377

Astounding and so very very sad. I had read somewhere that his chute disintegrated. Amazing that it deployed and held together. Wonder what the rig was like and what his decent rate was? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2QobOQnlULUZ7oalSRUVjnlHjng Wow, no back brace either. Portland.... hmmmm 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

G's uncle is correct. That kind of shoe would make Cooper's jump plan seem far better prepared and planned. We equate "loafers" with a scatterbrained ill prepared impulsive Cooper. Shoes make the man. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Georger wrote: Gee Georger... that pretty much describes every guy over 40 who still skydives. I liked your back brace dry cell cold fusion reactor joke. Glad to see your sense of humor come out now and then. Didn't the cold fusion fiasco actually start in Salt Lake City? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Hey Hangdiver, I too saw my first skydiving in Calistoga CA. I was about 12 years old. It was astounding to me, literally the coolest thing in the universe. I counted the days (about 2200) until I turned 18 and could start S/L training with Perry Stevens in Oakland. Glad to see another jumper who got Calistoga fever. I have a feeling your Dad wasn't the only possible Cooper the FBI overlooked. 54 in 1971 is a bit old for Cooper, but guys that age who are in good shape can look younger to witnesses. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I have exchanged a few emails with Cook and despite his odd choices of media (Coast to Coast AM) and that Depoe Bay rag, I find him to be quite far from the Art Bell type kooks in his personal outlook. He is a smart guy. He thinks Gossett is the man. The Dan Cooper comic is a far out speculative connection to DBC, but who knows, it could have inspired the assumed name. I am not sure who first surfaced the Dan Cooper comics. What rules Gossett out? He jumped, he was army special ops trained, had money problems, looks more like the sketch than other suspects, apparently spent time in France and spoke French, had Ft Lewis connections, etc. He has some good credentials to be a possible Cooper. Ckret ignores Gossett, but based on what? Prints? DNA? Alibi? Witnesses? A frequent poster here has a good suspect with perhaps even more Cooper matches than Gossett, but Ckret ignores that too. Ckret must know something that he is not sharing that allows him to summarily dismiss otherwise qualified suspects. Could it be that the FBI has a very good idea who Cooper is/was but lacks unequivocal evidence and is seeking it through the forum? That would explain why Ckret doesn't pursue person leads nearly as much as physical evidence leads. Am I off base in this speculation? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Thought I might catch you in a weak moment Sluggo, but your honor never sleeps. I have tried to get Jo to give you a free pass on airing Duane's records but no go. I will only know Duane through what Jo chooses to say. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I got a really big laugh out of Snow's Duane Weber home brew VOR AM crystal radio recipe. Very creative. I hope Georger got a chuckle too since he definitely understands the technical satire... but he doesnt laugh at much Snowffall. You would do well on Survivor Snow. Jerry too. Could you work together? I paid attention when Sluggo said Duane was not just a petty criminal. I always thought he was but I could be wrong. I ONLY know what Jo posts about him. How about some more info on that Sluggo? What makes you say what you did about him? I am sure there is a basis for your conclusions. Care to share it? Georger, Jo can be ignored easily, just skip her posts or any that respond to or reference them. Its just like tuning past those perpetually drunk foul mouthed guys from Alabama/Tennessee/Arkansas on 80 meter SSB. If you don't like the message, just ignore it and respond to those you choose. You don't have to concede the band to them. 73, 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo replied: That is exactly what they are "guesses" because I have zero knowledge of this kind of thing. Perhaps it is just another of a series of co-incidences - but if anyone thinks of anyway he could have known where that VOR was - please contact me. Jo, You are wasting your time on this one. You don't like what I said about VOR reception by Cooper so you shop for a different opinion, which is OK, but it exemplifies what drives others crazy: If you get info that is inconsistent with your theories you tend to discount it and look elsewhere for supportive info. if you look long enough someone will tell you that Duane could take a 1.5 volt dry cell and a back brace and convert it into a gadget that would receive proximity info from a VOR transmitter. If you look long enough someone will tell you that Duane, through JM Wave, had direct info on 727 jumps in SE Asia. If you keep looking you will find someone who will corroborate your theory that Folsom State Prison inmates were deployed as smoke jumpers. You are free to look for other opinions, but if you find one that supports your gadget VOR reception idea it is 99.99% certain to be bogus. Your approach doesn't really bother me the way it does others, but it wastes time for you chasing down crazy far out unlikely stuff. Shelly raises an interesting point about your use of Duane's last name. I figured you probably just did it on the DBC forums and not in real life. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, Radio reception of VHF VOR frequencies inside a metal airplane fuselage are very impaired. That is why airliners have antennas mounted outside. I doubt if Cooper was doing any radio work in the head. The reception would be very poor. I can't respond to all your guesses about frequencies, gadgets, CB etc. All I can tell you is that the idea of Cooper having some homemade device that could give him an indication of proximity to a VOR is VERY far fetched. Not worth further consideration in my opinion. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

No Jo, that wire vibrating VOR detector idea is waaaay off base. VOR stations have nothing to do with radar. VORs do not detect airplanes. They broadcast navigational radio signals that are received by planes. VOR stations are visually distinct from other types and are characterized by a radial array of antennas. Take a look. http://images.google.com/images?q=VOR%20station&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS305US306&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Wow Snow! If a 727 can vanish what hope do we have a finding perishable jettisoned cargo (Cooper)? Interestingly, a large plane can go down at sea without leaving much of a trace. I cant find it (maybe you can?) but I once read an eyewitness account from some folks who saw a Lockheed Constellation cargo plane come down in a spin in the Caribbean. It hit the sea hard. The observers who were on a sailboat searched the nearby impact area and found only a light oil slick and a few large pieces of butchered beef (the plane was carrying beef cargo). How did ATC radar in 71 get lat lon on plane echoes? Was it just electronically estimated from the position on the scope? As far as I know there was nothing on a domestic NWA 727 in 71 that generated lat lon info. International aircraft had INS gear, but not domestic ones. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, No, I don't think the back brace had any relation to radio gear of any kind. VOR direction data takes a complicated phase detecting circuit to decode and a "plain" VOR ground station (with no DME, distance measuring equipment) will not give range info. The battery described in Cooper's bomb sounds like a 1.5 volt cell which is pretty useless for the kind of VOR proximity "contraption" you envision. A back brace with multiple metal staves would serve no good purpose as a VOR antenna as a VOR receiver would work fine with a small simple whip antenna or even a short piece of wire. Today many cheap aviation walkie talkies have a VOR function which gives you a radial readout indicating the direction to or from the VOR station. These inexpensive units weren't available in 71 as far as I know. Some cheap portable FM radios will actually receive VOR stations at the upper end of the dial, but you get no useful range info, just an audio signal with a voice announcement saying the VOR station name and some Morse code ID too. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Carr is still active. His FBI day job is catching bank robbers, but his professional interest in NORJACK continues. Carr interacts with selected "citizen DBC sleuths" but he no longer posts here, which is a shame. We are the DBC crack ghetto here. You need to move uptown if you want to party with Carr. Have we found DBC? Hell yeah, at least five of them. Bruce thinks there may be even more. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I don't think it's as risky as it looks. The plane's descent rate with the drogue deployed is pretty steady. You could set up your jumpsuit and weight so that you had to arch pretty hard to match the plane's rate. Then it's easy to de arch a bit to slow down and avoid the prop if need be. The dangerous part is the actual entrance into the plane. If you lost your grip and tumbled out without a lot of surface area presented you probably could fall into the prop. I'd have chosen a plane that had a featherable prop. Why take more risk than you need to? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

No bedrock truth type of calibration Cousin Brucie, just checking what kind of Kool Aid you drink. I am an avid reader of all that WTC, UFO and JFK conspiracy/coverup stuff, but I believe the simple explanations. Two planes, one assassin and no alien visitors. I REALLY want the impossibly weird to be true, but all that damned thermodynamics and physics stuff keeps getting between me and belief, so I read Philip K. Dick and HP Lovecraft to get my fix. MK Ultra was real. So was COINTELPRO. They didn't require new age physics, just CIA and FBI bad behavior. You are probably as big a skeptic as I am, but you notice how many tabloids get sold and learn to speak Elvis and UFO really fluently. Hey, a guy needs to pay his rent and buy a few groceries. In hard times, tabloid journalism serves a noble palliative function. Barb Dayton makes a really good Cooper from that angle. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Wonder what the 60s were like for DBC? I see a guy in SE Asia and going through some very stressful stuff. Just a hunch. I just can't get that Air America smoke jumper CIA SE Asia 727 linkage out of my head. I just don't picture Cooper as a guy who had a lot of free time and free love experiences during the 60s. His formality ("excuse me miss") tells me he was in a different space. i think Bruce might have something to say about this. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Gee Snow, dont you have any nostalgia for the 60s? Maybe you were hard core east coast Weather Underground while others were reaping the immediate benefits of the kumbaya approach in Berkeley. That cold weather makes people bitter, vengeful and over clothed. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

What might that "other evidence" be Georger? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Safe, If posting conspiracy theories is all it takes to bring you back to the forum I'll post em a lot. I have a key word set and decision tree macro that can generate an MS Word doc setting forth pretty good conspiracy theories on any subject. Art Bell was a licensee. It is no coincidence that Norjack took place in the same area of the Pacific NW targeted by the so called Fugu Balloons during WW 2. These were no more Japanese balloons than the Roswell UFO was an American one. People were killed by Fugus, so don't listen to those CIA drones that say UFOs have never harmed anyone. Welcome back and stick around a bit this time. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Bruce, I have a job for you writing the next Bourne Identity screenplay. I love this far out MK Ultra CIA conspiracy stuff. I don't think it really happened, but I love fantasizing that it might have. Kinda the way I feel about UFOs and Sasquatch. Do you think that the WTC buildings were brought down solely by the impact/fire damage from the two hijacked airliners? Was Oswald the lone JFK assassin? I just am running a calibration check on you to get a reference point. Please don't take offense. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Im more concerned with failure to eat (under stress) prior to a jump - can cause dizziness and elevated heart rythm (metabolic) in older men. Can result in metabolic crash if blood sugars drop (loss of blood pressure and body temp). Cooper asked food be brought to the plane for the crew - did he eat any? Ive brought this up before but nobody addressed it. Ahhh, Georger sees a possible diminshed capacity defense if Cooper is ever caught. Although I am sure it was sensationalized by the press, Dan White's defense in the murder of SF Mayor George Moscone and gay activist supervisor Harvey Milk was based on a claim of hypoglycemia and/or insulin shock brought on by eating Hostess Twinkies and has been called the Twinkie defense. Airline peanuts are actually pretty healthy, but we dont know what he consumed other than Burbon. How could you handle a Burbon drink glass or cup without getting your prints on it? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

That C 141 hijacker had nothing on this guy: http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-4694.html Can you imagine a non pilot taking a cold C 130, starting it up, taking off and getting it going across the English Channel? Rumors are that it was shot down by USAF F 16s. Poor guy. Didn't harm anyone. He was wacked out about something and wanted to get home fast. Many years ago a crew chief took an A4 Skyhawk jet for a successful joyride at a USMCAS El Toro in Orange County CA. Cooper should have just kicked the crew off at the holding point for the take off runway and assumed command. What a wus. With the autopilot he still could have made his jump. Of course, with no crew aboard the F 106's might have been considerably less restrained. I bet they'd love to have a 727 kill stenciled next to their cockpit. The SAGE boys would have loved vectoring the intercept. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I know of no standards on this Georger. I have a jumper friend who enjoys doing HAHO lunch jumps, really. He has a special lunch pouch that fastens to the front of his harness. He eats his lunch while flying under canopy. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Great job! 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.