OK, peeps with more experience, let me run a scenario by ya, and tell me what you think.  Spring brought the bi-annual need for my reserve I&R. I dolefully brought the rig in for it’s check up.

I’ve had one ride on this reserve in October of 2011.  As it went, the reserve had a pretty strong right turn to it.  It was enough of a turn that I had to hold the left toggle just above my shoulder height to make the reserve fly straight.  Not quite the half brake position, but it was significant input.

I watched my main and reserve pilot chute until I knew where they were going to land, then turned into the drop zone and had a fair landing, flaring deeper with my left toggle than my right.  It was how you want your first chop to go.  In fact, no one at the DZ noticed I had a problem.

So I told the rigger about this when I handed it to him for the re-pack that day.  He said he’d measure the lines, and see if anything was out of trim.  In fact I asked about setting it up to test jump.  His advice then was “Let’s see what I find when I measure things up.  If there is something obvious there, we probably don’t need to test jump it.”   Indeed, he found a number of lines well out of trim.  He told me he trimmed them up, and everything should fly right.  No problem… He did the re-pack, and the next two regularly scheduled biannual repacks.

Last week I went in for my re-pack, and somewhat in passing I asked about that episode.  My question was relatively simple.  Is it necessary to re-measure lines at each repack?  This lead to a long discussion about the above described events, to which he said that he did not change any lines on the reserve.  There were bar tacks on some of the lines that were clearly different than others (different color thread).  He claimed that “those aren’t my bar tacks.”

He pulled out the lines and eyballed them saying they look pretty close.  So now he starts carrying on about how the problem must have been in the canopy itself.  Suddenly this is a big deal.

He went on to say that we really need to have someone test jump this rig.  He carried on about how this could be a major issue. Well, there is no ring on the top skin for a pilot chute, so that’s not going to work. Now we have send this reserve back to the manufacturer to make sure this is OK.  He was rather quite insistent about this.  In the end, I allowed him to essentially brow beat me into sending the reserve to be checked out.

This all leaves me feeling uneasy for several reasons.  If this is indeed a major concern, why the hell has he re-packed it without a word three times already??  Why would it all of the sudden now be a huge safety issue?  What’s the deal with he did/didn’t check and adjust the trim?

I’m not interested in effing around with my own safety.  I mean, if I’m going to fly my reserve, I’m probably not having my best skydive, so it better work great.  However, it did work great when I needed.  It landed nice, and that was when I had less than 50 landings under my belt.

I feel like I’m being jerked around here and at the end of the line I’m going to hear:  “Hey, sorry buddy, you need a new reserve.”

So what do you think?  I’m I being sold a bill of goods?  Do you sense shenanigans here, or is there some logic and prudence that’ll save my ass here.  Gimme your thoughts.