Woody Valley has issued a safety note (pdf) for the X-Rated 7 competition harness. All harnesses produced in 2016-2018 where the rescue handle is a sheathed yellow plastic wire must have the handle replaced with one that has steel wire inside.
The reason: in one case, the handle had cracked under low tensile load. Investigations revealed that the material failure was not due to aging. Rather, a thimble had injured the plastic wire. Woody Valley switched production to the steel wire version back in 2018 and is now resupplying it free of charge to owners of older models.
We call on all X-Rated 7 owners to check the handle according to the instructions in the safety note (pdf) and to contact their dealer if necessary. The modification has to be done exclusively by a qualified person (reserve parachute rigger).
Without this check, the X-Rated 7 may no longer be flown.
Outside normal business hours by telephone arrangement.
