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On Sunday, March 21, a Vigil automatic activation device cut the reserve loop on a Talon container as the jumper finished packing his main canopy at Atlanta Skydiving Center. The Vigil was purchased from Skydivegear.com, the gear store at Atlanta Skydiving Center, and installed by a former Relative Workshop factory rigger a week earlier. The rig was immediately brought upstairs to Chuting Star Rigging Loft where I inspected the container and Vigil unit. It was immediately noticed that the unit was installed upside down in the container, putting extra pressure on the wires that exited the power unit. Photos were taken and sent to Kim Griffin of Vigil USA. It was later determined that the incorrect installation was not the root cause of the firing, but that static electricity from dragging the rig on carpet caused the Vigil to misfire.

In addition to this firing, two other Vigil display units were found to be blank after a couple of jumps by experienced jumpers. The jumpers were able to get the displays to “wake up” after pressing the button several times, seemingly turning off and then turning on the unit again.

“The problem with the ground misfire has been solved,” wrote Griffin in an e-mail to Skydivegear.com last week. “The exact same thing happened while a main was packed in France last Friday. That unit was tested over the weekend. The problem is not enough shielding for static electricity. (Enough for radar, etc., but not for a rig being dragged on carpet in a dry room/compared to grass.) This interference may have to do with the display problem but that is not yet certain. (Testing on the ground misfire took precedence.) You will be seeing a service bulletin tomorrow as to how the problem will be remedied.”

Due to the misfiring and blank screens, Atlanta Skydiving Center, Skydivegear.com and Chuting Star Rigging Loft decided to withdraw its endorsement of the product at this time. We’ve removed and returned all 11 Vigil units purchased. Vigil has since issued a recall on all of its units manufactured before March 26, 2004, and is replacing those units with an updated version.

At Chuting Star Rigging Loft and Atlanta Skydiving Center we have replaced all of the Vigils with Cypres II units. The one question we had about the Vigil has come back to haunt us: reliability. And it is reliability that continues to make Cypres a success-story. The track record of Cypres will be hard to contend with as Vigil works out its setbacks.

Still, we are eager to see Vigil perfect its product. The extra features, user-friendliness of the display unit and the ease of maintenance is welcomed by many drop zones, including Atlanta Skydiving Center. We are looking forward to using the jump number features for accurate wear/tear information on our rental, student and tandem rigs. Keeping Vigils on the shelf for immediate sale is not a concern given the lack of a lifetime or service schedule. And the adjustable use of a Vigil from tandem to pro to student makes it very attractive for drop zone operations.

Yet, we cannot serve as a testing facility for the Vigil. We eagerly purchased, promoted and endorsed the Vigil because we believed it would be as reliable as the Cypres. It was the first AAD product that was immediately endorsed by heavy-hitters in the industry, including Relative Workshop, Sun Path and DeLand Majik. But with the blank displays and ground misfire, we have doubts and feel as though we have been let down by the developers of this product. Until those doubts are cleared and a track record has been established for the Vigil, we will fall back to purchasing, promoting and pushing Cypres units.

Photos show installation of Vigil that fired on ground at Atlanta Skydiving Center on March 21. Orientation in pouch is incorrect and is demonstrated in two photos.