FAA Parachute Safety: A Master Rigger Explains Updates

FAA Extends Mandatory Repack Interval To 180-Days At the ever-intriguing 2008 ICAS Convention, ANN's Editor-In-Chief, Jim Campbell, caught up with Master Rigger, Allen Silver, to get caught up on parachute regs, technology and associated issues. Allen is a "Rigger's Rigger" and one of the most knowledgable guys in the craft. Allen Silver owns and operates Silver Parachute Sales & Service in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been an FAA Master Rigger since 1974 and in 1991 was designated as a Parachute Rigger Examiner for the FAA. Allen was recently re-elected and is now the current chairman of the Parachute Industry Association (PIA) Rigging Committee. This is a worldwide organization that represents the parachute industry. Having spent 25 years with the California Air National Guard, Allen retired in 1991. Seventeen of those years were spent as a Survival Equipment Technician working with parachutes, life rafts and oxygen equipment. This background has been beneficial in obtaining contracts with NASA and other aerospace companies requiring services for sophisticated and specialized parachutes. In 1962 at the age of seventeen, Allen made his first parachute jump in Southern California after watching the old television series Ripcord. He now has over 3200 parachute jumps as a sport and professional skydiver. Allen noted that there has been some good news, of late, on the chute scene. Parachutes have benefitted from an extra 60 days between mandatory repacks of their parachutes, under a revised regulation published late last year by the FAA. The rule change was praised by the two organizations which had jointly sought it for nearly four years, the Parachute Industry Association (PIA) and the United States Parachute Association (USPA). The revision extends from 120 to 180 days the period between required inspection and repacking by a certificated parachute rigger. It takes effect December 19, 30 days from publication in the Federal Register. The rule applies to reserve parachutes worn by all skydivers ...