I've always known the parachute manufacturers mostly ride on fear, uncertainty and doubt on this. They ruthlessly cash in on people's lack of knowledge and fear

I've always known the parachute manufacturers mostly ride on fear, uncertainty and doubt on this. They ruthlessly cash in on people's lack of knowledge and fear of death, advertising parachutes as a safer option which people buy because it's like insurance; if you'd happen to fall, you'd at least want to feel having prepared. So I'm glad to hear there's now some scientific evidence pointing to the futility of parachutes. Surely, the experiments were carried out in a constrained environment with some unavoidable assumptions baked in but it does rather convincingly suggest that parachutes consistently do not offer any help in the event of freefall. A corollary might appear that parachutes might even do more harm, adding weight to the falling person which could cause further injuries unnecessarily upon touchdown. I'll look forward to follow-up research. The big question is how would altitude affect the results. For experiments at higher altitudes they might need to locate an airstrip situated on a mountain, with enough runway to allow larger planes to land there and enough free space on the tarmac for several planes while they carry out the jumps. It will likely shed much more light and build confidence to the applicability of this new research and the obvious conclusion. Also, I'd like to see jumps done from different kinds of aeronautic vehicles, by more people, different brands of parachutes etc if should there be any differences regarding that. But it looks like after a few rounds of serious experiments we should quickly conclude the benefits are thin and see no need for excess research but, rather, reaching a steady conclusion.