🚀 go-pugleaf

    Ken Scofield is quite right on almost all points in this discussion,
but I do have one quibble.
    If you're under two round canopies, it is not always safe to cut away 
the main.  Consider the case where a reserve went in between the lines
of a main before inflating.  Then cutting away the main would cause it
to slide up the lines of the reserve and collapse it.
    That would be a *weird* situation, and I can't imagine how it would 
happen with a properly executed hand deployment of a reserve.  I'd worry
about it in the case of someone opening a pilot-chuted reserve while
reaching for a dummy ripcord.  It's still unlikely there, but unlikely
accidents leave people just as dead.
    As a point of comparison, students at my home drop zone were taught
to ride both canopies down if both were open.  Surprisingly, it is 
possible to steer, albeit very badly.
    Fred Wamsley   D-8844