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I havent heard that term since the sixth grade when it was used to signify that a bully kid wanted to fight me. I fought him and lost badly, but I got lots of points for not backing down. Jo is getting feisty again! Hope it means an upturn in health. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

What is interesting on the SAGE data flow diagram is the inclusion of USAF height finding radars. Normal ATC radars cannot determine target altitude and rely on altitude encoding transponders on the planes for that info. The McChord height finding radar (which scans up and down vertically) might have tracked a freefalling object and its data might have told us if Cooper opened and at what altitude. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Give RADOMES a shout Snow. I still marvel that SAGE actually functioned. It had the world's largest sized computer, a record that will surely stand. It used thousands of vacuum tubes and consumed megawatts of power. According to the author below, the phone bills to link the sites ran over a million dollars a month. http://news.aol.com/article/green-comet/347278 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Good points Snow. The 35 mm film system in SAGE was not really an archival system but was a kludgey way to get near real time big screen projections like the NORAD scenes in Dr Strangelove. The film was exposed by a CRT to give sequential screen shots. The shots were chemically developed immediately in an automated continuous process. The resulting 35 mm film strips were then optically projected on a big situation map lagging the real time radar data by less than a minute as I recall. Wish we knew more about the post hijack radar analysis and to what extent the USAF experts were involved in analysing PDX radar data. Somewhere, a brief Cooper exit echo likely existed. It is pretty obvious that it was either not seen or not recognized for what it was. The chances of any useful recording surviving today is very low. Wonder if USAF radar saw the Air America 727 paradrops? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

USAF SAGE radar at McChord stored sequential radar images on 35 mm photo film, but a software feature made it highly likely that any Cooper exit echo was masked by a data block window that surrounded the echo of any plane with an operating transponder. I had email correspondence with several SAGE engineers who gave me the sad news about the data block window. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

good reply, understood. Can this old radar distingish a body from a chute? ANSWER: I don't know, but highly doubt it. The strength of the echo from an object suspended in air is roughly proportional to the density difference between the object and the air. A canopy would be a much weaker target than a body. I wonder if anyone has ever filed a FOI request for the McChord tapes ? I doubt it. ANSWER: Don't know. Unlikely they would still be preserved. Also, mag tape degrades over time. Three years ago I found a brand new still in the wrapper cassette tape from about 1975. I tried playing it. It was horribly distorted and had visible oxide separation on the tape face. Presumably the trailing jets didnt get a radar return either? ANSWER: those types of jets (F 106 and T 33) did not have radar capable of processing or displaying this type of echo in a usable manner. They have very small aperture nose mounted antennas with poor angular discrimination capability. Airliners have the same setup. These types of radar are fine for spotting storm cells but are not high performance air search radars. There is a reason why the AWACS plane has a BIG radar rotodome on top. You need a big aperture antenna to discriminate small targets. The now retired US Navy F 14 had a nose mounted radar that could do some impressive air search work, but it was quite different from the simple radars carried by the Cooper chase planes. The Iranians still have F 14s but keep them away from direct air to air combat preferring to use them instead as "mini AWACS" utilizing their still impressive Hughes radars. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The Doppler velocity filters would eliminate the rain reflections as they are going too slow to meet the frequency shift criteria to pass through as a likely aircraft target. The issue would be signal attenuation with all the rain between the radar transceiver and the target of interest. ATC radar is usually very powerful so that its performance is not materially impaired in normal rainfall. It just kills me that there was probably a brief Cooper exit echo before his forward velocity decayed below the Doppler cutoff and perhaps nobody even looked for it. Reply> Huh? Care to translate that ? Sure, although I bet you know all about it without my explanation. ATC radar wants to see only aircraft. The designers build in filters that exclude echoes from stationary or very slow moving targets, using Doppler shift to calculate speed. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/395288/moving-target-indication-radar When Cooper exited, his body forward speed was about the same as the plane's hence his echo would be displayed. His forward speed would decay as the jump progressed eventually putting him below the Doppler cutoff and his echo would no longer be displayed. For a few seconds, Cooper's exit echo may have been displayed but unnoticed. That's why I want to know what happened to the tapes. East coast ATC radar operators in the early 70s could see jumpers exiting 60 miles away. Some controllers could give the jumpship pilots an accurate count of how many jumpers just exited. I have personally spoken with both FAA and military air traffic controllers who have seen exiting jumpers on their radar screens. It is not urban legend. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Georger, You might consider changing your chimp avatar, unless you are intending to convey a message consistent with the true nature of the beast. In captivity, they can be violent irrational animals, trusted tranquil anthropomorphic pets that turn into land sharks. Turns out chimps have muscle power that is phenomenally higher than any human. Did you read about the latest attack? Michael Jackson better pick some new pals. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GPEA_enUS294US294&q=chimp+attacks 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The Doppler velocity filters would eliminate the rain reflections as they are going too slow to meet the frequency shift criteria to pass through as a likely aircraft target. The issue would be signal attenuation with all the rain between the radar transceiver and the target of interest. ATC radar is usually very powerful so that its performance is not materially impaired in normal rainfall. It just kills me that there was probably a brief Cooper exit echo before his forward velocity decayed below the Doppler cutoff and perhaps nobody even looked for it. I wonder if it was a strobe that was flashed or landing lights (brighter and visible from most directions if they illuminate moisture ahead if the plane). If you watch flights approaching from the opposite direction at night, away from airports, you often see them flash a landing light "hello" to each other. Used to see it a lot out at sea. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I hope Jerry joins the forum. We need some new blood, fresh perspectives, etc. Still wonder what happened to the original ATC raw radar tapes. They are routinely preserved after an aviation accident or major incident. Where did they go? Who looked at them? I have said it before, but we have first hand testimony from jump pilots and controllers that ATC radar of that era could not only see jumpers exiting but in enough detail for accurate counts. Controllers who have never seen this would bet against it and hence nobody may have thought about looking for a Cooper exit echo. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Dan Cooper went to Lagos and set up an army of fax and Telex scammers in 1972 using the ransom money as seed capital. He became so rich that he quit the business. Internet 419 advance fee fraud was left to the newcomers who faced a far more skeptical audience than Cooper faced in the golden years. Get in early and get out before it gets crowded was Cooper's mantra. By applying that philosophy to jet jump hijackings and wire fraud, Cooper retired a wealthy man. He was amused but not surprised at the failures which befell his subsequent imitators. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Lets say some of the Cooper money did circulate. What record would there be that could be resurrected now? I have concluded from some VERY crude statistical thinking that the Cooper money could have circulated in the US without a hot serial number being found. If it was spent abroad the likelihood of non detection is even higher. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The DB Cooper legend just wont die. Nobody is paying for Eldridge Cleaver impersonators these days. Wonder who will land the DB Cooper job and how much they will resemble the FBI drawings? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Neither. Last seen, DBC was right in the middle, between the left and right wing positions. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

OMG, quality grades on forum posts??? I'd better dust off my dunce cap from second grade. I kinda like the chaos of this forum, but I may be alone in this sentiment. Even with the lack of discipline we manage to get some good signals extracted from the noise. I have learned a lot about Air America's covert air ops, Boeing 727 systems, river hydrology and USFS smoke jumper ties to CIA ops in SE Asia. Sure we waste time on tangents, but there are some smart people here and from time to time they come up with some amazing stuff that could be Cooper related. Skydiving culture is pretty entropic. The only thing that is always neat, organized and symmetrical is a reserve pack job. The loose non conformist aspect of skydiving culture has always appealed to me. It peaked in the 60s but still runs deep at most DZs. Jacques Istel, a true skydiving pioneer, tried to impose a military like discipline in his early organized skydiving activities. Maybe it was necessary "back in the day" to get credibility and dispel the "sky biker" image. It didn't last. The only thing that skydiving has in common with its highly organized military equivalent is parachutes and airplanes. Even with a traditionally loose and laid back culture, skydivers can still effect top notch professional discipline and precision when needed. Look at the huge ways in Thailand if you doubt that. Freedom and chaos have something in common and jumpers enjoy the mix. I sure do. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

What Quade said. This forum generates a lot of traffic and that is good for the website's financial survival. Nobody gets sucked into this forum involuntarily. You have to click to enter and it is just as easy to leave. Sure we "waste bandwidth" but no more than the soapbox does. If skydivers find the Cooper stuff interesting that's reason enough to keep this forum open... and Quade is right, we are kinda quarantined here. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I have had two cutaway reserve rides, one in a $25 second hand Navy 26 ft conical round and the other in a virgin $900 PD 193R. Both landings fortunately were standups. There are distinctive advantages to each type, but if I had to pick one it would be (and is) the ram air. When you jump in winds you had better have a reserve that can handle them. A round is pretty limited in this regard because it has such low forward drive speed. I still have my 26 foot Navy conical, but is kept for sentimental reasons and not for jumping. Fortunately, the day I had to use it the winds were under 5 knots. Look up "Beatnik" posts for a video of a recent canopy collision and cutaways to round reserves. Not a common sight these days. One of the deploying antique reserves leaves a long and very visible dust contrail as it opens. Simple rounds, for reasons that baffle me, are less reliable than complex ram air squares. Anti inversion diapers on rounds improved things, but a square is still your best bet for a reliable opening without a canopy malfunction. If you have better reliability and better ability to control where you land if you choose a square, why go with a round? If you have two out you might be better off if one were round but in all other situations I can envision I'd want a square reserve. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

LOL, literally. Snow, you forgot Japan's crude but functional balloon launched nuke that blew up over Tunguska in 1908. It was an airburst facilitated by a paradrop device, just like they used on the WW2 Fuga balloons. Everything that really matters has been covered up. Just try and get the truth about Mt St. Helens or Tunguska and you will see exactly what I am talking about. And while we are talking about balloons, let's not forget Roswell. Their code? volcano=fusion nuke meteor=fission nuke balloon=UFO sailor=secret agent 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Calsitoga California, 1960s. DZ was on the airport grounds which had an active glider operation too. Saw my first skydiving there around age 13. I was HOOKED. It was, to me, the coolest thing in the entire universe. Talked to the jumpers who were incredibly patient with a whuffo kid. They let me hold line tension in packing, answered a zillion 'kid" questions and told me to join them when I turned 18. I counted the days, but when I made my first jump at age 18, the Calistoga DZ was gone. I made my first jump at Livermore CA, another lost DZ. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, If this were true, how could Snow or Georger change the imagery available to everyone on Google Earth? I think they are really clever guys, but they are still mortals and do not control space, time or Google. Isn't the more likely explanation faulty memeory or that you were remembering a different location? Moving the Fazio house through digital trickery does not serve the purpose of any conspiracy that I can envision. I still welcome your participation here do hope your medical situation improves. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I really am enjoying the tutorials on river hydrology. I keep wondering what happened to the canopy? Could it stay in the river if Cooper went in as a no pull? Could it stay in the river if Cooper went in the river under an open canopy? If Cooper was killed on land, I think his remains and/or his gear would have been found by now. I know it's terribly simplistic, but the fact that the harness/container and canopy were never found makes it likely (to me) that Cooper either survived and hid them or that he went into the river and remains there. Big items (logs) get washed ashore, but their bouyancy has a lot to do with that. I don't know what the river would do with a body and parachute gear. I know that non bouyant logs stay under for decades. A guy is making a living raising half century old cut logs from the riverbed of Big River near Mendocino CA. Similar projects are happening elsewhere. Have old bodies ever been recovered from the beds of rivers similar to the Columbia? Don't sunken bodies often float a few days later as gas from decay inflates body cavities? I favor a Cooper survival, but I am too biased to be objective. We know where some of the money ended up. We know where the door placard ended up. We have no idea where the largest and perhaps most durable items ended up i.e. the canopy and related gear. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I agree with Bill. Like him, I am an engineer. I talked a lot of shop with the SSK and Airtec guys at WFFC and they are very sharp. This is not to say that the competition lacks anything, but these guys really knew about software validation and QC, component aging and environmental factors affecting reliabilty. They also outfitted me and a few other volunteers with Airtec black box recorders and had us do a high speed C 130 exit to see what kind of pressure transients were recorded. That impressed me, constant research, always looking for bugs, even in a mature product. Airtec also had a better field response to the Thailand misfires than their competition did. I hate 12 year Cypres life but as an EE I can see some valid reasons for it. Components, especially certain types of memory circuits and capacitors, change with age. Will a 15 year old Cypres that passes a self test work? It probably will, but I can tell you that some component values and characteristics will have changed significantly from the date of mfr. I hate the limited life, but I like the required periodic checks. It forces you to get your AAD looked at and tested in far greater detail than a self dignostic can do. I looked long and hard at the alternatives but ended up replacing my expired Cypres 1 with a new Cypres 2. I think the other AADs are good and are quite a bit cheaper in the long run, but I like Airtec's lengthy AAD design experience. I used to work for a company that made implantable heart defibrillators. In some ways they are similar to AADs in that they use circuits to detect a critical situation and deliver a life saving jolt of electrical power to the heart in one case and a cutter in the other. I know how hard it is to design and test for every possible combination of inputs, events and component aging. Experience counts. Newbies make mistakes that the old timers made and solved years ago. Look at the cutter design and mfg stumbles that some of the newer AAD makers made. Anyone can hire some engineers and build a good AAD today since the tough pioneering work was done a long time ago. I'd just rather be wearing one built and maintained by the company with the most experience in the business. That company is Airtec. 377 first jump 1968 early AAD user, SSE Sentinel and Sentinel MK 2000 2 cutaways, 0 AAD fires 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Snow, From my canopy (and one balloon flight) experience and what I remember from my physics classes there is no difference in canopy performance in high or low winds once the canopy relative speed imparted by freefall or plane exit bleeds off. After that, you cannot tell if you are in zero wind or high wind as the canopy is drifting with the wind. You can see this effect riding in a hot air balloon. You can be in a high wind but there is no wind relative to the balloon. Near terrain you get turbulence and flow gradients that disturb things, but at a high altitude AGL in a steady wind you'd have no differences in canopy performance over a zero wind condition. If I am wrong, chime in. Pilots frequenly debate a similar question and get pissed off at each other arguing. They argue about whether you lose more altitude (or have a higher stall speed) in a downwind turn than an upwind turn. I say they are the same if you are talking about airpseed, not ground speed. In thermals or other updrafts you can go up under an inflated canopy. I have done that a few times. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

*** No wonder it's so fun to be here. Great work on the river stuff Snow! An amazing amount of stuff gets washed ashore on the banks and even washed out to sea. What are the chances that a body would remain underwater in the river channel and for how long? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Yeah, the Navy titling on the hat was pretty clear. What was the mystery? Jo has promised us that the fat lady would sing, but I don't hear anything yet. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.