377

When NEW they were like sieves. Put a few hundred jumps on them and you could seine fish with them. My tired old C9 gave me REALLY hard landings, but it built my character and sure as hell taught me how to do a good PLF every time. If I didn't do a good PLF, the structural integrity of my bones would have been compromised. I made a few LoPo jumps, commercial rounds with low porosity fabric (hence the LoPo name). Man what a difference. It was agony to go back to my bone crunching C9, but I just couldnt afford the good gear back then. Today I jump a Triathlon 190 ram air canopy that gives me gentle landings every time. If you haven't jumped cheapos (surplus rounds were called cheapos, mocking LoPos) you cannot truly appreciate squares. These kids today don't know how good they have it blah blah blah.... 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I am 99% sure the bailout rig did not have a diaper. They showed up on round reserves late in the game and reduced inversion malfunctions. Riggers can chime in here. The C9 is an incredibly strong canopy having continuous suspension lines reinforcing the entire canopy unlike other round canopies where they are just attached to the skirt by stitching and end there. C9s were desiged for jet ejections. They are not indestructable, but they are very very robust. My old C9 had a high descent rate (porous ripstop nylon material) but I never worried about its strength. If you limited UV exposure they were like the Rock of Gibralter. Now that we know about squidding and have a rough idea of the NWA 727 exit speed I think the chances of a malfunction or major canopy damage are very very low. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, Squidding refers to the appearance of the round canopies in the 727 film before they are fully inflated, looking like a squid with a bulbous head (partially inflated canopy) and tentacles (suspension lines) trailing. Round canopies deployed at high speeds apparently have a natural aerodynamic characteristic that slows inflation. This was really good news for Cooper. As I said before, if he pulled above approx 800 ft AGL he was very likely OK, suspended under an open intact canopy without major injuries, but as Wolfriver Joe pointed out, landing is a whole different matter and fraught with peril under the conditions Cooper faced that night. I previously thought that the opening shock in an unsleeved round deployed right out of a 727 would be HUGE, but obviously I was wrong. I try to keep an open mind and don't mind being wrong. You learn that way. If Cooper knew about the Air America jumps then his choice of the military bailout rig over the sport rig was not at all irrational. A sleeve (which slows canopy inflation) wasn't really needed for a safe jump. I thought I knew a lot about round canopies, but seeing that 727 film showed me that I still had a lot to learn. A fatal river landing would be consistent with the evidence we have so far, but we sure cannot rule out a safe landing. I like to think Cooper landed safely. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Years ago there was a very high speed video on the Internet showing the results of govt funded research on C9 canopy dynamics. I can't find it now. It showed an overspeed overweight deployment and disintegration of a C9 in incredible detail, very high frame rate. Other videos in the series showed inversions and other C9 malfunctions. Maybe Snow can find it. Given what we know about the exit speed and the canopy Cooper used, I think if he pulled the ripcord at any point from exit to about 800 ft AGL he got an intact canopy. No detached or dissected aortas, no debilitating opening shock, perhaps some aches and pains but alive and under a functional canopy. The Air America 727 static line video was an eye opener for me. I did a DC 9 jet jump, but it was a long delay and a square canopy. I had no idea you could deploy a round right out the door of a 727 and have such a decent opening. The "squiding" of the canopies apparently slowed down the deployment. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I remember my first jump class in 68. We used surplus gear quite similar to what Cooper jumped with. We all had to be shown how to put the gear on. To someone who had never worn a harness of any kind it wasn't immediately apparent what strap went where. Sure sounds to me that this was not the first time Cooper had donned a rig. Any other jumpers care to comment? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Battling??? Go to Gaza if you want to see a battle. I like to think of this forum as a spirited dialogue among civilized colleagues. We jab at each other once in a while, but there is no blood. Jo, I agree that Duane did many very odd things. Some of them are highly puzzling to me. None of them positively make him Cooper or even link him to the crime peripherally, in my opinion. I am not Cooper, but some things in my history could be seen as consistent with being Cooper: travel to Seattle in 71, skydiver with surplus gear experience, plane nut with 727 manual, broke, copy of Cooper hijack newspaper story, etc. The point I keep trying to make is that there is a huge gigantic difference between evidence that says you could be Cooper and evidence that proves you are. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

That website text is funny. 14 year old webmaster? Well, at these wages they aren't gonna lure anyone out of Silicon Valley. Did you see the posting for FBI woodworker? Weren't the Watergate burglars referred to as "carpenters"? Do SA's moonlight to pay their mortgages? Read below and you'll see why I ask. Special Agent As the primary investigative arm of the federal government, the FBI is responsible for protecting the United States by preventing future terrorist attacks, conducting sensitive national security ...[more] Vacancy Ann.#: SA-FO-2009-0003 Who May Apply: Public Pay Plan: GS-1811-10/10 Appointment Term: Permanent Job Status: Full-Time Opening Date: 10/6/2008 Salary: From 49,347.00 to 67,220.00 USD per year So you can be an FBI SA and earn under 50K annually? A street cop in Oakland CA laterally transferring from another PD makes a minimum of 70K and can go as high as 87K and needs only a HS diploma or GED! Underpaid FBI agents actually introduces an increased risk of corruption. Yeah, I am Cooper, but if you'll pass on me I'll give you $100K in cash. Not impossible. The fact that approx. 99% of McCoy's cash loot was recovered speaks volumes about the honesty of the SAs in that arrest. When I worked in the public defenders office, small time heroin dealers routinely reported discrepancies between the amount of cash seized and the amount reported by the police. I would always ask them if they wanted to file a complaint with internal affairs. Of course not one of them did. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, I am not kind to you just to be "nice." I think you are 100% sincere in your beliefs and deserve to be treated respectfully. I may rib you now and then but I hope I never insult you. You indeed have devoted your life to this matter. That kind of perserverance, even if misdirected, is something to take notice of and I do. I don't have to agree with you conclusions though and I don't. Respectfully, I really don't think you have answered my question. Your evidence is just as consistent with a Cooper wannabe situation as it is with your late husband really being Cooper. It is your beliefs and conclusions, not the evidence itself, that tips it towards the latter of the two possible explanations in your view. That view isn't shared by most folks here, if any. If there is anyone here besides Jo who thinks Duane was Cooper, step forward and tell us why. A lost ticket stub, a bag and even a covert drop of material from a bridge are not proof that Duane was Cooper. Maybe there was no con being planned, maybe Duane just liked the idea of being a very successful and famous crook instead of who he really was. Look at how many falsely claimed to be secret survivors of the Czars murdered family. Fame is hard to earn, so some pilfer it. Show me something that UNAMBIGUOUSLY says Duane was Cooper , something that does not require a leap of faith, and I will pay close attention. A hot twenty, some of the gear he jumped with, anything indisputably connected to the crime will suffice. Ambiguous evidence is just that: ambiguous, capable of supporting multiple theories of the case. You have a lot of that and none of the former. Could Duane have been Cooper? I suppose its not been ruled out. I still have an open mind, but I need unambiguous evidence rather than conclusions before I join in your theory of the case. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Don't you think this kid was well on the way?: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Radioactive-Boy-Scout1nov98.htm Interesting finds about the weather and moonlight Snow. The FBI's freezing dark stormy night has morphed into something a bit less hostile, thanks to FACTS. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

None of the above. We calculate the risk, but with hugely flawed assumptions always biased towards making the jump. Where you do a careful 3D topo model, canopy flight model, wind info and stat matrix, we skydivers just think: "how hard is it to miss a wire less than an inch in diameter in a known location?" "Superior knowledge?" Not in skydiving. Just superior confidence, even if frequently unjustified. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Did read it Snow. Absolutely riveting. His screen name was Iceman. Any relation? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

How do you possibly stay on top of all this stuff???? Admit it Snow, you are the principal architect of the MATRIX. It wouldn't be your first major system design. There is no other logical explanation. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, What if Duane was pretending to be Cooper? Wouldn't that also fit the facts as you know them? What fact in Duane's past tells you that he was Cooper rather than a pretender? 377 Jo, Have you answered this basic question? This is why Duane, Gosset and many other self professed Dan Coopers are taken lightly. Show me a hot twenty dollar bill or anything indisputably connecting Duane to the crime. All the evidence you have offered is equally consistent with a wannabe Cooper as it is with a real Cooper. Isn't it possible that Duane saw a possible con in the Cooper story? He wouldn't have been the first. That would explain his researching it at your library. If you could convince someone that you were Cooper and had buried loot, you might be able to con them out of some front money. There is no proof that Duane did this, but he had more experience as a con artist than as a parachutist. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, That would be because we are investigating DB Cooper, not Duane Weber. so no-one, except maybe Sluggo, is or was actively looking at piecing the Duane pieces together. There are explanations for the stuff, but none you want to believe. Duane was not the only person who confessed to being Cooper. Gossett's son is convinced his dad was Cooper, too. (I hope that was "nice enough" for 377 and Snow.) Indeed it was "nice enough" Orange

They do inflate and billow very well in water but do not float or rise to the surface, at least in my deep water experience. I once watched a sailboat preparing to deploy a para sea anchor off his bow without a float or a trip line (attached to the apex for collapsing and retrieving the chute). I called him on the radio and he answered. I politely warned him that he needed a float and a trip line. He disagreed and told me that the wind would keep his boat horizontal to the canopy and argued with me. I wished him good luck and told him I'd stand by as he might be needing help soon. There was a big swell and 35-40 kts of wind. After a short time the chute sunk and pretty soon the line from his bow was pointing nearly straight down and he was burying his bow in the waves. The bow couldn't lift as it was being held down by the deployed canopy. He had to go to the bow at considerable risk (seas were breaking over him) cut his line and abandon his chute. It might have sunk him had he not jettisoned it. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Good points Steve. I have over 100 jumps on surplus rounds (T, TU, LL mods etc) and echo your observations about their poor performance as aircraft. From what I have read, Cooper had a steerable 28 foot C9 bailout canopy, which would certainly have little forward drive. I always viewed my surplus round canopies as rotatable rather than steerable if there was much wind. Sure, I know about vectors, but when the wind was blowing hard it seemed like all you could change was the view angle rather than the destination. Wish we knew more about visibility and landing area that night. If the body of water was very large and there were no nearby lights to define a shoreline, it sure would be easy to mistake the Columbia for dirt and take no measures to avoid it. Wouldn't that be a bitch to pull off the heist of the century, get a good deployment out of a 727, be coming down onto what looked like a nice flat landing area and then splash into deep frigid water? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, What if Duane was pretending to be Cooper? Wouldn't that also fit the facts as you know them? What fact in Duane's past tells you that he was Cooper rather than a pretender? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

http://cgi.ebay.com/FBI-100th-Anniv-Aviation-Security-Patch-Set-x5-PATCHES_W0QQitemZ230317575761QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item230317575761&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A4|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Just-added-FBI-100th-Anniv-Aviation-Patch-DB-COOPER_W0QQitemZ230317898934QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item230317898934&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A4|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A200 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Sounds like Beatnik has a FrankenPC. I can see the rig now, squeeze type Capewell on one side, pull ring type on the other. Hey, it's all vintage so it's all good. God bless Beatnik, he really needs it. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

A good point Snow, but sometimes the city lights do call, pychologically speaking. They mean warmth, food, transportation, places to blend into a crowd. If you wait too long, you are literally out in the cold with a long and unknown path back to civilization. You wouldn't want to exit right over a city but you wouldnt want to be too far from it either without predetermined pickup or rendevous. A wet cold guy without a car 20 miles from a city might find it hard to stay obscure if he used roads to get back to civilization. Lets see what some other jumpers say. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Bet somewhere in WW2 they did a snag probablility analysis like yours for barrage balloons. My instructor, Perry Stevens, taught me to think of myself as a big blimp when flying, not a person. There is a lot of frontal area in a man under canopy. Ignore it at your peril. If Cooper went into the Columbia with an open canopy and drowned, what is the likelihood that he would remain undiscovered? I guess the canpopy could snag on some obstruction and stay submerged. Isn't the bottom relatively smooth (according to the nautical charts)? Seems like sooner or later it would get dragged to somewhere it would be seen or dredged up. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

hmm, never thought about it that way but you have a really good point. Oh Snowmman, you mythbuster. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

16% is low, far more probable that he landed dry than wet. Add steerable canopy and some ability to see hazards in time to avoid them, you are probably at 5%. Your area proportion analysis is way better than my shoot from the hip one, but it still shows the odds greatly favor a dry landing, or am I missing something? Skydivers have this completely irrational superstition (not belief) that water, power lines and other landing hazards attract canopies. Look how many cutaway canopies land in power lines. The poor guy who forgot to attach his legstraps in a wingsuit jump in FLA last week had his gear end up in power lines. I spoke to a skydiver who was also a Navy S3 pilot. They got into an unrecoverable spin and had to eject over the ocean. Even with all his training, experience and survival gear, he damn near drowned. Fortunately his entire crew survived. Water landing are dangerous as hell. Look what happened to Bob Buquor, for whom the SCR SCS awards are named. Landed off the beach in Malibu during a filming assignment and drowned before help could reach him. If Cooper went in the Columbia that night I'd put his chances of survival very low, unless he was only a few feet from shore. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I think the chances of a random canopy drop (like a cargo drop, with no visual recognition of and abilty to steer around seen hazards) landing in the Columbia are quite small given the 727 flight path as we generally know it. They are even smaller if Cooper could have seen the river and steered the canopy to avoid landing in it. HOWEVER... Cooper money was found buried in a river sand bar. We can't ignore the possibility that Cooper, or his loot or both landed in the water at night. Jumpers have drowned in shallow warm water on sunny summer days. The danger of water landings is easily underestimated. Add night, freezing temps and strong winds and the survival odds plummet. You might disagree with Tosaw, but he is no dummy. He thinks Cooper drowned and he may be right. The Tena Bar money find argues more for a water landing than against it as I see it. Ratazak (sp?) hoped to kill Cooper by having him exit over open ocean. In the end, it may have been unnecessary. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.