To clear up some points (I am a professional tandem skydiver and use drogues)- A drogue is about 3 to N get feet wide. It is used for z axis stability, to slow

To clear up some points (I am a professional tandem skydiver and use drogues)- A drogue is about 3 to N get feet wide. It is used for z axis stability, to slow you down a bit so that when the parachute deploys it will not explode, and finally to actually deploy the parachute. If you do not use a drogue chute then you would use a pilot chute to deploy the parachute. The difference between a pilot and drogue chute is minimal. In fact, design wise the only difference is that after you deploy the drogue you need to pull a handle to open the container holding the parachute, at which point the drogue chute becomes a pilot chute. A deployed pilot chute will open the container without needing to pull a separate handle. Drogues are also generally much hardier than pilot chutes as they have more force acting on them. A drogue is not a parachute. The para in parachute means it is designed to be used to slow you down enough to survive your fall. A drogue is not designed to do so. Tandem skydiving, the kind everyone does recreationally, uses drogue parachutes to maintain what would be terminal velocity for one person. Terminal velocity for two people lying on top of each other (or one 500lb person) would be too high to safely deploy either the main or reserve parachute. So yes, a tandem skydive is still a skydive even though you use a drogue. Eustace, even though he used a drogue, has the record for highest skydive. Arguably Baumgartner had the record for longest freefall without a drogue. But longest freefall without a drogue is a silly record to cling to. Does anyone care who has the record for driving the fastest land vehicle without a helmet? This still is amazing. And from the perspective of a professional skydiver, Eustace broke Baumgartner's record fair and square.