RIGGERS 04th Feb 16
3. CORRESPONDENCE FROM BILL SHARP (Colour of Tandem Cutaway and Reserve Handles)
Correspondence from Bill Sharp had been circulated with the Agenda. Bill had reported that the Tandem Mods website was finally up and running. He had stated that it had a slightly different look to it, but was basically the same as the old site and was fully available on the tandemmods.co.uk website and was up to date until the previous Riggers Subcommittee Meeting on 19 November 2015. Bill Sharp had asked to be notified if any problems were found with any of the links not working on the site.
Bill Sharp had also stated that whilst he was going through the various updates, he had noticed an item concerning an equipment change proposal that required clarification. This was from the Riggers Subcommittee meeting of 5 Feb 2015 (Item 7, para 4) refers.
The original proposal was for a RW Tandem Vector to be allowed to have a yellow coloured reserve handle and that it be cleared for all. The proposal had been accepted by the Committee.
Bill Sharp had stated that during discussion on this particular item, the Committee had felt that they did not foresee an issue of just changing the colour of a reserve or cutaway handle, as long as it was a recognised handle and that it still carried the manufacturers mark in the event of a paper trail. Providing this was applied, they could see no reason why similar individual requests involving colour changes to reserve and cutaway handles needed to be brought to the table in the future for acceptance. Bill Sharp had stated that in his opinion he considered this statement a bit ambiguous as no formal vote had taken place at the time, which he believed was now required for clarity.
Following consideration, it was the opinion of those present that they could still not foresee a problem with the colour combination of a reserve and cutaway handle, so long as the basic procedures as discussed previously were applied. Riggers present felt that this was more of an operational matter than a rigging issue, which they believed was down to the judgment of individual Chief Instructors.
It was therefore proposed by Rick Boardman and seconded by Paul Stockwell that individual requests involving colour changes to reserve and cutaway handles need not be brought to the table in the future for acceptance as long as it is a recognised handle and that it still carried the manufacturers mark.