377

The Duane sailor picture shows (to my eye) very prominent protruding ear structure. Kids with ears like that were teased and called DUMBO, the Disney cartoon elephant who flew by flapping his ears. I don't see such ears in the Cooper FBI sketches. Do ears like this on a a 16 year old youth tuck in more flush with the head as he ages? Georger? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Very interesting Snow. I see a lot of places to land OK. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

377, I think this is what you refer to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident Georger - lol Thanks Georger. My memory was inaccurate, it was optical not seismic artifacts that started the mystery. Here is another mystery "blast?" for you. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0DEFDC133BF932A15756C0A963948260 Feynman is gone but the legend lives on. I read one of his book, the one with "surely you jest" in the title. Huge brain, but huge ego too. Been thinking about Cooper and the fact that no really likely suspects went permanently missing after the caper. Makes me think he lived and went back to his normal life as if nothing had happened. Just a guess though, he might have died on the jump and never been found. Some mysteries just never get solved. 377 your reading is inaccurate too twas i posted the link ... the one-word message to Georger after it seems to have confused you Thanks for setting it straight Orange, I am easy to confuse. You are quite the Internet researcher. You and Snow have the special "friends of Sergey" password for the Turbo Google, don't you. Please say yes. Then I won't feel so bad for being out 727'd by you guys. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

377, I think this is what you refer to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident Georger - lol Thanks Georger. My memory was inaccurate, it was optical not seismic artifacts that started the mystery. Here is another mystery "blast?" for you. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0DEFDC133BF932A15756C0A963948260 Feynman is gone but the legend lives on. I read one of his book, the one with "surely you jest" in the title. Huge brain, but huge ego too. Been thinking about Cooper and the fact that no really likely suspects went permanently missing after the caper. Makes me think he lived and went back to his normal life as if nothing had happened. Just a guess though, he might have died on the jump and never been found. Some mysteries just never get solved. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Back in the day some Cal Club jumpers were over a cloud later when they exited but were somehow sure of their position. The landed deep inside the Lawrence Livermore nuke weapons lab. The guards FREAKED OUT!! Our boys were lucky to be alive. Wasn't there some strong localized seismic event off South Africa a long time ago that was correlated with some other nuke blast indicator and world opinion/suspicion pointed to Israel? Any of you have the secret decoder ring for Jo's last post? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, Why must the "fat lady" sing in encrypted verse? I cannot make sense of your post. You found two books, but you will not scan the covers... uh OK, but why not? Is one the Necromonicron? Just kidding. Sometimes you make the CIA look straight forward by comparison. Please be more direct. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I said "most" loadstar. from what I hear you could land a mohawk sideways on the runway. Wanna low time airworthy Mohawk of your own? http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/N631OV-1B%20Mohawk%20Spec.htm 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Howard, Is there a jumpship that you do NOT have a photo of? You have amazed me with C 97, Boeing 307, 749 Connie, Argosy, etc. How about a Learstar? Convair 240-440 series? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Got that right Snow. Death before discolor. I had a pink reserve for a short while. I vowed to just burn in if I had a malfuntion. A pink reserve makes you pack your main very very carefully. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

So what about Jo's hardware recollection? Flawed memory as to shape and structure ? Odd shaped carabiner? Or? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Orange, If you have a nut allergy you need to stay far away from this forum. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Cooper is a hard act to follow. How do you top his caper in today's world? It was right out of a James Bond movie, but Bond was a criminal this time. What do you do now? Buy one of those rich guy astronaut positions and then hijack the International Space Station for ransom? Escape in a MIR pod that is delivered and docked on your command? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Snow, Sluggo, what might Jo be describing above? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

This has been humbling. Now I know how the non jumpers feel when we sling around terms about our specialized gear. To me a carabiner was a timeless clip of some kind that rock climbers used when doing what they do. They were also worn as mega jewelry or lures of some sort when hanging around the lodge at Yosemite trying to impress tourist girls. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Congratulations

1969912 and Joe, Good points about carabiners and the chest strap limiting upward travel. I am pretty sure this would have worked. My chest reserve clips could each attach to a carabiner and the carabiners could clip onto the main lift webbing. hmmm... Snow is a climber, please chime in on hardware and who even knew about carabiners in 1971 besides climbers. Now carabiners (not climbing grade) are on keychains and kids backpacks, but it was a more obscure piece of hardware in 71. Jo Weber, could it have been a carabiner that you sold at the garage sale? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Hmmm, I see what you mean, it does look a lot more triangular than the reserve D rings I recall from back in the day. Do you think a couple of carabiners would have solved Cooper's problem of how to attach the reserve to the main harness? Could you just clip to the webbing? I think you could but I am not a rigger. They could slide up and down the webbing but I think they wouold stay attached even in a jet jump. Carabiners do look a bit triangular and they are not sewn in, you can carry them in your pocket to answer Jo's question. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

can you post a link to the picture Jo? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Rigger question: if Cooper brought carabiners (like rings that can be clipped onto something) with him, could he have securely clipped the reserve container onto the NB6 or NB 8, whatever the main harness/container actually was? Carabiner: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.rei.com/media/763404.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rei.com/product/737864&usg=__BHds3YQOnhzgH6ojBkSbG0XWjlA=&h=440&w=440&sz=27&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=mkCpLYUneWzOJM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcarabiner%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GPEA_enUS294US294%26sa%3DN Jo, does this look like the garage sale item? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I was a plane nut and a skydiver in 71. I looked at every plane as a potential jumpship. I saw plenty of 727s with the stairs down. It may sound dumb, but never occured to me that they could be used for an inflight exit. I figured that there had to be all sorts of interlocks preventing their deployment in flight. I assumed also (incorrectly) that their deployment would give a very dangerous pitch down aerodynamic force. There was an airshow act back then that had a pylon mounted on top of a DC 8 to which a stuntman was attached as sort of a "wing walker". He didn't really walk anwhere, it was just a low flyby and steep climbout with a guy on top of a big jet transport. We thought they should have sweetened the act with a zero G roll and have the guy jump off with a chute. I guess the chances of a tail strike were pretty high. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Congratulations Georger! Post or PM a baby photo when you get a chance. There are few life events as joyous as the arrival of a healthy baby into a family that wants him/her. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Good point Georger. I wonder what might have been left out? You gotta hand it to the crew though, they made all the right decisions to maximize their chances of survival. In the end, although a credible threat of extreme violence (the bomb) was made, nobody got hurt except perhaps Cooper. I also have to give the FBI credit for managing to gather recorded S/N cash and chutes on such short notice. I also credit them with good judgement in NOT storming the plane. I wish the same restaint had been shown at Waco TX. A lot of kids would be alive today had the same restraint been shown there. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I too made my first freefall jumps with no altimeter. I got REALLY good at estimating altitude by looking at cars. I counted out loud as taught and it worked well. It was funny back then, an altimeter was something you had to earn the right to use by demonstrating that you didn't really need one. My first altimeter was pulled from a wrecked airplane. It was big, heavy and probably would have taken out all my front teeth if I had a really hard opening. I collect unusual skydiving altimeters and always jump with at least two. A sarcastic jumper once asked when I was wearing three (two wrist, one chest pillow): "if they disagree which one is right". "The low one" was my reply. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Rat as a murderer? Let's say Rat succeeded in his premeditated plan to have Cooper exit over the Pacific where he would certainly have died. Not that any prosecutor would pursue it, but wouldn't it be a homicide? How could it be self defense? Once Cooper is out the door the threat from him is gone regardless of whether he exits over land or sea. Rat's vindictive plan really had nothing to do with the safety of the crew. He just wanted to kill Cooper. A good defense lawyer would argue that the diversion over the Pacific was to avoid killing people on the ground if the bomb exploded after Cooper exited so that Rat's action was really "in defense of others". 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Its a goldmine. Why dont you forward it Sluggo for his website ? GREAT work guys! Now I am really wondering if Cooper intended a quick exit after TO as Ckret contends. How can we resolve the question about his intended exit point just from the depressurization command and attempts to have the crew take off with the stairs down? Is it possible Cooper exited exactly where he had planned to? How much navigational awareness did Cooper have as the flight progressed? If Rat had tried to execute his plan to have Cooper exit over the Pacific Ocean, would Cooper have known and directed the plane back to the coast? Snow once again has unearthed richly detailed 727 tech info that has eluded me. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.