might have welcomed a parachute and
I strongly suspect it wouldn't have helped then anyway. I refer to the break
up of William Mills' Classic Europa at what was probably the end of a Vne
dive. He lost a wing and tailplane in mid air, but I suspect that the
violent gyrations of a one winged plane would have made it impossible to
exit the cockpit even if he had not been rendered unconscious.
So personally, in spite of owning a parachute that came with my
glider, I have never felt it worth taking in the Europa
Merry Christmas & Happy Landings, David Joyce, G-XSDJ
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