Aerial Rigging: Carabiners/Quick Links/Shackles? 



Aerial Rigging The Carabiner Talk Part 1

Aerial Rigging The Carabiner Talk Part 2, Overloaded Carabiners

Aerial Rigging: The Carabiner Talk Part 3, 3 Way Loading


Here are some tips about connectors for aerial rigging:





Please read this reference on carabiners from Simply Circus: Carabiners.





  • Shackles are a lot stronger than carabiners





  • Link to Petzl Maillion Rapide technical info

I am attaching several links that have more Quick Link information:





8 thoughts on “Aerial Rigging: Carabiners/Quick Links/Shackles? 

  1. Thanks for posting its good to get everyone talking about these issues. I will post a more in depth response in the future.
    I wanted to get a quick response up regarding quick links. You need to ensure that these are rigged with the thread in such a way that if they are exposed to vibration that the gate wont unwind with gravity. Our company Circa always give a gentle nip with a spanner as we have had cases where quicklinks have come open. Usually on very mobile rigs often where the unloaded system is paged out above the rigging point.


  2. I have been rock climbing as a sport for 20 years. When setting up a belay station for top roping or rigging a abseiling line I would always recommend to use a steel biner. Steel biners are much more durable than alloy and will take more/heavier knocks without the unseen micro fissures that can occur in alloy. If you drop an alloy biner from over head height on a hard surface (concrete/stone) I would recommend to retire it as the Xray inspection is more pricey than replacement. Steel biners will also plasticly yield before rupture whereas alloy is more prone to brittle fracture. If you need to reduce your rigging weight (as most climbers do) then by all means go alloy but make sure you load them right and treat them especially kindly! Another point on care of equipment is to never tread on climbing ropes or slings as you can push grit into the inner fibres creating unseen wear on the core where the bulk of it’s strength resides. Finally you should try to avoid leaving knots in rope as this creates a stress point which with each subsequent load cycle/use weakens the rope in a focused point.


  3. What a great post. Thank you for compiling all this information in one place. I think it might also be good to add that it is possible to improperly side-load/cross-load quik-links, too. I recently purchased a triangle quik-link because I thought it could be tri-loaded, but according to the information packet included in the purchase, it is not supposed to be tri-loaded. I’m not a professional rigger, so I don’t know why?


  4. Minor and common mistake, lyras have tabs not points. Points are where the rigging is connected to the structure. Tabs are on the lyra itself. So, it’s a double tab lyra that you had been tri-loading. 😉


    • True on some Lyra’s but I don’t have tabs on mine. I have a trapeze Lyra with no tabs and I have a round Lyra with no tabs. The part that I often see tri-loaded is the carabiner when there are 2 points rigged off the Lyra. Thank you for the added insight.


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