Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
So long as it still has wings, its perfectly good. 
I'd rather glide in for a attempt at landing than jump. Even a deadstick airplane allows for some amount of skill in whether or not you survive. A parachute is dumb luck.
Under a big 320 square feet Z-111 Manta, you cannot influence the opening that much - meaning you can f*ck up your body position at opening, opening head low/high, in a yaw/pitch/roll without much happening.
Dip a shoulder just an inch or two on a 97 square feet zero porosity Katana and remain impassive and I assure you that your "dumb luck" statement is going to feel a little off the mark.
That's for the opening. Now you have to land it.
An inexperienced jumper is gonna hammer it in, hard. It's easy to get a more than 45 degree turn (on the roll axis) going just by shifting body weight on a sub 100 square feet canopy.
And that's on a 9 cell elliptical. Up it up to a cross braced speed machine and you're in even bigger do-do. The opening is gonna be even more funky, any input more radical and both vertical and horisontal speed in level flight and turns are gonna increase.
Then there are malfunctions. A simple line twist is not a malfunction on a big student canopy. Same number of twists on a high performance canopy is likely to throw you into a high G turn. Even after ya kick out of the line twists, it may have gained so much momentum that you will be unable to correct it. I accidentally packed one of these for my sister and she got a reserve ride out of it
There are lots of stochastic variables, sure. There is however far much more to flying HP canopies than pure luck.
Sorta like flying planes, right? Pure dumb luck if it breaks down in mid air or not. Landing an ME-109 is probably just a tad harder than a C-172.
Me I'd rather jump from a malfunctioning plane (altitude permitting) than landing with it. Landing in planes is pretty scary, with cross wind and stuff It's scary enough under power. I imagine it'd be much worse without.
