How carefully do riggers inspect their OWN gear?

[bliston 0]

In my case, not carefully enough.

This week I was embarassed to find a small tear (about one inch) near the top of my reserve pilot chute. I had opened it to replace the closing loop with a slightly shorter one. I had had a mal during a training weekend on a month ago (my second live skyhook assisted deployment, by the way) and while I thoroughly inspected the reserve, I gave only a quick look over the rerserve pilot chute. Probablly nothing that it would have compromised the system (especially in a low speed mal b/c of the skyhook), but it still made me feel like an ass.

It got me thinking that while I'm paranoid and anal when I'm inspecting and packing for others, I haven't always looked out for numero uno as closely.

I'm not posting this incident to get hugs and cuddles or punish myself with a little public shame, but just to remind other riggers to treat their own equipment with the same care and attention that you give to your customers stuff. Maybe I'm alone in being a bit more lax with my gear, but I guess it's worth the typing if even one person catches something on their personal rig that they wouldn't have without reading this.

Ben

Mass Defiance 4-wayFS website


sticks!

[Martini 0]

Duct tape stitched around the edges should fix it fine.

Sometimes you eat the bear..............

[riggerrob 558]

It is possible to do pretty, sewn patches on Vector pilot chutes, but by the time you finish replacing the suspension lines, it would have been less expensive - time wise - to buy a new pilot chute.

[Martini 0]

Thanks for the info Rob. I thought riggers avoided working on reserve pcs. I assume that is also master rigger domain. I believe that I'll ask my rigger how much attention he pays to my reserve pc, since it gets a fair amount of use he likely keeps an eye on it.

Sometimes you eat the bear..............