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Beware of the gear checker! One gear checker recently did more harm than good after inspecting a jumper’s gear. Jumpers are familiar with drop zones attaching stickers or zip-ties to rigs during the check-in process at boogies. It is supposed to be used as a quick-look identifier that the jumper’s reserve has been inspected and repacked within the last 120 days and that the DZ gear inspector has visually inspected and OK’d the outside of the rig. In September’s Skydiving Magazine, rigger Mark E. Lancaster of Skyworks Parachute Service submitted a photo of a rig brought to his loft for a repack following a July boogie in the Southeast. The picture shows a zip-tie secured tightly around the main lift web and through the reserve handle, rendering the reserve handle useless. “What bothers me is the fact that no one caught this on the ground or in the airplane,” Lancaster said in the article. “And the owner had not a clue!” It is astounding to me the number of jumpers (some with thousands of jumps) that do not understand the basics on how skydiving gear operates, how to give an adequate gear check or how to untangle, inspect or assemble their own main parachute. This is necessary information if you are going to be able to recognize when someone puts a zip-tie in the wrong place, hooks up your main backwards or routes your RSL incorrectly. As for this gear checker who zip-tied the reserve handle down...this is obviously unacceptable. Drop zones need to hire well-trained riggers to check the gear and attach the zip-ties, if necessary. I really don’t see the value in the zip-ties or stickers anyway. I have yet to see a drop zone loader check each rig for the zip-tie as each jumper loaded the plane. If you were allowed to purchase a jump ticket at manifest, then your gear has been checked out. Lancaster found another rig with the same problem from the same boogie, so keep your eyes open for ill-placed zip-ties.

A Georgia jumper’s letter featured in September’s Parachutist magazine shows how treasured the sport of skydiving can be to many of us. “I find myself hiding in the back of the packing area after a jump feverishly writing and trying to remember every turn, movement and even emotion on a skydive,” wrote Shannon McQueary of Atlanta Skydiving Center. “For me, my personal experiences are proudly etched into the pages of my logbook. You can bet that when someone asks me how many jumps I have, my logbook will always be close by to prove it.” She is not alone in her unyielding excitement for jumping out of airplanes. Longtime jumper and rigger Danny Page once told me that he keeps all of his old membership cards issued to him by the USPA in chronological order. It’s a reminder of how long he’s been in the sport and how many goals he has accomplished. As for me, I’m a packrat when it comes to skydiving stuff. I have on display on the walls of Chuting Star Rigging Loft all of my first-jump certificates (I have two: one for a tandem and one for a static line); all my medals, trophies and certificates I have won as part of my past and present 4-way teams; my USPA rating certificates; and most of the articles I have written for Skydiving Magazine. My old logbooks are also easily accessible on one of my shelves as young jumpers get a kick out of reading the entries of the first 100 jumps or so of a skydiver who now has thousands of jumps. It gives them something to relate to. All of us were once at that first-jump stage with the goofy jumpsuits, helmets and student gear...burning one-way holes in the sky with silly grins on our faces. A USPA sticker a couple of years back begged the answer to whether skydiving was mainstream or extreme. While being extreme can be debated, skydiving is definitely not mainstream. We should remember that as we log our jumps, earn our awards and talk to others about our unique sport.