377

I am glad you've finally admitted your ruse. I was fairly certain you wouldn't be able to resist doing so. Sadly, now I have to ban this name as well. Low Pull? I dont think he pulled anything out except a middle finger. Can't we let Snow back in if his inputs are automatically scrubbed by a software insult filter? Do such things exist? Just kdding Quade, I know you are unrelenting and so, apparently, is Snowmman. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Sluggo wrote; No way Sluggo. If you were excluded I would be all over you to do AFF and rejoin. You are a pilot, you are a Cooper fanatic, what is holding you back from participating in the aero sport that has the highest ratio of thrill to dollar of anything short of controlled substances? Sugar, if you are reading this I have an idea for your husband's Christmas present. Sluggo, do you think this love fest for Quade is hard on Snow? I actually don't. He probably views us as weak and obsequeous though. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Amazon wrote: This A model had the orginal 3 bladed Aero Products props. Vibration wasnt bad at all. The USAF upgraded all their As to the four bladed Hamilton Standard props which gave better performance above 17,000 feet compared to the old 3 bladers. Lockheed would have nothing to do with supporting surplus As. They wanted them all scrapped but couldnt force it. The wing box design on the A was bad and with some overloaded flight and heavy turbulence cracks would start. Two surplus A model Herc fire tankers (one flying for Hemet, the other for Hawkins and Powers) shed wings in flight. Very sad for the crews and their families. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

***No one ever describes themselves as - lacking a sense of humor, bad in the sack or violently flatulent; Farting is a hotly discussed topic in jumping Farflung. B 52s fly pressurized so you were spared what we experience during climb when the decreasing atmospheric pressure works its wonders on jumper contained methane. I swear we have had flammable cabin atmospheres in the Otter with the door closed. You DON'T want to fly on the sunrise load the morning after the DZ's annual Chile cookoff. HD, 3DTV and other tech advances can bring skydiving right into your living room. When they add scent vision, shut that feature off when you watch skydiving movies. I am not kidding. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Wish we could tie this in to Sheridan somehow. He is very interested in US war crimes and allegedly witnessed a number of them in Viet Nam. None of those atrocities are being reviewed in the Hague or by anyone really. They've been swept under the rug as Pete sees it. Orange found some truly fascinating links between the CIA and USFS Smoke Jumpers who were deployed to Viet Nam to serve as cargo kickers and to perform other work in covert air ops. Sheridan Peterson went to Viet Nam as a civilian refugeee advisor. Sheridan Peterson served as a USFS Smoke Jumper in the NW (100% confirmed) prior to going to Viet Nam. I have reestablished contact (he had moved) with a Vietnamese war vet who served as a paratrooper in the Vietnamese Army. He made BOTH S/L and frefall jumps during his military service. I am going to try and do a video of an interview with him in January. Any questions you want asked? I am gong to ask him about knowledge of the Air America 727 jumps, sport jumping in Saigon, etc. I first was skeptical of his freefall claims but found photos in a history book that confirmed them. They were made from old Sikorsky helos that look like H 19s, exactly as he recounted them. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Found this in a hollowed out coconut that washed up: Larry Carr (Ckret) is corresponding with a lawyer from the Hague on the comic book connection, but won't reveal details [Ed. probably tie to KC]. Note it is the "closet thing to a lead"..i.e. Larry is confirming this is the new top lead in the Cooper case. http://www.seattlemet.com/issues/archives/articles/cooper-comic-0509/ "Since releasing this new clue to the public in March, the closest thing Carr’s had to a lead is an email from a lawyer in The Hague working with the International Criminal Court on War Crime Tribunals. The lawyer grew up reading the comics and offered insight into the series, which Carr isn’t yet at liberty to disclose. " 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

It's the Lord of the Flies, Clockwork Orange phenomena Farflung. It's alive and thriving in too many parts of skydiving. Go figure. Is it any wonder that our sport's growth rate is barely positive? Tandems, unless they are hot young women, are treated like posers and wannabe jumpers at too many DZs. To me, anyone who leaves a plane aloft and lands under a chute is a jumper. We just have varying degrees of skill, experience and commitment. I try to like everyone. When whuffos show up at a hostile or stuck up DZ I shield them from the sneering skygod venom and make them feel genuinely welcome. Actually, I do it for selfish reasons. No real jumper will be impressed with my 747 type landings, but if I prep a whuffo family they will applaud wildly and their kids will press me for autographs. I was once a dumb kid asking endless questions of skydivers at the DZ in Calistoga CA. The jumpers were so nice to me, showed me their gear, told amazing stories, let me help them pack. I was totally awed and hooked. I jumped as soon as I turned 18 and have been doing it ever since. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

You are right Sluggo. That "gear down" Antonov AN2 biplane has been used as an airliner in Eastern Bloc countries. That cover was definitely DBC's inspiration. Great work. Inform Ckret immediately. This is a major break in the case. I've attached a photo of me jumping from an AN 2 five years ago. It was funny, the FAA Flight Standards officials (plane cops) who were dashing around in golf carts said ithe AN 2 couldnt be used as a jumpship at WFFC and couldn't carry anyone who paid. On the spot, the AN 2 Demo Jump Club was formed, had an onsite vendor make T Shirts with the new club logo, and then sold memberships which came with a free T Shirt for about the price of a jump, but the jump itself was 'free". We loaded up and flew. We did something similar with the C 130A where we all got Screen Actor Guild waivers and were signed on the manifest as stunt actors in a movie or something like that. The acft was licensed in the Limited (or Restricted?) category and couldn't just carry paying recreational jumpers. It was cleared for doing movie flights. We had cameramen aboard and proceeded to do retake after retake, flight after flight, for about ten days. Awesome plane and probably the oldest Herc flying (1958 mfr date). I was a bit woriied about flying in an A model Herc (weak wing box structure), the fourth photo will show you why. This Herc had been babied by the RAAF and had never flown as a fire tanker so I took a chance. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Really, he did. Read the thread excerpt: Could the managers of this site please give D.B. Cooper it's own section. When I look at the overall headings and it shows 45 new posts, only to click on Skydiving history and find that they all are under D.B. Cooper, it's a waste of time. Not to mention that the thread has evolved into "nothing to do with Cooper". Lock it or move it to it's own section PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quade replied: It has it's own section. ONE thread. If you don't like it, then don't even open it. As for this thread, it's now locked. ________________________________________________ You all know that I am not much of a Quade booster because of his merciless lifetime ban of Snowmman, but I must admit he deserves some credit on this one. Believe me when I say he gains no points from the mainstream dropzone jumper crowd by fighting for our survival as a forum. In fact it cost him quite a bit in that realm. It's easy to give in to a bunch of legit skydivers who want to kill what they see as a whuffo forum, but Quade held his ground (and ours) and for that I thank him sincerely. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Thus making another great case for mandatory use of barosensing AADs. I guess an RSL wouldn't have helped, but they should have had one anyway. Just kidding Bill Von, I use both religiously. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

No one posted the following information that ties together FBI/Dan Cooper comic, and when the first parachute story appeared. Probably no one will understand it or care about it. But Farflung appreciates the importance of getting all the tiny details down so the story must be told. This resolves the FBI date descrepancy http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_fr_FR=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Dan+Cooper+%3A+L%27Int%E9grale%2C+tome+20&x=0&y=0 There were 12 "tomes" (volumes) published that were not in the list of "Cooper Comics" up to 1994. These were published from Jun 10, 2000 thru Feb. 7, 2004. That's why they werent in the list. They are collections of the original strips in Tintin. Each lists the source dates in Tintin. The cover art for "tome 7" is what the FBI is publishing on their site. That's why it has a 7 on it, not a #20 as expected from comparing to the 1974 artwork. If you look here and click thru the pages at this next url, you see first the cover art the FBI is using with the 7. This was published (tome 7) Sept 7, 2002. http://www.amazon.fr/Dan-Cooper-LInt%C3%A9grale-Albert-Weinberg/dp/2803617676/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1285644882&sr=1-1-fkmr2 The contents pages says there are 4 episodes in this tome. (tome 7) Apollo Appelle Soyouz (originally TINTIN no 33 (1969) thru 1 (1970) L'Affaire Minos (the skydiving one) TINTIN no 9 (1970) thru 26 (1970) Objectif Jumbo TINTIN no 40 (1970) thru 1 (1971) Crash Dans Le 135 no 24 (1971) thru 50 (1971) The jpg of the contents page showing this is attached. You can see that L'Affaire Minos is the skydiving cover #20 from 1974 (elsewhere) But the new info is that all of these are reprinted from the original TINTIN no 9 (1970) thru 26 (1970) the FBI claimed that it was near the hijack in time. They didn't publish the original TINTIN, and the cover art was from 1974, so it appeared that they were out to lunch. They weren't. Interesting! TINTIN #1114 3/15/1970 is when Dan Cooper L'Affaire Minos first appeared. This was later republished as #20 in 1974, or "tome 7" in 2002 as shown on the FBI site. Dan is on the cover with Vicky (she appears first in this episode). She's a blond tour guide. We don't have the full story line, but it's a spy thing, I think. The cover is available at http://www.bdoubliees.com/journaltintin/annees/1970.htm which is in french. but translates well. Dan talks to Vicky on the cover: Ne bougez plus, Vicky !! .. J'entends des pas !! ... "Minos" arrive !!! she says J'ai peur Dan! You can tell they are in Greece, (Athens I believe) from the background. Vicky is wearing black sunglasses. The index for that complete issue is there at the url Most people don't know the story of all the collections of Dan Cooper comics, and what year they arrived and that they were originally in the Tintin mag. Or that Tintin mag had more than Tintin comics. It's important to understand, because otherwise you don't see the full humor of the DZ-FBI-Christiansen loop. Also note: if you look at Wikipedia, Christiansen has the longest entry of any suspect (congrats Robert, you have taken the lead away from Jo and Duane). In fact, Wikipedia confirms the comic book importance, because of Shemya: "Rick Cochran, the communications officer on Shemya while Christiansen was stationed there, testified that he saw the famous 'Dan Cooper' comic book by Albert Weinberg in the Day Room there, which shows a man on the cover parachuting out of an airplane. Northwest employees often stopped in at the Day Room to hunt for new reading material, since there was no radio or television on the island. This comic has been linked by the F.B.I. as a possible clue to the hijacker's identity." My friend Snowmman, though banned for life, has not shirked on his research commitments. He digs deep and finds things that have eluded my most carefully constructed searches. The possible direct relevance of the Dan Cooper comic to Norjack is intriguing. The FBI thinks there is meat on that bone. Time will tell. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The NWA pilots would be doing two things: 1. trying to comply with Cooper's flight profile demands (to avoid being blown up) and 2. staying well above the highest terrain in the area to avoid a crash. If the cloud layers and the 727's altitude reports to ARTCC were acurately reported I think it's unlikely that the 727 could have been seen low enough to visually identify the aircraft type over any inhabited area that rainy night. I think the most you'd see is lights in the sky and perhaps a vague shape. Sluggo, your thoughts? There were a number of planes flying around that night that were connected with the hijack. F 106s are VERY loud. T 33s are not. A C 130 Herc doesnt sound like a jet fighter or a jet transport and neither do helos. 1971 era 727s were very loud at high power settings. I am not confident that an average civilian could tell the difference between the sound of an F 106 chase plane and a 727. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

It's so incredibly easy to just totally ignore the DBC forum. Why read it if you hate it? Skydivers are usually all about free speech, but apparently not on this topic. Is this forum dumb stupid and offensive? Yes, at times it is, but is that so unique? The Cooper hijacking does have some arguable relevance to skydiving history and trivia, which is the forums stated subject. Sure we stray off topic, but so does every other forum on this website at times. The DBC forum generates quite a bit of traffic for the website and traffic helps ad revenue. How many of those advoctaing killing the DBC forum give any money directly to dropzone.com? There are forums I found that I don't like but I just ignore them. I don't plead for their extinguishment. It's easy to just tune out. You don't have to kill everything that you don't like. That's my 25 cents worth. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Mr. Blevins, You know the business. Will readers really pay over $30 for a hundred page rehash book? Seems very pricey considering the meager content and lack of new investigative material. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Snow really understands how to work the media. He discovered the Dan Cooper comic connection and it made it to front stage at the FBI. The FBI predictably gave no credit to one of their best "citizen sleuths". There is a price to be paid for refusing to kiss bureau butt and Snowmman pays the toll every day. Now the Cooper comic connection is well on it's way to becoming a widely accepted "fact" about the case. I think this deserves some recognition for Snow. Focus groups queried by Snowmman Industries didn't favor the Cooper sketch toaster stencils. The Quade models are not selling well and will soon be in Big Lots for $1.99. Snowmman has had some success marketing them as paintball targets. Personally I'd like a Tina toaster stencil. She sure doesn't look traumatized in that smiling photo in the new book. Limited market though. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

No, I missed that book completly Sluggo. Pretty short book for $33.00!! Just a rehash of news stories? Anything from the forum make it into the book? Jo shows up on many pages in the index! 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Farflung has proven his theory beyond any reasonable doubt. Case closed. I've never jumped an alien chute. I wonder if Ckret could pull some strings. Hey, Tom got to play with FBI Cooper money samples. I want to play with the chute. Seems a fair request. If it has some antigravitational properties I might be able to enhance my coolness at the DZ. Watch me do a 100 yard swoop flying a 60 year old round canopy. Those young hotshot canopy pilots wont be laughing at me any more. No sir. If the chute has no connection to a crime why does the FBI get to keep it? Hmmm... 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I believe Dr. Marcel too, but that stuff wasnt extra terrestrial in origin. It came from Project Mogul passive radar reflectors. Good people make bad conclusions/decisions based on insufficient evidence. PhD scientists have seen ghosts. Doesn't mean ghosts exist. Having an open mind doesnt mean that you shouldn't put some filtering on the front end. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Hardly inexplicable Farflung. It was for breeding prurposes. The US Govt. wanted brains in the scientist's offspring but not so much aggesssion and rudeness. Of course the solution wasn't so simple. Most of the Deutsche Southern Belle crossbred wunderkinder just designed ICBMs with happy faces painted on the nose and a few "have a nice day" logos on the INS package. Their neutron bomb invention was seen as a kinder gentler weapon. The better genetic outcomes went on to invent improvements in pneumatic paintball weapons. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

As for NB 6 and NB 8 stuff, its still widely available and on eBay all the time, mostly complete rigs. If you ignore the ridiculous pricing (eg $1500) that some sellers put on these rigs (as "collectable"), you'll find them ranging between $150 and $300. If you are just looking for hardware contact Para gear, they used to have a lot of old mil surplus hardware that isnt in their catalog. I have a pristine 70s vintage stock NB 8, all packed and ready for Snowmman to jump into the Death Woods with. It is 100% military configuration, with a C 9, no sleeve, etc. Most of that hardware was steel and plated with cadmium or other anti corrosion alloys. It is incredibly strong and durable. I'd bet it would still be in decent shape even if submerged or buried since 71. Why the 727 ice spotting questions? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Thanks for the link Nexus. I had forgotten that Quade penned your name, or damn close. I also read Sheridan Peterson's post and noted his rapid disappeance when AIr America 727 jump questions were posed. Nexus, why not stay and just be a bit more civil? It won't make anything shorter or less funtional. It would be fun to get everyone together in person sometime. Wouldn't Disneyland be more fun than the Aeriel Tavern? When will they wake up and offer the DB Cooper experience ride. Don't say Disney won't glorify crime. Do you think pirates of the Carribean were law abiding guys? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

We get stagnant too quickly with only the die hard forum loyalists posting. I used to ridicule those who kept threatening to leave. No more. The best actors and athletes always the ones who threaten to quit. The B players don't have enough credibility and crowd appeal to pull it off. Man up and return Nexus. You gonna let a tiny bit of criticism from Coopers wife chase you off? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Funny Georger. You'll know this business model has gone too far when we start getting emails from Lagos from undiscovered accomplices, children, relatives or attorneys of Cooper who had invested his loot wisely and now need our assistance in getting the swollen coffers (30 million US sounds about right) out if the country. At first I was going to take a shot at Robert and Gayla for using the elimination of bias/conflict story to rationalize screwing Lynn out of his fair share of the story profits, but it's a moot point. AB will be very lucky to just break even. Blevins knows this yet he continues on his quest. I'll buy his book if he and Gayla will sign it. I think ANY Cooper story can help solve this case by stirring things up and jogging memories about the case. I'd buy Sheridan Petersons book too if he'd sign it. It isn't about Cooper on the surface, but what lies beneath is very intriguing. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I am a bit puzzled. If they want total credibility why take any money? Maybe a dollar to provide adequate legal consideration for the contract. If they are meth heads maybe they couldn't see past tomorrow and just wanted enough for a few bags. JUST KIDDING, really. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The forum needs Snowmman on this and many other matters. It's like Gotham City without Batman. Can someone better than I am with image editing replace the bat symbol with a snowman symbol? See below. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.