In the UK the recommended repack period is 6 months.
It is only a recommendation, it is not an offence to
fly with a parachute which is out of repack.
The problem with this sort of requirement that the
rules are drawn up for the worst case scenario. A club
parachute which is worn by many people all day and
everyday, and is subject to a high degree of wear and
tear requires regular inspection, and I would be the
first to say that this is good. You do want it to work.
Compare that with my parachute, lives in its bag, not
thrown around, worn perhaps one or twice a week, does
that require the same intensive maintenance? The rules
say yes, in practice is safety compromised at all if
the period between repacks is longer. Most riggers
I have spoken to say no.
Given the choice between sitting on a cushion which
will not protect you from the impact of a crash and
sitting on a serviceable chute which just happens to
be a day over it's due repack I know what I would choose.

At 14:30 23 February 2004, Tim Mara wrote:
your answer was 100% exactly why they have made the
rule......
tim


'Mark James Boyd' wrote in message
news:4039b164$1@darkstar...
In article ,
Tim Mara wrote:
now, I am not going to try to justify the cycle period,
and in fact this
can
vary from country to country, and even most manufacturers
will probably
say
the 120 day cycle is too frequent for our typical
use, but I can
understand the FAA rule on this, and anyone who doesn't
see the reasoning
is
why they have the rule...
plain and simple, if it were legal to wear an out
of date parachute,
would
you, or anyone else bother to have it inspected or
repacked?? I rather
doubt
it....in fact you're already suggested you wouldn't...

There's no rule requiring me to change my tidy-whities
every week
either,
but I DO IT! :P For health reasons, you know...
Same for a chute.
I wouldn't just sit on the thing for 12 years and
drip jelly on it
and drag it through the dirt all day and think it
would open. But
if it's my own G*****n chute in a G*****n single-seat
glider,
whose business is it anyway?

Rules are never a simple matter or what's right for
the masses, but made
because some one or a few people have done something
that was
questionable,
or wrong. If we were all perfect, and always right
we'd have far fewer
rules, regulations and restrictions....
tim

A coupla guys weighing in heavy on an expired reserve
on
a tandem skydiving jump is a hell of a long way from
me
in my itsy-bitsy glider wearing an emergency chute
I don't even
intend to use. Who'll convince me that the extra
safety
of having the more frequent repack outweighs the lack
of safety
when I fly twice without the chute each year (while
I wait for
the packer to send it back)?