Rescue & Rigging Field Guide Series: Technician

Having worked through the Rescue & Rigging Field Guide Series in order, I completed this course following the Awareness and Operations courses. Overall I found the course to be well laid out with good, detailed discussion of the more advanced rigging theory. As with the Operations unit, I found the Richard Delaney videos to be particularly good - well structured, logical progression through some detailed physics. Whilst I personally have a good grounding in the underlying physics, I believe a newcomer to these principles would find the examples easy to follow and understand. I was also really impressed with the various tutorials delivered in Pat Rhodes' videos covering tension line systems in Unit 5. Compared to the Operations course, I felt that the structure and progression through the curriculum of this course was well considered and more logical. In terms of potential areas for improvement, my feeling was just that for some of the topics a little bit of real world context may be useful before discussing principles in detail. I accept, however, that this course is designed for more advanced riggers who might be expected to have that knowledge: - Within Unit 3, the course discusses tripod vector resultants. While I felt that the content was well explained, I don't believe that either the Operations or the Technician courses had discussed tripods at any level prior to this. This unit may benefit from an introductory piece on tripod uses in the rigging environment before launching into the vector analysis. - Unit 4.1 mentions the principles of gin pole / monopod use, and the need for 3-4 guy lines. I wasn't sure that any of the courses had covered gin poles prior to this, so an introduction might be helpful. There was a good video shared through the Rescue Response email shot on 31 October 2017 that I think covered the detail of setting up a gin pole - could be a good addition here? - I found the discussion of aerial ladders in Unit 4.3 quite confusing. I don't believe that the course curriculum had touched on aerial ladders at all prior to this tutorial, and I had to watch the video two or three times to understand the concept being discussed, particularly when using the TerrAdaptor as a model for the aerial ladder. Again, some introductory context to this tutorial would have been useful. - I note that the tutorial in Unit 5.6 is a duplication of the tutorial in Unit 4.4, although I understand that the intention may be to highlight slightly different elements of the system. In those scenarios a little note on the page to remind the student what to focus on might be good. I do believe that the video is an absolutely superb detailed walkthrough of a high line system that covers all the key components well. I would perhaps suggest that including it at the start of Unit 5 ahead of the detailed vector analysis might provide some good real world context before launching into the physics? - A small point, but I'd suggest switching the order of the tutorials in 5.7 and 5.8 around. The tutorials are clearly taken from a specific set of films where the Norwegian Reeve is discussed before the English Reeve. Again, both are excellent tutorials. All in all a really good course that I enjoyed working through. I learned a bunch of nice alternatives for my own rigging, and am excited about putting them into use in training. Thanks again for some great content.