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Pilot: "I'd never jump out of a perfectly good airplane."

Skydiver: "There's no such thing as a perfectly good airplane."

I have a pair of Strong Mid-lite Lo-Po 36' seat pack style chutes. They are required equipment when taking the airplane outside of 30 degrees of pitch or 60 degrees of bank.

Here's the rub: suppose you botch a loop exit and you violated the cardinal rule of Aerobatics: altitude is your friend. So to avoid an untimely meeting with the grim reaper, you pull too hard and overstress the aircraft, which responds by snapping the wing spar.

So now the aircraft is fluttering down like a maple leaf with a broken spar. You pull the door pin and the door falls off. You pull the harness lever and the harness comes free, and you fly against the side of the airplane due to centrifugal force. Adrenaline pumping, you grab the "monkey bars" or the overhead tubes from the airframe and manage to pull yourself out the door, and the windmilling prop and the spinning tail narrowly miss you as you fall clear of the airplane.

Now what? Is this the time to summon the presence of mind to pull the ripcord, avoid the power lines and land without snapping your femurs like toothpicks?

All aerobatic pilots should jump at least once. In the event you need to use the chute "you fight the way you practice."

By the way, and this is completely unrelated, but I listed my Citabria for sale. PM me if interested.