They no longer have rip cords on the main chute. Now they pull the pilot chute out of a pocket and it takes to the airstream, opening the backpack and pulling out the deployment bag. That cured the old pilot chute hesitation problems we had with the old spring-loaded chutes.
Every planned parachute jump must have a reserve.
Many jumpers now have an automatic opener on the reserve that will fire if you pass a programmed altitude at a programmed speed. The trouble is that if you have a spinning, malfunctioning main, firing a reserve into that mess can twist up both canopies. A friend of mine was killed because of a double entanglement.
Thanks for the informative post.