Gear fear?

[funks 1]

I'm sure most of you know what I am talking about. That sinking feeling that for some reason your leg straps are gonna come undone while under canopy, or your canopy is gonna collapse, or maybe just maybe your chest strap is gonna come undone at pull time and for some reason it just isnt gonna keep you secure....etc...

Basically that creepy feeling that your gear just isnt gonna do what it is supposed to do and it causes all kinds of freakish things to run through your mind....

[firstime 0]

wrong question my friend, we are a group of people who check and double check our own gear and others
in the plane on the way to altitude and never seconed guessed my gear otherwise I would not be
on the load!!!

[PhreeZone 20]

Gear fear is healthy. It promotes you to check your gear, to do inspections on it, to find a rigger worth his salt to give it a really good inspection at repack time.

If you blindly trust your gear then you need to research rigs more. Rigs have failed in the past and killed people. They have also failed and came very close to killing others.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Kris 0]

Exactly! It never ceases to amaze me the number of jumpers who buy a rig and then never maintain it. Maintain Thy Gear!

I've been 5' away from someone when they had a premie during a sit fly due to a BOC they knew wasn't tight anymore. It's not only dangerous to the owner, it's dangerous to others.

Sheesh.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[AdD 1]

Hmm, some of my faster propacks have had some fun openings, I voted some times because I regularly jump borrowed gear. You can either trust or just accept that shit will happen no matter what sometimes, as long as I know my reserve is good to go...

Life is ez
On the dz
Every jumper's dream
3 rigs and an airstream

[funks 1]

Quote

wrong question my friend, we are a group of people who check and double check our own gear and others
in the plane on the way to altitude and never seconed guessed my gear otherwise I would not be
on the load!!!

dude...this has nothing to do with gear checks.

[bch7773 0]

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I'm sure most of you know what I am talking about. That sinking feeling that for some reason your leg straps are gonna come undone while under canopy

hahaha i always had that fear when i was on student status... those leg straps seem awfully thin when they the only things keeping you in your rig 3500 feet above the ground.
i eventually got over it though. i really don't have gear fear now.

MB 3528, RB 1182

[Icon134 0]

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Gear fear is healthy. It promotes you to check your gear, to do inspections on it, to find a rigger worth his salt to give it a really good inspection at repack time.

If you blindly trust your gear then you need to research rigs more. Rigs have failed in the past and killed people. They have also failed and came very close to killing others.

This is preciecly the reason that I would/do trust the gear I jump... I have a healthy respect for failure of things (I work in a Failure analysis lab...) and the fact that I trust the rigger is very competent doesn't hurt in the least bit...

Scott

[sundevil777 102]

You really had to want to jump to strap the crap on your back when I started, and I knew a lot about the parachute gear already.

It did not inspire confidence. It looked like it was older than me.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[diablopilot 2]

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i eventually got over it though. i really don't have gear fear now.

Shit, tell me how. 2850+ and I'm still afraid of what can go wrong with gear. I manage that fear sucessfully by being involved in my own rigging, inspecting my own gear and the gear I might be jumping for others (i.e. Tandem gear), and doing frequent gear checks.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Tonto 1]

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wrong question my friend, we are a group of people who check and double check our own gear and others
in the plane on the way to altitude and never seconed guessed my gear otherwise I would not be
on the load!!!

Ignorance is bliss. 4000+ dives and jumping gear with less than 250 dives on it, and I still have "irrational" gear fear.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[RyanofOZ 0]

I totally agree. A little fear is what keeps us all in check with what we are strapping on. I get it less than I used to, but I am anal about checking my rig, and if thats a result of a little fear, good!

Oz

[bigway 4]

man, all of you we are jumping out of a plane at awesome speeds. FEAR, shit, i fear everything but is that not what makes it so addictive, is fear not what got us out of student status? Sure i check all my equipment over and over and i always like to have a buddy check before entering the plane and pin checks before climbing out.....i have this done because i fear jumping out of a plane and accelerating towards the big green monster. I fear falling to my death but then realise if i can hit the ground in my dreams and get up and walk away that i must love fear!
this is the greateset sport in the world and that is why we all bond so well on a dz, because we have to put an amazing amount of trust into a whole lot of amazing people. We do this so easily because it is so easy to lose out to fear.
Blue skies and few clouds.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[PhreeZone 20]

Learn a little more about your gear. See that a nick in a line reduces the line strength by X%, see that the webbing that you have on the container has wear lines that indicate when its unsafe to continue to use (hint, its only about 1/16th of an inch wear makes it unsafe), see how often 3 rings break, find out how often canopies blow apart. Look up the incidents of reserves blowing apart due to overspeed openings, investigate the number of people that are injured when their control lines break due to not maintaining them.

There was a fatality just last week due to the persons rig failing on them

If you have no fear at all of your gear then you have no clue just how fragile it really is.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[bigway 4]

if that was in reply to me? well i totally agree with you. I have just bought a custom wings because i am sick of the little chain of mishaps with my vector i was going through. I am scared shitless of my equipment but in the aspect of skydiving, well i look well after my gear and my equipment and my questions as well as listening skills but i do still enjoy being scared as i feel this is what keeps me alive.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[EricaH 0]

quick story, round jump #85, I was sit flying in some borrowed gear. all of a sudden it felt like there were no leg straps, I flipped onto my belly. At pull time I grabbed onto the risers thinking that perhaps, incase something went weird & they fell off or something I'd be able to hold on.

I believe that's the gear fear you speak of. I KNEW those straps couldn't've come off, they can's slip off your ankles w/o noticing, but still....

happy to say, everything was fine, just the too big for me gear was much more loose than I was use to.

I check, double, triple, near 12g, on jump run, walking toward the door & sometimes even in free fall... you can never check enough I believe. That's not to mention the intense going over the gear gets at least 2x/day to see if there's any snag/pulling/freying or tearing happening.

There is no can't. Only lack of knowledge or fear. Only you can fix your fear.

PMS #227 (just like the TV show)

[Liemberg 0]

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Basically that creepy feeling that your gear just isnt gonna do what it is supposed to do and it causes all kinds of freakish things to run through your mind....

And whenever these freakish things run through your mind you check and doublecheck.

Sounds healthy to me - I try to keep it in the equasion (for me and those 'under my wings'...)

BTW: When people ask you why you would jump out of "a perfectly good airplane" and you answer "there is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane", when you are finished laughing think about the answer to the next question - the one about the perfectly good parachute...

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

[skycat 0]

I did as a student when it didn't matter how much I snugged all the straps down the rig was just WAY to large for me and would slip off in freefall.

Fly it like you stole it!

[skybill 22]

"Chills" "That icy feeling up your spine!!!" It's like a jolt of electricity! YES!! How about some "Security?" Try an old BA-22 vest type harness with a 28' round somethingoranother and a chest reserve with the belly band pulled so tight you can hardly breath!! Heheheheheheh, feel secure? Now try to move!

Contemporary skydiving gear is generally good stuff.
Comfortable , secure and it works, when in the hands of a "competent" user!

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[Trish 0]

I thought I would put a real rookie's opinion in here.

Gear failure is currently my only worry about skydiving. My first jump - not even a week ago - I kept wondering ..... If I detach from my tandem master, can he catch up to me? Well, the answer is yes. But he won't be able to hang on to me when he pulls. Glad I didn't quite realize that prior to the jump.

I'm going on my second jump August 21. I've lost the fear of coming detached from the tandem master. Now I have a strange fear that the glasses are going to blow off my face and my contact's going into the back of my eye. Talk about a ridiculous fear. It's not like that'll kill ya even if it does by chance happen.

I'm sure I'll be more comfortable with gear fear once I learn more about the sport and start doing things myself/helping in gear checks.

[Snowbird 0]

If you define 'gear fear' as irrational/paranoid worry that something will go wrong even though you have been dilligent and meticulous in your preparations... NO.

I you define it as awareness of what could happen even when you respect the purpose and condition of your gear, and have given responsible attention and action to the condition of your gear because you know the consequences, then I guess, YES.

And since I jump my own well-maintained gear, and have almost never jumped borrowed gear, the problem of not being familiar with the condition of what's on my back isn't an issue. Borrowing/renting gear would change things up a lot.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

[Meathorse 0]

Hehehe... I had my goggles flip up to my forehead and a contact fly out of my eye once. By freak occurance the lense managed to stick to the inside of the goggles. Put it back in on the ground.

Now I always make sure to bring my crusty old pair of glasses with me to the DZ to make sure I can see on my drive back home

• Quote

[livendive 8]

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Hehehe... I had my goggles flip up to my forehead and a contact fly out of my eye once. By freak occurance the lense managed to stick to the inside of the goggles. Put it back in on the ground.

Now I always make sure to bring my crusty old pair of glasses with me to the DZ to make sure I can see on my drive back home

It's no freak occurence. I haven't counted the number of times a contact has flown out of my eye, but probably around a dozen times. In every single case it stuck to the inside of my goggles so I could re-wet it (gets all hard & crinkly) and pop it back in on the ground.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[Trish 0]

*makes mental note to bring glasses on her next jump*

well atleast my fear isn't unfounded then. although i still have no idea why - of all I could be worried about - this is what is fixated in my mind.

absolutely excellent that you didn't lose your contact. they're expensive suckers these days.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, and loudly proclaiming, Wow…what a ride!

[riddler 0]

Old and outdated gear nearly killed me on two different occasions. One was rental gear - the other was my own and not well maintained. Yes, I want to be a rigger. I want to know everything about everything about the gear I am jumping. I consider it a matter of survival.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD