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Following service bulletins from Mirage Systems and Jump Shack over the last several weeks, the manufacturer of ripcord pins for nearly all skydiving and emergency parachute containers issued a blanket service bulletin July 15 for all ripcord pins manufactured since November 28, 2001. Capewell Components says it has received reports of four broken ripcord pins that were initially delivered to customers in the first half of 2002. All four pins have broken approximately 1/8” from the shoulder of the pin. A pin breaking in this manner during a reserve ripcord pull would result in a total malfunction, as the pin would remain in the loop unattached to the ripcord cable. Capewell has yet to determine the cause of the weak reserve pins. In the meantime, the company has developed two methods of testing the strength of its ripcord pins. Every pin manufactured between November 28, 2001, and July 15, 2003, must be tested before a jumper can make his or her next skydive. Capewell has provided instructions to riggers for testing the pin strength with the reserve closed and sealed. This “field test” involves applying 15 pounds of pressure to the suspect area of the pin on four different angles. A piece of line is secured around the pin and lifted straight up at a load of 15 pounds for three seconds. The pin is rotated a quarter-turn and repeated. If the pin bends or breaks, Capewell must be immediately notified. If the pin passes the test, the ripcord handle will be marked with “CW03-01.” The rigger must also note compliance of the service bulletin on the packing data card. The other test is for pins not in closed rigs or that are free during the reserve inspection and repack. The pin is placed in a size-specific test block and loaded at 11 pounds in four directions. Either test is acceptable; only one of the tests has to be completed for each affected pin. Chuting Star Rigging Loft is setup to conduct both tests and is charging $5 for either test.

My parents always seem to find unique skydiving gifts. Last week, my Mom framed a quote from Charles Lindbergh, best known for his transatlantic solo flight. But parachuting obviously seduced him as it has the rest of us.

“I watched him strap on his harness and helmet, climb into the cockpit and, minutes later, a black dot falls off the wing two thousand feet above our field. At almost the same instant, a white streak behind him flowered out into the delicate wavering muslin of a parachute ~ a few gossamer yards grasping onto air and suspending below them, with invisible threads, a human life, and man who by stitches, cloth, and cord, had made himself a god of the sky for those immortal moments. A day or two later, when I decided that I too must pass through the experience of a parachute jump, life rose to a higher level, to a sort of exhilarated calmness. The thought of crawling out onto the struts and wires hundreds of feet above the earth, and then giving up even that tenuous hold of safety and of substance, left me a feeling of anticipation mixed with dread, of confidence restrained by caution, of courage salted through with fear. How tightly should one hold onto life? How loosely give it rein? What gain was there for such a risk? I would have to pay in money for hurling my body into space. There would be no crowd to watch and applaud my landing. Nor was there any scientific objective to be gained. No, there was deeper reason for wanting to jump, a desire I could not explain. It was that quality that led me into aviation in the first place ~ it was a love of the air and sky and flying, the lure of adventure, the appreciation of beauty. It lay beyond the descriptive words of man ~ where immortality is touched through danger, where life meets death on equal plane; where man is more than man, and existence both supreme and valueless at the same instant.” ~ Charles A. Lindbergh