#29 - Mission Accomplished: The Senior Rigger Episode

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So holy hell, what have I been up to for the last 60 days? I am a senior rigger. Now, what can I say? I didn't know. Initially, when I got into skydiving, if this is something I wanted to do, but I have busted my ass down in Buffalo, South Carolina for a. Uh, what is it now? The end of December since, uh, the second week, first week, first, second week of November.

And it has been a grueling last couple of months. Holy shit. But I've driven hundreds, if not over a thousand miles down there and back, which is actually only an hour and a half drive from where I live, but just learning everything, you know, I mean, when you go into become a senior rigger, you learn not only how to pack a square reserve, but also pack around Sibley disassembly continuity checks, learn about sewing patterns.

Federal aviation regulations and, you know, I've, it makes it definitely, it tests your commitment to the sport. And if this isn't something that you really want to do in terms of learning about your gear and skydiving, you'll find out real quick, the rigging isn't for you. I can't say first and foremost.

Professional and how much I learned from these guys. I mean, never my life. Have I seen, uh, two or three people that have just been so helpful and dedicated to making sure that, you know, people like myself, you literally, they took somebody like me in off the street that, you know, knew, knew about skydiving and had been through some canopy courses, but didn't know a lot about their gear and turned them into a pretty good rigor.

If I say so myself over two months, period of time, you know, not only did. You know, I go in and have to take a practical and a very, very difficult oral examination, but ended up having to drive on the other side of town. And I think, uh, the written, the written exam has gotten a lot harder and it was a couple of years ago, so that wasn't easy.

Um, and then again, the oral and practical exam, I just got grilled. I was talking to somebody else. I think that that practical exam on no one, they put it into the system. It took me every bit of seven and a half hours. Holy shit. At least the back ratings over with, but, uh, planning on taking this one step further and I want to get chest rated as well too.

Then I can go, uh, after chest and back really, really hard and get my a hundred in and then, uh, keep, uh, my riggers rating in good standing. And then hopefully in three years time, we'll have my masters of a parachute rigging from the FAA, which was, should be quiet and accomplish. You don't see too many of those.

I think the most difficult part, without a doubt, least for me with the course was seeing lines and folds and then a close second. Uh, it may be for some people and it almost hesitate to say it was for me. One of the most difficult thing is sowing the patches. The patches have to be. French felts in a certain way where it hits a four different types of fabric when the needle goes in and can't be out, but one block of Zippy material, there's very little tolerance for lines.

I mean, it's not just a bunch of work. It's fucking detailed work and it's lots of it. So yeah, again, I can't say enough good things about the people that took me in and worked with me. This is one of the, uh, my most proudest accomplishments. Uh, senior rigger ticket, like I said was no easy feat. I've mentioned to a couple of folks online that it was actually harder in some respects than earning my MBA, just because I I've never really done a whole lot of practical work with my hands.

I've never done any type of real heavy engineering or trade type work like this before, but it gives you a new found respect what these people go through. And like I said, you've committed so much time and energy. You sacrificed a month or two out of your. That you definitely want to follow through on this and keep up your rating because, um, not only is there demand for it in the sport, but it's just, it seems like there's so much stuff you've learned that if you're not always staying on top of, of rigging and asking questions, you could just as easily lose it.

So, yeah, I'm proud of myself and, um, you know, it's definitely a license to learn. I'm not a master rigger yet, but it's enabled me to do that. I set out to do when I started the course and that's in my opinion, to become a safer skydiver. No, my gear better than, or as well as anybody else on the plane and know how to pack my own reserve.

And I can honestly say after I've gotten through with this course, I'm capable of doing all three of those things. So yeah, no, I mean, you know, when it was finally over yesterday, I just, I just sat there with the DPR three and we just kind of like, stargazed in a sense, you know, just like, what have we finally.

Because, well, just the amount of work, you know, I will kind of give you a brief synopsis, an overview of what all we did, you know, you start out by just, uh, handing in the paperwork and then you spend the first day going over knots. Cause you'll tie so many of them throughout this course. And you can't really do anything unless you know how to tie the knots that they ask of you.

There's like seven of them, but the really the most important ones are going to be, uh, your surgeon's knot tie down your sky hook, and then your half hitches to, uh, to secure. Seal thread when you're sealing a harness container system. So if we did knots and then we transitioned and we worked on patches and patches, there's a certain art to it.

And you know, right now in this course was senior working with patches of a certain size, but you know, then they go up in size and yeah. The dynamics of it doesn't change at all, but, you know, it's just, it's really an art form. You know, it just takes a lot of practice and patience. And then you've got to, got to read the blocks Zippy and be able to follow close directions with, you know, high attention to detail, which reminded me a lot of when I was in my chemistry labs in college.

And then you start out a pack and if you don't have. First a square reserve and you have to get in 20 of those before you can get a letter from the DPRA to even sit for the written actually thought the written would be a hardest part. And again, wasn't easy. I've taken a lot of standard tests and done well on them.

It definitely requires studying. Some people said that they didn't have to study for the written bed and take the written I took, I felt like I got a special exam, cause it wasn't that easy. I didn't have to read. But, uh, I definitely thought it was something that if you didn't study for, I could see why you wouldn't pass.

And then the practical and oral and the oral was pretty difficult. It was a lot of questions, a whole lot of questions and the practical, you know, you have to be kind of on your, a game there, cause a one failure, something that's deemed non airworthy flunk, and then have to come back the next day. And then just like just takes forever.

You have to be re uploaded under the FAS. I mean what a shit load of work. And like I said, the back rating it's been accomplished and that's a pretty big piece. It's one of the most important ones said chest for rounds is probably what I'm going to go to next. I'm just thinking in terms of, you know, one day, if I wanted to do military contracting or something like that, what are the ones that are most widely used and static?

London chest immediately comes to mind. I will say. The seats being dropped off here at the loft. I was working out a lot of pilots fly in and they'll have their seat shoots and they'll, they'll drop PPOs off for repack. So maybe I look at that as well too, but sometimes it's like reading and asking a shitload of questions and trial by fire and failure and setbacks, and then starting over and try not to make the same mistakes again, but, you know, I'm going to be beating your heading on the wall and it's, it's not a cakewalk by any means.

So if you're serious about skydiving, this is a sport. I think people forget that was, you know, at one point in time, there weren't all these fancy manufacturers or one, all these high-end canopies. So it was just a bunch of guys who got together over some beers that were ex veterans in the army and just said, Hey, we want to take this shit recreationally.

And a lot of stuff was, again, I mentioned them before trial by fire and stuff work. They wrote it down and they, they did it again. And. You know, somebody died. Well, they didn't do it again, but you know, sport was started by rigors, you know, back in the day, if you didn't know how to maintain and take care of your own gear.

Well, you know, you were, you were not going to skydive and if you did, ah, well, good luck to you, it's kind of wanting to return to my roots, which is another reason why I decided to, uh, to go for this, uh, certification license and yeah. Wow. It's over. So I got a couple of weeks off and then. I think they're going to offer another course.

And so I'll, I'll hit the ground running with that work on my chest rating. Cause it was one or two people in my class that were actually kind of ahead of the game. They, they were actually able to get their chest and back. So I was kind of envious to them. Um, cause they got the chest rating. I mean they were really good at packing rounds already and oh yeah, I did a little bit around.

But, you know, I, I'm one of these people that has to kind of focus on one thing and then come pretty good at that and then move on to something else. So hope to kind of go back and do what they did and work on chess. But I can't say enough good things about the folks down in, uh, in South Carolina, just, they had some that were brought in and these, these folks were just amazing, amazing teachers that I had to have drove it over the wall.

I mean, in terms of asking so many questions and just the patients and the amount of time, shit shown to the same person over and over and over. Finally clicks, like I said, the patches were hard. And my opinion, even as a skydiver, seeing folds and lines was, was, was the worst. And you don't have to be a skydiver to be a rigger, but I don't see how the fuck you can be.

Cause there's just so much visualization. You know, I, at least I used, you know, sitting under a canopy and where those lines oriented that helps you out when you're packing stuff, positioning a stabilize. Positioning of DEA lines, figuring out on continuity checks, what lines cascade and the others. If you aren't aware of that, I don't know how you do rigging.

If you're not a skydiver are haven't sit under a canopy, but there's people that are really good that haven't, it's not a requirement by any means, but no skydiving definitely helped me out at least in terms of the visualization piece. So again, if you're interested in being a senior rigger, I mean this place in South Carolina is a it's incredible.

And you can reach out to me directly if you're interested in learning more about it, but a whoa. A couple of months and damn it's over at least for now, but anyhow, thanks for listening to make sure to fly safe out there. We'll talk to you on the next episode, you've just listened to send it a skydiving podcast hosted by Andrew Rawls on world talk radio.

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