The Best Option for Pilots’ Worst Days

Since its 1979 founding, Para-Phernalia, Inc. has designed and manufactured the Softie line of pilot emergency parachutes. The products are renowned among aerobatic, glider, and warbird pilots, formation fliers, and kit-plane builders for their high-quality, comfort, and perennial reliability.

Emergency parachutes comprise two primary components: the parachute canopy and the harness and container system. The harness attaches a parachute’s canopy to its wearer. The container system retains the packed parachute canopy. Finally, the parachute harness and container—known collectively as the harness-and-container system—are sewn together to form a single unit. It is not uncommon for a parachute’s canopy and harness-and-container system to be produced by different manufacturers.

Additional components integral to a parachute’s harness-and-container system are the pilot chute, a small auxiliary parachute used to deploy the main or reserve parachute; steering toggles, reinforced loops of line by which a parachute is steered; and the closing loop, a curved stainless-steel assembly that secures the main container of a skydiving rig, thereby precluding premature deployment of the parachute during free-fall.

Of salient importance is the stone-cold fact that parachute systems have weight, speed, and altitude limitations. Para-Phernalia produces Softie parachute systems with respective weight limitations of 180, 240, and 275-pounds.

A general rule of thumb amongst skydivers sets one-thousand-feet AGL as the absolute lowest altitude at which a parachute may be deployed and expected to open fully.

Para-Phernalia offers five models of its Softie emergency parachutes: the extremely small, lightweight and comfortable Mini Softie backpack parachute system designed for use in tightly-confined cockpit environments; the Micro Softie, a narrower and shorter iteration of the Mini Softie designed to fit persons of smaller stature; the Wedge Softie, a wedge-shaped variant of the company’s Mini and Micro Softies models designed to add lumbar and sacral support during high, positive-G maneuvers and ideal for use in aircraft with upright seating positions; the Long Softie, designed to conform to and maximize the comfort of the recumbent, contoured seating typical of contemporary high-performance gliders and aerobatic aircraft; and the Seat Softie, a seat-pack style parachute system designed for use in aircraft lacking space for back-pack style parachutes.

Softie emergency parachute models are offered with conventional or aerobatic harnesses—the latter featuring a unique crossover-style architecture that precludes the painful pressure-points occasioned by high-negative-G maneuvers.

Softie emergency parachute systems range in price from $3,135 to approximately $4,000 and, by way of fabric and trim colors, are available in black, charcoal, red, royal-blue, navy-blue, olive-drab, orange, gold, green, teal, tan, brown, silver, purple, burgundy, and assorted camouflage schemes.

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