377

two common 2032 cells topped with some scrunched up aluminum foil between the top cell and the metal screw-on cover seems to work OK. Thanks to everyone for advice on this. I have my stylish Italian pie section graphical altimeter back in action. CIAO! 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Don't bother is my advice. I love nostalgic canopies and did lots of jumps under rounds back in the day. They are good for bar stories "there I was. going backwards at 20 knots..." but they are so inferior to and less safe than modern ram airs that if I were you, I'd just buy Mike Swain's video and look at the old gear rather than jumping it. If everything goes well you can have a fine fun jump on an old round, but if the winds come up or you have to do a cutaway with old Capewells things can happen. If you are going to jump a round try something better and bigger than a surplus C9 28 foot canopy. I know I may get flamed for saying ram airs are safer, but I think they are when you take ALL the factors into account. The PC is a good round to try and lets you down a lot softer than the smaller military canopies will. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, That certainly is possible but unlikely. Was Duane convicted by a jury or did he plead guilty? What crime was he sentenced for? If he was believed to be innocent by the state, a pardon would have been far more appropriate than a commutation. One erases your conviction, the other does not. Commutation is often "bought" by helping an important prosecution with evidence that only you can provide. One practical reason they commute in such circumstances is to get "snitches" out of custody ASAP to avoid having them murdered in prison. The alternative is housing them in a SHU (security housing unit) sort of a prison within a prison, where convicted cops, judges, child molesters and snitches reside. I am not saying that there is anything in common with such types. They stay in the SHU simply because the general inmate population wants to harm them or worse. Tell us more about the crime that put him in and the circumstances that got his sentence commuted. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

"The last time Duane was incarcerated was FROM April of 1966 and his sentence was COMMUTED on MARCH 1968.' Jo, Commuted? What were the circumstances????? It normally requires action by the Governor's office if it is a state prison sentence. It is just one step below a pardon as far as executive clemency goes. Carter pardoned Patty Hearst. Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence. Why did the governor see fit to cut Duane a break? How much was lopped off his sentence? Did he testify or provide evidence against someone to get the break? There may be some useful info buried in this commutation issue. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, What if you did put two and two together and concluded he was Cooper. You wouldnt have turned him in would you? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

None of us forum posters know what Cooper actually looked like. We just know what composite was produced in consultation with the flight attendants. In my experience composite drawings are often way off the mark. I had cases where the right guy was arrested (irrefutable physical evidence) yet he looked very little like the pictures drawn up in consultation with witnesses. To me Mayfield (as shown in Safe's pic just posted) looks a lot like the FBI Cooper pic, but that may not mean much. I used to think Cooper was a savvy skydiver, but I have changed my mind on that issue. My hunches, nothing more: Mayfield is too experienced to fit the facts in the Cooper case. Mayfield wouldnt have picked the NB6. Mayfield would have told the crew to turn off the transponder. Mayfield would have exercised more control over the flight path. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, Nice to see a post all in normal texts, no boldface, underlines or italics. That highlighted text stuff doesn't bother me but it does others. The story about your last husband looking protectively over your online shoulder is heartwarming. I hope you do find some posts he made to support you or defend you from some of the harsh treatment you have experienced here. Things seem considerably more peaceful and collegial now on the forum than they were back in the day... How can we square Cooper, a planner, an out of the box thinker and by some accounts a "mastermind criminal" with Duane whose prison record makes it look like he wasn't very successful at pursuing crime? Do you have any clues about Duane's financial situation in 71? Was he a big gambler? Did he have anything in his life that required big money fast to avoid a catastrophe? A big surgical operation needed by him or a relative without insurance? A foreclosure of some kind on home or business? What kind of crimes put Duane in prison? How much $ did he get? How was he apprehended? Were his identifications and captures the result of carelessness or poor planning? Tell us more. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, Plenty of people are listening. We might not agree with your conclusions, but we do listen. I don't think someone involved in 727 cabin cleaning or catering would think the stair control was in the cockpit. Cooper initailly thought that it was. The service people would have seen the control panel as they ascended the stairs from the outside to clean or restock the plane. There are some interesting correlations between odd actions by Duane (sudden resignation and move)and the emergence of fresh info on the Cooper case (found cash) but they are not conclusive by any means. His deathbed confession is puzzling. From what Jo says he did not seem to be the type who boasted about things he really didn't do, but maybe we don't have the whole story about his personality. Since he knew his wife didn't approve of crime and didn't think it was at all cool, why would he make such a confession if it were false? That does not make sense to me. Plenty of people pretend to be notorious criminals to get attention, but that is a bit different from a private deathbed confession to a spouse. There would be no public attention for the confessor and his wife would be very upset. If Duane was Cooper there should have been a LOT of $20 bills in his life and I see nothing from Jo about that. Spending "hot" money is tiring, you have to mix it with cold money and be really careful. I respresented a counterfeiter who was breaking his high quality fake hundreds one by one by going to stores, buying a few items and getting change. He'd often throw the items in the trash and move on. You can only do that so many times in one town before eyebrows are raised, so he went on trips through the central valley of CA to spread the risk. He almost got stung in a Secret Service bulk buy sting but noticed cheap shoes and good suits, a "fed" giveaway to him. He later got busted by feds who had a better sense of style. He just got tired of doling out bills one by one and went for a bulk deal at a huge discount. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

You make some good points Safe. I still think Duane would have raised less heat staying put, but it doesn't matter what I think, we need to look at what Duane thought. I no longer rule out Duane just on the lack of a pre hijack parachuting connection. Cooper's jump may have actually been his first. I don't think Duane was Cooper, but I cannot completely rule him out. I don't want to offend Jo, but Duane's repeated imprisonments tell me he wasn't very good at getting away with his crimes. The Cooper caper showed good planning and Cooper eluded not only capture, but even identification. Was Duane as clever and innovative as Cooper? Maybe Jo can illuminate this subject of Duane's criminal skill levels. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

SURPRISE I found the letter of resignation Duane wrote in 1980 and a letter he wrote to a friend who was living in WA. The money found by Brian Ingram was found on Feb. 10 1980. Duane's letter to a friend in WA is dated Feb. 24th 1980. In this letter he states that he is resigning from the company and talks about "fading off into the dust". I have mentioned before to the FBI and in the forum that the two things were very close together. This is MORE than co-incident. A man resigns a very good job 2 wks after Brian Ingram finds that money. I wish I knew the date of a special on a program aired about Cooper and the found money. Duane left CO. very quickly after that...remember that he made arrangements so I could not see that program. This is too co-incidental...but I respected my marriage to a very wornderful man - and stored my Cooper things...but, I have them out now and what I remembered was dead on. What would have happened if Duane just stayed put? Wouldn't he raise more eyebrows by resigning and leaving? What if you had seen the Cooper TV program he was trying to prevent you from seeing? What in the program would have tipped you off that you might be married to Cooper? I know you didn't see it, but you know what the general content would be. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The Quade cleanup process is actually refreshing, like waking up and finding no trace of yesterdays bad acts. A rewind and erase button for your dropzone.com life. Oh how I wish such a device existed in real life. The Cooper as loadmaster idea is intriguing. He had some aviation connection, by work or by reading or both. Ckret has convinced me that Cooper was not a skydiver. Coopers inattention to the 727's transponder tells me he was not a pilot. He had not worked on 727s or he would have had more knowledge about ventral door/stair controls. Loadmasters are always fretting about CG (center of gravity), but in an empty plane Cooper wouldn't have given it any thought. There is some aviation job that makes it all fit, but I just cannot figure it out. I don't think he was aircrew. Not an A&P mechanic either. Tech writer? Draftsman? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Yeah, flew in Earl Cherry's ancient 1956 vintage C 130A at WFFC. It had a ramp control aft. I was really scared watching his crew (with no safety harnesses and chuteless) walk within inches of the edge of the gate during climb. Just young kids acting macho but it actually made my stomach churn big time. One big bump and they would have been out. No 727 ever had cockpit control of the rear stairs. Also, as I read the manual, the controls are on the outside of the pressure bulkhead so you could not activate the stairs unless the plane was depressurized. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I agree, the Altitron is never going to win any industrial design awards. I collect old and unusual skydiving altimeters, but I always jump with two altimeters so if my classics fail I have a modern backup. If the two disagree which one is right? THE LOW ONE. You gotta love those Italians though. They start with a piezo strain guage baro sensor, digitize the output, convert it to energize the pie wedge LCD segments to represent feet all to make a digital altimeter look analog, with an Italian twist. So much engineering for so little advantage over an old SSE Altimaster II. Well, at least it had a programmable pie flash altitude alert. Your pie is blinking, PULL PULL. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

are the last two digits thickness numbers? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I wore a clip-on tie and sometimes even a tie clasp in 71. It was all about convenience. I was a law student in the early 70s, doing an internship in the public defenders office in Oakland CA representing strung out junkies and streetwalkers. Fashion was not high on my list of priorities. I saw plenty of clip-on ties and tie bars/clasps back in those days. Sometimes the non custody defendants would wear them trying to look well dressed and straightened up to Judge Dread at a sentencing hearing. Didn't work. He knew the long sleeved white shirt was just covering fresh track marks. Cooper's use of a clip on tie and or clasp in 71 is unremarkable. Everyone wore them, even junkies! Drug and or gambling habits drove many of the low level criminals to robbery. They were just looking for a few hundred in a street stickup or residential burglary. Cooper seemed to have needed big money, not just a few hundred for his next fix. Could be gambling debts or some other big money sucker... alimony, child support, motgage foreclosure? What would make a guy need $200K right away? I don't think he was executing a long term retirement plan. I think he was addressing a current need, just my hunch. Any ideas? it might help us narrow the search. I am beginning to think Cooper did get info from Boeing, perhaps not directly. I have emailed Don Kirlin to ask him about details on Boeing 727 in flight stair deployment data. He is an airline pilot (737s) and also researched the hell out of the 727 door/stair issue to get FAA approval for 727 jumps at WFFC. Hope he replies. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Good idea on bridging the gap with a conductor rather than another voltage souce. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Will the extra voltage from three batts in series as opposed to two damage the altimeter? Thats a 50% voltage increase. Thanks very much for your help. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

My ParaSport Italia Altitron LCD altimeter got a low battery warning so I pulled em. Has two Maxell 2040 lithium coin cells. Checked and the 2040 is permenantly out of production and there are no drop in substitutes listed. A few online stores have old stock 2040s left , but dates are pretty stale and they want $7.95 per cell!!! Anyone have an easy solution? If all else fails I guess I can build an adapter for smaller cells, but that's a hassle I'd like to avoid. Thanks for any advice you might have. And yes, I know, Parasport gear has few friends here. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Snow, Good call on Dash 80. The 1955 date had me thinking non jet, but that Boeing prototype was flying long before the 707 airliner hit the mkt. I heard the Dash 80 was recently flown on a ferry flight to some museum after sitting idle for many years. Been pinging a lot of sources and so far just Boeing shows up as having available info on in flight 727 door-stair deployment in 71. I am no shrink, but if Cooper was lonely, depressed and in deep debt, he probably didnt care too much if he lived or died. In that case, stepping off the stairs may not have been as daunting as it would have been to someone in good spirits. If he died, OK. If he lived he'd have enough to get out of the crushing debt that was dragging him down. Ckret knows way better than I do, but in my experience bank robbers rarely got even a fraction of Cooper's haul. Most of the the cases I saw in fed court were under $20K, often far under. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

What is the likely plane? A Big Doug? DC 6? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

One reassuring data point is that a well known rigger had a Cypres fire at WFFC a few years ago. His battery was waaay out of date, by years according to what I heard, but everything worked OK. I worked with Li batteries in the implantable heart defibrillator field, another mission critical application. Li batts have amazing shelf lives, far far beyond what conservative manufacturers specify. I think everyone should follow Aietec's battery replacement procedures, but it is nice to know that a Cypres with an out of date battery has a good chance of working if it passes the startup test. A helicopter mfr did an informal study in South America where component overhauls are frequently faked with the equivalent of pencil packing. They found that aside from electrical actuators using brush type DC motors, most components appeared to function OK way beyond TBO times. Be safe, replace AAD batts as mandated by the mfr. Don't ever bet your life on being lucky. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

As far as I can tell none of those listed 727 crashes were due to any fault on Boeing's part. Many early 727 crashes were due to newly trained jet pilots getting into an excessive sink rate on approach in a 727. They had to "unlearn" old habits from flying prop planes. Hard to see Boeing revenge as a logical motive. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Theory: Cooper had researched 727's ability to deploy door in flight, possibly accessing documents at Boeing. Facts: 1. If door could not be deployed for jump, capture was virtually certain. 2. Airline flight manuals for 727-100 and -200 have no info about door deployment in flight 3. Info was available somewhere, MPLS FLT OPS was able to access it when queried by 727 crew. 4. Cooper demanded appropriate airspeed, flaps, and unpressurized flight for door deployment. 5. Boeing has info on in flight door deployment tests, was accessed by Don Kirlin to get FAA approval for WFFC 727 jumps. 6. So far we are unable to find any other source for in flight door deployment info besides Boeing. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Ckret format: Theory: Cooper may have known something about 727s but was not trained as a pilot. Facts: 1. Did not specify flight path unambiguously 2. Did not use pilot "lingo" 3. Thought door controlled from cockpit (pilot would have researched this more thoroughly) 4. Did not insist on transponder being shut off 5. Did not carry VHF radio (even in 71, a cheap $19 analog Radio Shack VHF transistor radio could have been used to monitor comms so he would know what was really being said to and by crew). 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo wrote: "During the Viet Nam war the 727's were used to dump supplies - I do not remember off hand my source on this." Jo, I can find no support for that, but I am not ruling it out. Given the presence in Vietnam of FAR more suitable tailgate acft for drop work (C 130, C 123, Caribous, etc) I can't see why a 727 would even be considered. I have never seen any photos of military cargo 727s operating in Vietnam. There is a lot of controversy about why the 727 stairs were engineered for in flight deployment. The most James Bond-ish explanation is that the US Govt paid Boeing to do it so that covert "insertions" could be done by planes that appeared to be normal civil airliners overflying countries that would not permit US military planes in their airspace. Others say that it just worked out to be deployable in flight by chance and was not engineered specifically to do so. Uncle Sam did pay Pan Am to reinforce the floors of their 747s so that they could be used to haul military cargo if needs exceeded USAF capacity. The payments went on for years to offset the extra fuel burn caused by the increased empty weight. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.