olemisscub

I’m honestly confused as to what this discussion is even about at this point. I think most of us here already agree that Cooper’s parachute knowledge came from the military. I’d still like to see evidence where “fronts and backs” is military jargon. Paratroopers in World War II 100% referred to their chutes as “main” and “reserve” and they were the only individuals in the military during WWII who would have ever had the occasion to wear two chutes.

That seems like a big assumption given how generic that verbiage is. Any idiot who saw a photo of a skydiver in freefall in 1971 might also just call them "fronts" and "backs." If Cooper used terminology like "main" or "reserve" then maybe that could imply a heightened understanding of parachuting equipment, but "front" and "back" are such generic terms. I'm not even arguing with you about it being military jargon. Maybe it was. But those terms are too generic to ascribe exclusivity to them. It's like ascribing exclusivity to someone who uses the words "up" and "down".

This "specific demand" merely illustrates that he understood the concept of there being backpack parachutes and front reserve parachutes that are worn as a set. It’s a slight step up from the copycats who just asked for “parachutes”, but not nearly a big enough leap to deny my premise: If he had actual experience with skydiving equipment his demand wouldn’t have been so generic. Cooper was not a sport jumper.

Respectfully, I believe you're unnecessarily overthinking this bailout vs. main thing and his reaction/non-reaction to what they gave him. I don't think we need to even go that far into it to find the biggest clue that Cooper provides us regarding the chutes. The most obvious clue to his experience with parachutes can be found at the very beginning: his demand. By simply demanding "two fronts and two backs", this tells us most of what we need to know about him, which is that he was almost certainly NOT a recreational skydiver of any sort. I've used the analogy before on my show, but if we substitute a getaway car for parachutes, Cooper essentially just said "give me a car" when he instead could have easily said "I want a Ford Mustang Shelby" or "I want a Camaro". Some just asking for a "getaway car" would indicate that this individual is not a gearhead in the same way that asking for generic parachutes indicates that Cooper was not a recreational skydiver. Cooper's lack of specificity with his demand is so highly, highly informative. Every skydiver on this site and every skydiver that I've spoken to at CC's or on Facebook groups have been unanimous in stating that they would NEVER just ask for "parachutes" in such a generic way if they were pulling off a heist like this. First off, most skydivers we've heard from on this issue have agreed that they would bring their own chute if they could, and if they couldn't, they would be very specific with their demand. Our two recreational skydiving copycats illustrate this perfectly. Heady brought his own chute, and McCoy both brought his own chutes AND was also highly specific with the parachutes he demanded be brought to him (four Commander parachutes from Perry Stevens' Loft in Oakland) You stated that H demanded "fronts and backs". Mac requested "six parachutes". LaPoint said "two parachutes". Fisher simply demanded "a parachute." None of those men were sport parachutists. Cooper making a similarly generic demand for parachutes throws him firmly in that camp. So I don't feel it's really necessary to try and figure out whether Cooper knew the difference in a main vs. a bailout because he's essentially already telegraphed to us what his level of intelligence was toward parachuting equipment from the very start: he lacked the knowledge to be specific, which strongly implies that he wouldn't have known the difference in a main and a bailout rig. If he had any real knowledge of parachuting gear he would have used specifics with his demand.

Ultimately I think we're probably all just being petty with the semantics. Cooper asking for "two fronts and two backs" clearly indicated that he just wanted a set including a main backpack and a front reserve chest pack. I don't think the fault is with Cooper for not specifying. The fact that he asked for a set implied that the backpack and the chest pack needed to be compatible, but because the fronts and the backs came from different places, there was no coordination to ensure that the components were compatible. Go back to my analogy of renting a truck and a trailer. The NWA guys called Hayden and said "we need your truck" and called Sky Sports and said "we need a trailer". In such an instance, it wouldn't be too surprising if the truck that shows up doesn't have a trailer hitch. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that NWA supplied Cooper with an incompatible set of equipment. If they had only called Sky Sports and never Hayden and said "we need two fronts and two backs", then presumably Cooper's backpacks would have had D-rings. I'm honestly not sure the result would have been any different if Cooper had said "I want two mains and two reserves." The NWA guys were scrambling and likely would have scrambled the exact same way regardless of whatever generic nomenclature Cooper used. Obviously if he had been very specific like McCoy demanding Para Commanders, that would have been different.

This is a real word salad here. I don't buy that him saying "front and back" was exclusive to military terminology because the only people in his era in the military who used "front and back" chutes were paratroopers and clearly he didn't have that type of rig in mind. When Cooper said "front and back" he was probably envisioning that they'd give him something that skydivers of his time were using. You keep saying that something like an NB-6 is a "reserve type". Perhaps now it could be classified as such, but modern classifications are irrelevant. What other military backpacks in the 40's-60's existed that would qualify as a "main" to you aside from a T-5 type paratrooper rig?

But I'm not arguing that bailout rigs are the same as other parachutes. Seatpacks, chest packs, static line chutes, emergency rigs....of course they're all designed differently. I'm arguing that you've created a term of art by calling a bailout rig a "reserve". You've yet to provide an example of people saying that bailout rigs are "reserves". I'd also like you to post an example of a "main" backpack from the 40's and 50's that isn't a seatpack or a static line chute, yet is somehow different from a standard B-4 or NB-6. What "main" are you suggesting that Cooper was thinking of when using "old military speak"? As I said, the only backpacks that came standard with D-rings were static line rigs for paratroopers.

This isn't helpful to our discussion at all. This is a 2005 handbook. Parachutes are night and day different in the 21st century than they were in the 20th century. This is sorta like posting a handbook on the proper cleaning of an M-16 when we're talking about 1940's firearms. Bit outdated.

Respectfully, describing a backpack bailout rig as a “reserve” is almost certainly a term of art of your creation. You’d have posted an example of the military using this term in your last post if it wasn’t your term of art. I’m also unsure if you can definitively state that this is “early military speak” because the ONLY military backpacks from the 40’s and 60’s that came standard with D-rings were T-5 type paratrooper static line packs. While I do believe that Cooper’s parachute knowledge came from the military at some point in his life, I don’t think that experience was informing his demand for “two backs and two fronts”. He was a conscious human being in 1971, so he was obviously aware that freefall skydivers wore back chutes as well as chest reserves. It’s unlikely he felt the need to specify further because, like my analogy of ordering a truck with a trailer, he assumed that they would give him the proper equipment to have a functional set, just as you’d assume the rental car place would give you a truck with a trailer hitch so you can actually use the trailer. Did H jump with a chest and a back? My reading of his file makes it sound like they just gave him six backpacks. Plus they mention finding his chute in Honduras, but are only using that in the singular.

Still waiting on Mark. I really do think you’re the one confused on semantics here and I believe it’s semantics of your creation. If you could provide evidence of the military or personnel ever calling a military backpack of any sort a “reserve”, I’d be interested to see it. We all understand what Cooper meant and the people on the ground understood what he meant as well. He did indeed get two front packs and two backpacks, but because they came from two different places they weren’t coordinated enough to realize that these fronts and backs couldn’t work together. Nothing too complicated. He could have said “two mains and two fronts” instead and the same result likely would have ensued. Cooper likely didn’t feel the need to specify any further (or maybe didn’t know enough about parachutes to do so) because his demand implied that he needed D-rings on the backs for the sets to work. I’ve likened it to someone calling a rental car place requesting to rent a truck and a trailer, yet when they get there they are given a truck and trailer but the truck doesn’t have a trailer hitch. It’s like, duh, my request should have implied that you rent me a truck with a trailer.

Always have to be a little wary when it comes to 302’s because it’s somewhat of a game of telephone. Witness speaks to the FBI agent who handwrites notes and then a day or two later dictates a narrative derived from those notes to a secretary who then types it up. This is definitely an example of telephone at work. The 302 says “when she returned to the plane when the last chute, she saw he had one chute cut open and nylon cords out.” that just can’t be accurate because she only made three trips to get the parachutes: each of the backpacks required a separate trip, but on her last trip she was able to bring both the chest packs. So if the last “chute” she brought aboard were the two chest packs, then he couldn’t possibly have had one of them open at that point. My guess is that it was meant to read something like this before the telephone game jacked it up: “after she delivered the last chute, she saw him open one of the chutes.”

Yes, he was working with shroud lines, so he cut cord from 5 of the shroud lines. I was just using a single 100 foot piece of paracord that I cut to 80 feet. I tied it the way as described by Tina. I also would have gone east to west on it as well as north to south. When I was wrapping it all of my instincts were telling me to go side to side and top to bottom. Perhaps Cooper also covered all directions but Tina was just describing it in her own way from her memory.

I've seen you use this term "back reserve" over the years and I've always scratched my head over your use of it because I've never seen that term used elsewhere in a mid 20th century context. By definition to be a reserve chute you have to be a "reserve" of something i.e. a secondary chute to a main. A bailout rig like an NB-6 or B-4 would not be called a reserve because it isn't a reserve to anything. It IS a main. When guys like Braden competed in competitions, as seen in this photo here, he's just wearing a "sporterized" B-4 with D-rings specially added to it. I'll let Mark know to join this conversation.

I'm not sure what you are saying either. The only military "back chutes" that I'm aware of in that era were seat packs for pilots, bailout rigs like NB-6's or C-9's, and static line backpacks for paratroopers. As far as I know the only military parachuting equipment that came with D-rings were naked parachute harnesses for air crew to clip on chest packs during an emergency (like what Mac was given) and static line backpacks for paratroopers.

He had alternatives, certainly, but he didn't do utilize those alternatives so we're just stuck with wondering why he did what he did. I emptied out my T-7 and could roughly fit $80,000 in there (8 bundles), but was unable to close it.