Pencil packing?

[riggerrob 558]

When he catches you pencil-packing, does your local rigger ....?

[dmetz 0]

Never done it, but if it were me I would charge $60 every time my name was on the card.

If it was a regularly occuring issue, I would have to take other, more appropriate measures.

_________________________________________

"If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?"

[SkyDaemon 0]

I'd explain that it's hard to forge a Master Rigger's stamp!

For the cost and wait of forging it, the jumper might as well get the reserved repacked anyways...

-=Raistlin

find / -name jumpers -print; cat jumpers $USER > manifest; cd /dev/airplane; more altitude; make jump; cd /pub; more beer;

[BIGUN 1,053]

See... Here's an example of where an S&TA could use more teeth. Rigger takes the offender to the S&TA, S&TA suspends the offenders' USPA License for 30 days for first offense, 60 days for second offense, 1 year for third offense. If it's an Instructor - double it. Thoughts?

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[darnknit 0]

i would merely explain to that customer that they had been caught cheating. i have no power of enforcement as far as the FAA is concerned. were there to be a question of any kind, my rigger's logbook would supercede any information on the data card, no matter how well the data card was forged. however, i do not condone( and actually advise against) pencil packing.

pulling is cool. keep it in the skin

[jdthomas 0]

Bigun I like that idea of that as well... too bad that this may never happen.
It hurts me if people pencil pack my name. I usally use my ruber stamp and sign the card as well.. makes it pretty hard to scam that one!
Joe

www.greenboxphotography.com

[Yossarian 0]

im assuming the limit for a reserve repack is what it is for a reason... pencil packing surely is an unnecessary risk? what can happen to a reserve after this amount of time?

[BIGUN 1,053]

I've wondered how come someone hasn't invented a seal with the riggers three characters on one side and a rolling three digit number on the other... So one side would have the "XYZ" rigger identifier and the other would be the M/DD packed. 610 would be June 10; 805 would be August 5th and so on... How hard would that be to do?

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[tombuch 0]

Quote

See... Here's an example of where an S&TA could use more teeth. Rigger takes the offender to the S&TA, S&TA suspends the offenders' USPA License for 30 days for first offense, 60 days for second offense, 1 year for third offense. If it's an Instructor - double it. Thoughts?

An S&TA is an appointee of the USPA Regional Director and only has that authority given to him by USPA. That does not include suspension of license or jumping privileges. However, USPA's are appointed to cover a specific drop zone or area, and the DZO can offer the S&TA whatever additional authority the DZO feels appropriate. Talk to your local DZO and see if he would like to give the S&TA(s) additional authority on the drop zone.
.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

Hi Rob,

Over the years I've had a LOT of folks forge my siganture on their data card(s). Since my actual/real signature is very unreadable I get concerned that the feds would think I really did sign it. So I have advised them to open the phone book, poke their finger at a name and use whatever comes up.

That keeps me out of the loop.

Who wants the feds snooping around your records?

[pincheck 0]

I've got to confess that this actually never occurred to me until i started reading about some of the other threads on this site about it

I just think it is extremely stupid and irresponsable even though i think that the USPA repack cycle is to short with the 6 months repack cycle a better option.

If i was the rigger who's sig had been forged and i found out i would be very pissed to say the least

Billy-Sonic Haggis Flickr-Fun

[sid 1]

phew - for a moment I thought you were going to ask if a Rigger would ever pencil his/her own rig I would NEVER do that

Pete Draper,

Just because my life plan is written on the back of a Hooter's Napkin, it's still a life plan.... right?

[stratostar 5]

It's one thing to have your seal on your rig with your signature. if you bounce it is all on you anyway.

It's a whole new can of worms to have your seal on joe jumpers rig with your real signature on the data card once and your forged name reappear again and maybe again before you find out about it, and god help you should joe jumper bounce,maybe with an out of date cypres or dead batteries.

With the season starting up soon there are a few jumpers I will be asking to see their data card when they show up to jump this season, if they don't want to show it to me I will get the DZO to ask to see it and if my name is on there in pen (I have a stamp)
I will heading out to find the rig and one of two things will happen, 1. I will yank the seal off the rig it still belongs to me and 2. I might even yank a ripcord, and if someone wants to throw down because I do it, it's all good with me.
You don't forge my name and put me at risk legally
and then act like a dick head when called on it.

If you want to pencil pack your rig then get your own ticket to risk! JMHO

~

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[Samurai136 0]

Quote

I've wondered how come someone hasn't invented a seal with the riggers three characters on one side and a rolling three digit number on the other... So one side would have the "XYZ" rigger identifier and the other would be the M/DD packed. 610 would be June 10; 805 would be August 5th and so on... How hard would that be to do?

Yeah. What is the break down for October, November, and December?


Interesting Idea. Use a Julian calendar instead and you may be onto something. But that would require people to use a Julian calendar....

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[councilman24 36]

As well as using a stamp in an unusual color for my seal symbol on the card, I number all my pack jobs in my log and on the data cards. That way at least if someone figures all that out I can say "No, pack job 1026 was this one, not this guy's rig no matter what the card says."

Why not use an engraver to engrave the date? I'll have to try it. Certainly some of those small individual character metal stamps could be used to stamp the date if the engraver is too aggresive for the lead.

People who forge MY name are ex customers. No exceptions. (Well one but I wanted to see what this guy's rig looked like after 2 1/2 years of pencil packs and several hundred jumps.)

It's not my business if someone pencil packs. I tell them why they shouldn't. Who they are screwing. But when they forge my name instead of Elmer Fudd then I get pissed.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[sunshine 2]

Quote

I've wondered how come someone hasn't invented a seal with the riggers three characters on one side and a rolling three digit number on the other... So one side would have the "XYZ" rigger identifier and the other would be the M/DD packed. 610 would be June 10; 805 would be August 5th and so on... How hard would that be to do?

That is an awesome idea. Though i don't think any of my customers would ever forge my name, the date thing is pretty cool.

___________________________________________
meow

I get a Mike hug! I get a Mike hug!

[Eule 0]

Quote

I've wondered how come someone hasn't invented a seal with the riggers three characters on one
side and a rolling three digit number on the other...

The rolling numbers would have to be pretty stout, but I think this could work. As has been pointed
out, you need four digits if you're going to do it with MM-DD. You could do something like a letter
for the month and numbers for the day: A01 = 1 Jan, B01 = 1 Feb, C01 = 1 March, ..., J01 = 1 Dec,
K01 = 1 Jan, and so on. The reason why it doesn't go back to A again for January is to make it a little
harder to keep your "Axx"-sealed rig around for a year and then pretend it's current. Still, this scheme
is only good for two years and two months. If you were really paranoid, you could use the last digit of
the year, a letter for the month, and a letter or number for the day: 6A1 = 1 Jan 2006, 6A9 = 9 Jan
2006, 6AA = 10 Jan 2006, 6AB = 11 Jan 2006, 6B1 = 1 Feb 2006, and so on. This means they've got
to keep their reserve packed for 10 years before the seal is valid again.

The reason why I am proposing the three-digit codes is that I think that's all that might legibly fit on
the seal. You might be able to use smaller digits and get four across, or more likely two rows of two,
but that's probably approaching the limit of what you can get. You might be able to use fewer digits
and make one of the elements a "minute hand" around the edge of the seal; lots of injection-molded
plastic pieces have date codes like this. But for this to work well, the seal always has to be centered
up pretty well in the press.

A more high-tech way would be to use something like a Dallas Semiconductor iButton or an RFID tag
along with the lead seal. An iButton looks like a big watch battery, but it has a microprocessor in it.
All of them have a serial number and that's all the simple ones do; fancier versions have some flash
memory in them so you can store a few bytes of information. As far as I know, RFID tags just have
serial numbers in them. The idea would be that the rigger would do the packjob, seal it in the traditional
way, then add the iButton or RFID tag to the seal. He'd record the date and the serial number in his
packing log. Later on, he could scan the device to get the serial number and compare it to his logbook.

This does break down if somebody gets a repack like this and then later goes to another rigger, as the
only place to verify the serial number on the packjob is in the first rigger's logbook. You could fix this
by keeping the serial numbers in a database that could be accessed online (USPA website?) or possibly
via a voice response 1-800 number for places that don't even have dialup Internet. We're not talking
about a lot of data here; the reserve-date data for every sport rig in the US would probably fit on two
floppy disks. Some jumpers might object to the electronic tag on the grounds that it might be used by
Big Brother to keep tabs on their rig.

Probably the biggest problem is getting all the riggers to buy a new mechanical seal press and/or
retrofit their old one, or buy the electronic reader they'd need for the electronic tag, or whatever.
IMHO, if this came down from the FAA, people would gritch, but they'd do it. If it came from the
USPA, people would gritch and might not do it. If it was presented as "here are some cases where
Joe Jumper got into trouble with a pencil-packed rig and Roy Rigger had to spend $XX,XXX on
lawyer food to get off the hook" then people would probably be more inclined to buy the new gear.

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[magot 0]

the only time I get my rig repacked is when I gut away the rest of u are just wasting money.

TOSS MY SALAD
I'm an invincible re-tarded ninja
derka derka bakala bakala muhammad jihad
1072

[BIGUN 1,053]

Quote

October, November, and December

Ya know... I got to thinking about that last night after writing this... it would need to be 4 digits wouldn't it? Those months with three could be preceded by a zero.. Course we know 3 will fit on the seal, whereas 4 may not... Eule may be on to something. Open thoughts here... keep 'em coming

Regarding the six month cycle response... If folks are pencil whipping 120 days, what's to prevent them from pencil-whipping 180?, then a rigger wouldn't checking out their rig but once a year or year and a half for the real transgressions.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[bozo 0]

Quote

When he catches you pencil-packing, does your local rigger ....?

None of the above. You need to be a little more creative than using your own riggers signature.


bozo

bozo
Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars.

[ripcord4 0]

Forging someone's name on a packing data card is no different than forging his name on a check. Forgery is forgery.

[PeteS 0]

Jerry, you may remember the guy I told you about, a DZO who brought me alot of his equipment. He came in one day with a van full of stuff and one was a pilot rig you made. I had NEVER SEEN this type of or this particular rig before, but had already repacked it TWICE! The last riggers seal was still on it. He tried to schmooze me out of being pissed and I replied" You have officially pissed me off, the next conversation you have about this will be with FAA when they come check ALL OF YOUR STUFF!" He got very silent and said "Message received". I then pointed to a date I wrote on the wall and said "After this date I will never see my name forged again, right?" No more problem with this a-hole.....

[Opie 0]

What do you do if your customer brings his/her rig in claiming that they lost the data card??

[NelKel 0]

I have had my rig pencil packed by a rigger before.

It turned up 120 days later when my regular rigger called me asking about my rig I had dropped off to him for a repack. He stated that the card was signed by (this) rigger, but still had his (the regular rigger) seal from the last time he worked on it. 240 days prior.

Believe it or not!

_________________________________________

Someone dies, someone says how stupid, someone says it was avoidable, someone says how to avoid it, someone calls them an idiot, someone proposes rule chan

[councilman24 36]

I had one guy, when I called him to ask where the card was, say "What's a packing data card?" We both knew that he knew. Then he did it again, about 6 months since the last time. Since I didn't have the card with my name forged on it I did it that time and told him to find somebody else next time.

I've had others bring me a rig without a card. One guy just didn't want me to know that it was out of date by 2 months. No forgeries.

One guy on the DZ bragged he could sign my name better than me. Most of his buddies didn't bother trying to bring a rig to me.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE