377

Believe it or not Snow I have a Hughes PRC 74 and a Hallicrafters HT 1, both operational. The HT 1 (sort of a big CB walkie talkie) was "demilitarized" by removing a little explosive squib that could be be detonated inside the case by a combination of control inputs, some dumb idea to prevent the VC from learning the frequency of the transmitter if capture was imminent? The prick 74 is USB and CW, 2-12 MHz synth. Made by Hughes Aircraft. Puts out about 10 watts. Quade makes some good DF points. Is he a pilot, navigator, ham, EE? I agree that a transistor radio would not have been of much use in the air. I was thinking more in the realm of ground rendevous aids for linking up with an accomplice for a car escape. Still, not a shred of evidence that Cooper had any radio gear. You can resolve the 180 degree ambiguity in a loop or ferrite bar antenna by employing a sense antenna. Properly interfaced with the receiver, the sense antenna will give asymmetric loop or bar null strengths making it clear whether you are pointed at the transmitter or away from it. The courage of those guys jumping in Nam was amazing. Sounds like any one of them could have pulled off Norjack and made it out alive with just a little luck. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Ferrite bars have 180 degree ambiguity when used as direction finding antennas. How could a cheap transistor radio tell whether you were pointed at or away from the beacon? I guess you could start walking and see if the signal got stronger or weaker, but that could burn up a lot of time. BTW, great finds. Your search abilities have me in awe. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Snow, I searched for all that beacon stuff. I didn't find any of what you posted. I need search tutoring from the Jedei Master. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Am I misinterpretting or did they jump at 250 ft? 250 feet??? DAMN! There must be a lot of radio stuff from Nam that still isnt widely published. The talk about having a Phantom "shoot" a homing beacon into a hill is another puzzler. There were many air deployable radio autonomous transmitters as part of IGLOO WHITE, but they were designed to detect and relay info on enemy troop and vehicle movements sensed by geophones and seismic sensors. None of the IGLOO WHITE gear involved homing beacons as far as I know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://64.202.120.86/upload/image/personal-column/daniel-uziel/igloo-white/igloo-white-66-8745.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thefutureofthings.com/column/6369/igloo-white-the-automated-battlefield.html&usg=__k-ae-cCjWq0zDGXXqsCDcrgLfhk=&h=402&w=600&sz=34&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=m6lLGThbUce4LM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Digloo%2Bwhite%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GPEA_enUS294US294%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1 Great stuff you are finding Snow. Really glad you are back in da hood. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Lowering device, very useful for Cooper type jumps. Jerry, did you ever use this kind of gear? 377 http://cgi.ebay.com/Military-Pilot-Lowering-Extraction-Rappelling-Device_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trkparmsZ65Q3a12Q7c66Q3a2Q7c39Q3a1Q7c72Q3a1205Q7c240Q3a1318Q7c301Q3a1Q7c293Q3a1Q7c294Q3a50QQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em14QQhashZitem335362bfdfQQitemZ220442312671QQptZLHQ5fDefaultDomainQ5f0QQsalenotsupported 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

*************************************** VERY interesting article Snow. I like the tech details. I remember the Czech KAP 3 auto openers. They were used in the US by few jumpers. No electronics at all, just aneroid barosensors, spings, cams etc. I am quite puzzled by the description of the CIA supplied locator beacon and especially the tunable transistor radios used to locate it. I have in interest in special comm gear from Nam and this doesnt fit the description of anything I have heard of. Bailout beacons were widely available and broadcast a signal on 243.0 MHZ. http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0630190 Unfortunately the VC also monitored 243.0 to find out when bailouts occured and to help find the fliers on the ground if they kept the beacons on. Perhaps a URT 21 type beacon was re-crystaled to operate on a less obvious UHF frequency. It is the tunable transistor radios that puzzles me. Generally a tunable 60s-70s vintage transistor radio would be pretty drifty and unstable at UHF frequencies. Second, how could it "locate" the beacon? I have a hand held military surplus radio direction finder from Viet Nam. It actually uses a couple of ordinary 9 volt transistor radio batteries, unusual in that most mil. gear uses exotic one of a kind batteries. It has a small UHF directional antenna and operates on 243.0 MHz. Perhaps these were also recrystaled and were the "transistor radios" referred to. If Cooper was an ex special ops guy could he have used radio gear to rendevous with an accomplice on the ground? Just voice comms might not work because you might not be able to describe your location specifically enough to make a quick rendevous. If you had a beacon and a direction finder the task gets easier. Look at the distances achieved with a URT 21: "Monitoring stations at a distance of 2 to 28 miles from the drop zones reported signals heard from time of parachute deployment until ground contact was made." Nothing inidcates Cooper had any radio gear at all, but it is fun to speculate. The rucksack ripping loose is very telling. These guys were highly experienced yet had this happen. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I am LOVING it! Jerry Springer has left the stadium and the dream team is back on the field. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

No way anyone jumped from an SR 71 other than an emergency ejection. I recently attended a talk by a retired SR 71 pilot. Amazing bird. He recounted taking off from Beale AFB in CA, climbing up over the Pacific and doing huge slow turns at MACH 3 making the sun rise and set repeatedly. Can you imagine making your own sunrises and sunsets but both in the West? The man now teaches high school physics in the Sacramento area and loves his new career. Wonder what else might have been called a blackbird? Migh they have meant "black bird"? When I worked with classified miltary flight hardware we had so called "black aircraft", which were usually specially modified versions of stock military aircraft altered to carry special electronic sensor packages. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Very interesting finds Orange! You and Snow find so much that eludes my searches. I'd guess C 130 Herc on the aircraft. No reason to use a 727. Plenty of Hercs were in the area and capable of flying the mission... but that's just a guess. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I'd like to see the show you watched Orange. I wonder if it is posted anywhere as a video file? I also want to see Safe's logic equations further explained. I attended WFFC for many years and I can only recall one or two events which had no jumper fatalities. Still, I figured that I could, by being very conservative, avoid what happened to those poor souls who died. The collision and wrap at the American Boogie last weekend is my worst nightmare: totally wrapped up in canopy and lines, screaming down and unable to cut away. You just don't have the time to fix it. BSBD 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

MUD Island? Tena Bar sounds a lot more more enticing Orange. I have heard that night jet jump special ops stuff before and it is in a novel, but I have yet to see an authoritative source. It sure sounds like something that would be done to insert stuff or people into sensitive areas. Passenger jets often get to fly over places that military planes cannot, like Cuba etc. A jumpable special ops 727 could pose as a charter airliner or even substitute for a cancelled scheduled flight. A brief slowdown for a HALO jump probably wouldnt be noticed. Sad weekend in CA. Fatal canopy wrap at the American Boogie at Yolo/Davis CA. One dead one seriously injured. See incidents forum for details. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Sounds like peripheral neuropathy Jerry. It can have lots of causes but one of them is plaque clogging the arteries in your legs. This device can actually go inside the arteries, slice the plaque off the walls and extract it. This may seem off topic but it isn't. We want to keep our man on the ground in top shape for finding DBC artifacts. Getting the plaque out can prevent further tissue and nerve degradation caused by inadequate blood circulation to the lower parts of you leg and your feet. Once you restore full circulation it is amazing what improvements are seen in pain and mobility. http://www.ev3.net/peripheral/us/plaque-excision/silverhawk-plaque-excision-system-with-proprietary-mec-technology.htm 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

If you were the patient I hope you are OK Jerry. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Nice job Bruce!!! Thanks you for doing the interview and posting the results. We kinda get this folk hero thing going and paint Cooper as a polite nice guy criminal. Rat saw him entirely differently, as a malevolent violent bad guy who he would have liked to drop into the Pacific Ocean. I wonder why he is so sure Cooper died? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Skydiving is risky, but there are a few things you can do to lower your risk. Just doing conservative non swoop landings away from the crowd can improve your odds hugely. I land like a 747 and I'll gladly land out if the LZ looks too crowded, like during a big boogie with multiple loads landing at once. I could still die skydiving, but I try to look at the stats and avoid the optional behaviors that result in injuries and fatalities. We all have to exit an aircraft to skydive, but we don't all have to do hook turn landings. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Safe, Is that really you in the video??? Duuuude, you are doing GREAT!!!! I am very impressed, really. Just relax, arch a bit more and you are ready for AFF big time. Actually you are ready now, but why not shock your instructors with perfect form on AFF 1? What tunnel is that in the video? BTW your tunnel exit on one of your earliest flights was really good. Almost all newbies flub that part badly. I'll let Snow take the next round in describing our meeting as he is probably more protective of his privacy than I am of mine. I'll let him set the tone. I don't want to say too much. I really liked Snow and most people would have a similar reaction. I plan to see him again. Not a peep from TK. Wish I knew what he was up to. Welcome back! 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

You sound like an engineer Nigel. Are you one? We have quite a few engineers and scientists here and I think they add a lot of value I had never thought of the wave propagation/dissipation issue before. You might have a good point. I do know that the rate intruments are VERY sensitive to dp/dt. I have one (a pilots climb rate indicator +/- 0-6K fpm). If I put it in a sealed blown up baggie along with a cabin altimeter instrument (single pointer type) and jut tap the bag with my finger, the rate instument pointer fluctuates a LOT and the altimeter barely moves at all. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jerry, Do you expect to find Cooper's remains or just a rig? After this many years is it possible that he went in, but we would be unable to prove it? Steve Fosset had only been missing for a year or so and his remains were widely scattered by animals. After decades I wonder what would have remained around his crash site? I do think Cooper's rig is out there somewhere awaiting discovery. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Too quiet here. Please start posting. Otherwise it will look like Jo and Georger are the only people who keep things going here. I still think Cooper's rig has to be out there somewhere. It would have made no sense to bring it out with him and no sense to do more than a cursory job of hiding it. We have a door placard and a money find saying we are looking in the right general area. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I know there are a lot of "girls from Canada" but I can't help but wonder if she might be the same girl from Canada who was kicked out of Pope Valley for a VEEEERRRY low pull. It was back in the early 70s as I recall. She was doing RW with a boyfriend and lost track of him. I saw her getting low, turning and looking, TOTALLY unaware of altitide. I was sure she was going in when she must have caught a glimpse of hilltops above her horizon. She pulled and I still thought she was going in. She got line stretch and then only a couple of seconds of hang time under an inflated canopy. You just couldn't get any closer. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Cutting away at Pope Valley CA knowing that I had just bought my reserve for only $25 was pretty scary. I was a poor college student back then and had been renting reseves until I could find one cheap enough to buy. As I watched the lines peel out of the stows (belly reserve) I remember wondering if a dirt cheap reserve was really such a great idea after all. I really never expected to have to use it (duhhhh). It was a surplus Navy 26 foot conical and despite its low price, it worked like a million bucks. Price really shouldn't affect confidence. After all, your gear is either good ot not good regardless of what you paid. Nevertheless, when I had to do a cutaway at WFFC decades later, I had complete confidence that my $1000 virgin PD 193R would work fine and of course it did. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Wasn't the one that spun in in WA a Learstar? Is a Learstar (go fast Lodestar mod) just viewed as a Lockheed 18-56 Lodestar by the FAA and NTSB? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Gotta admit that I was pleasantly surprised meeting Snowmman. Not a trace of venom or sarcasm, proving that online and offline personalities often have no correlation. Snow is a smart warm hospitable guy who is a real doer. You should see all his impressive projects. He builds the stuff I only daydream about. He may not be joking about the cannons. I did see evidence of something that could launch a projectile over some impressive distances. No need to call Homeland Security Georger, it was used in furtherance of our mutual hobby. I really hope Snow will rejoin the forum, even if only for the 2 week Jo-Georger cease fire. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Twardo, Thanks for the thoughts, but I dont have a PRO ticket or enough balls to jump into tiny landing areas on windy days like you guys do. I like watching demo jumps though. Let me know know when you are doing another Norcal demo. I rarely miss an airshow if it is within driving distance. I have done two cutaways and have never had to use an AAD but I think they are a great idea. I once did a magic carpet jump at WFFC and got kicked in the head so hard I was seeing stars. It is times like that where I am glad I am jumping with batteries just in case. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Your turn Safe. We have two weeks of peace in the valley. Let's put it to good use. Guru, you too. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.