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Radar, that is the key. If we can get the tapes wonders can be done with DSP, digital signal processing. If the Cooper echo is in there, even if masked by noise, rain clutter, etc, DSP can bring it out, ESPECIALLY if you give it some idea of what Cooper's echo should look like which is: initially traveling at plane velocity, same course, then forward speed decays but course remains essentially the same as it falls further behind the aircraft. We could model expected jumper forward speed decay pretty accurately. If the tapes are destroyed say so, but if they may exist let's have a look. McChord ATC radar may be only one source. If the military interceptors (initially two F 106s and later a single T 33) were being given intercept vectors from a USAF air defense radar then there may be additional tapes to look at, and this type of radar would have something normal ATC radar can't tell us if the target has no altitude reporting transponder: Cooper's altitude, changing with each sweep until he disappears. Guru has confirmed that civil and military ATC radar in 1971 could track and accurately count jumpers at distances of 50 miles. I worked at a huge military radar company for six years in the 80s and know that seeing jumpers was easily within its products' technical capabilities although I never personally operated the radars we built. I have personally spent thousands of hours operating low power marine radar which could see birds miles away. DSP came after all this, but I have kept up on the technology and have some knowledge of what it can do. It is truly astounding. If we can see Cooper's exit echoes we will know where to look for his remains if he died and where his ground trek started if he lived. If Ckret tells me for sure that the radar tapes no longer exist I will shut the hell up. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Yes. That could be the difference between breaking both ankles or not, so it could end up determining if he lived or not on landing. Very small trivial point but when I started jumping in the late 60s many surplus containers had extensions sewn in to the closing flaps to accomodate larger canopies than the original container was designed for and/or to make packing easier. If you look at the old ads for military surplus containers marketed to skydivers there was nearly always an extended container option offered for a few extra bucks. Old timers could tell us whether extended NB6 containers were ever used to hold 28 foot canopies like the C9. I have jumped both the 26 ft Navy conical and many C9 and other types of military rounds, 28 ft and larger. Given all the other hazards Cooper faced that night I seriously doubt that the size or type of the chute (26 Navy or 28 USAF) determined the outcome. If he deployed at 170 knots he had one HELL of an opening shock in my opinion. That is knots, not mph and a lot faster than 120 mph terminal. Energy increases as velocity squared. It isnt linear. Trying to decelerate 200 lbs going 170 knots down to open canopy speed in a few seconds is going to be very painful. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Did the money bag have a drawstring to cinch up the opening? What was the bag made of? If it did have a drawstring then possibly you could cinch it up really tight, knot the drawstring and tie the bag to your body perhaps with some shroud lines looping though the drawstring and trouser belt loops. You might hen have a wildly flopping and fluttering bag but it might still stay attached. If there was not some way to very securely keep the bag closed and tightly affixed to your body I'd bet you'd lose it upon or shortly after exit from a 727 going 150-170 knots. I have a photo of my normally tight and stable container with the flaps bowed way out just trying to pop open right after exiting the Perris DC 9 at a speed I am sure was slower than Cooper experienced. There are strong wind forces at work during an above terminal velocity exit. These forces are trying to tear things open, inflate them, tear them off and generally mess things up. Good info on the rubber band stability in a controlled sun shielded environment. The deterioration of the bands on the found money might be due to different composition than the pack rubber bands, but I'll bet sun and outdoor conditions account for the difference. I don't think the money was underwater from 71 to when it was found. I theorize that the money hit the ground somewhere from which it could be transported by natural means to where it was found. Can you imagine what a complete bummer it would been to have survived the jump but lost the money in freefall? That very well may have occurred. I still think if Cooper died on the jump somebody somewhere would tie a missing person with any aviation background to the caper and gossip would have started. Could Cooper have been such a total loner that if he died NOBODY would have noticed his disappearance? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

APRIL 2008: Just tried to buy 2040 Lithium coin batteries for this altimeter. Out of production permanently, no drop in substitute available. Guess I will have to make an adapter for some other sized batteries. BUMMER!!!! (a day later...) Well, making and "adapter" is not so hard, Just drop in two 2032 cells and a wad of scrunched up aluminum foil on top to make contact between the top cell and the metal screw-on cover. Mickey Mouse solution, especially for something as critical as your altimeter, but it seems to work OK. ************************************** Ok, where to start. I bought mine used cheap so someone didnt care for it. I like it. It is very easy to interpret the LCD pie wedge display. Since it is set up like a clock you dont really need to see the numerals on the edge, since you know that up is 12, down is 6 etc, but still the numbers are very hard to see. It has a programmable alt alert function that flashes the entire display at whatever alt you set the alarm for. It is very easy to set the alarm and the flashing alert really catches your atention for breakoff or deploy or whatever. The plastic inner edge of the black part surrounding the lens is getting a bit tattered on mine, but no big deal. I like altimeters and always wear a couple. This is one that catches people's attention as few have seen one. It works well, seems accurate, doent burn up batts fast. I think it may be out of production, but they are still turning up used. Buy one, they are fun and work fine. It is not good for night jumping as it has no backlight. It is funny that the designers go from analog pressure sensing to digital LCD segment driving and then display the energized segments not as numbers but in a radial graphic manner that sort of simulates an analog dial display but in an unusual manner where they display altitude as a pie slice of changing angular dimension. Those Italians, style style style.

Guru, You are still a skydiver, grandfathered in for sure. It's easier than you think to get current again. I did it without formal AFF. The new gear (especially the canopies) makes the good old days seem like a nightmare. Even if you don't jump again, your full blown participation in the early days of the sport gives you lifetime skydiver status in my book. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

RYODER, GURU, SKYDIVE JACK? your opinions? Reading the www.boeing-727.com system info I see that a cockpit warning horn sounds if cabin altitude exceeds 10,000 ft. How could a 727 stay pressurized if the door seals were so ineffective that you could see the outside through the gaps???? Bleed air or airconditioning pack air can keep up with minor leaks and holes, but could it maintain cabin pressure sufficient to keep the warning horn from activating if the 727 were above 10,000 feet with daylight shining through the edges of the doors? Also, aren't the 727 doors "plug" type where you couldn't see directly out through the edges even if the seals were leaky? Jo. I am not doing this to give you a hard time, just to test the accuracy of you memory which is important since many of your "Duane is Cooper" clues are based on your present memory of past events. This 727 door thing is just one data point though. I have been in many jet airliners and have never been able to see outside scenery through door gaps while in flight, nor even any faint light leaks. Leaky doors are noticeably noisy too, and those are tiny invisible seal leaks. I imagine that a see through gap would be roaring. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, I have posed the question to Doug Houston who is on the Exec. Board of the National Smokejumpers Association. Is that the same Doug you refer to? Awaiting a reply to my email. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130193759441&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123 seller says she found it in a cornfield, has faded spots. Did you cutaway and lose your Tri? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo has implied that Duane might have been a prisoner-smoke jumper or jumpmaster/loadmaster, perhaps while at Folsom. I can find no evidence that state prisoners were used as smoke jumpers ever. I have been inside Folsom and San Quentin many times meeting with prisoners. I have heard about low security prisoners from county jails being occasionally recruited for ground based fire fighting in emergency situations, but not the hardcore state felony convicts typically incarcerated at Folsom or San Quentin. One of the prisoners I spoke with at Folsom was a decorated Army Ranger and Viet Nam combat vet. He would sure have the qualifications and desire to jump, but he never saw any outside assignments nor did any convicts I met there. See: http://www.ragingmain.com/tyee.htm regarding prisoners being used to fight the 1994 Tyee fire in Washington (quoted below). "Over the next three weeks, working side by side with experienced sawyers, Hot Shot crews, Smoke Jumpers and Forest Service and prisoner firefighting teams the Marine strike teams were no different than any fireman rookies turned salty. They were up at 4am and back at 8pm and they consumed five thousand calories a day." If anyone can show me that state prisoners worked as smoke jumpers during Duane's incarceration time I'll eat some crow and some humble pie. The closest hit I get is conscientious objectors working as smoke jumpers during war as an alternative to combat duty. Duane might have been Cooper, but I don't think Duane made any jumps while in Folsom or any other prison. Oh, and despite urban folklore, Johnny Cash never did time at Folsom. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Skyjack71 wrote: ' "A flight from ATL to Frankfort Ky - in a 727. Standing in the galley -you could see out the cracks of the door and feel the air...obviously we were at a low altitude...looking at the ground - I thought - hey, I could jump that - of course I was a lot younger. I asked a couple of pilots how high we were - we were over 10,000 ---." Jo, How could you "see out of the cracks of the door" standing in the galley of a pressurized 727? If you were over 10,000 ft the plane was definitely pressurized. The 727 has airtight door seals on every fuselage door which all leak a tiny bit, but certainly not enough to see through. Are you 100% sure about this memory? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Man am I glad I admitted that Ckret might be right about the door slam and pressure bump before he showed his Ace card. Whew, foot ALMOST inserted into mouth. I read somewhere that USAF/ANG F 106 interceptors were scrambled to chase NWA 305, but that they did not make visual contact. If true, they must have been given intercept vectors etc. Would be interesting to see if the USAF still has records related to that short mission. Some USAF ground based air defense radar used to guide fighters for intercepts had two radars operating together, height finding radar which scans up and down as it is rotated to find the slant range to the target of interest and the normal azimuth scan radar which just turns in circles. Two chances to see a Cooper echo. I'll stop ranting about radar when Ckret tells me that the ATC and possible intercept radar tapes no longer exist. I concede that the bump and jump occurred within a second of each other. Thanks Ckret, cool pictures! What else are ya holding back from us amateur detectives? A Cooper link to the JFK killing and proof that the moon landing was faked? I KNEW it! 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

http://tiny.cc/727sidejump A diiferent kind of 727 jump. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The urban myth is that the military commissioned Boeing to make it possible to drop stuff from a civil 727 in flight so they could do, if needed, covert gear drops and agent insertions from flights that could be disguised as normal airliner operations. Sounds too James Bond for me, but you never know. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Does Don Kirlin have a good alibi? Just kidding, but he is an experienced jet airliner pilot (737?) and a long time jumper. He also personally did a LOT of the work to get the 727 FAA cleared for WFFC jumping operations. From what I heard it was no small task and involved a lot of technical issues. I'd love to see what he thinks about DB Cooper's jump. Don has so much relevant experience. Even though he was pretty young when Cooper jumped, he might now, with all his subsequently gained expertise, see an angle we are simply overlooking. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Ckret wrote: "The pressure bump was not caused by Cooper jumping out of the plane, it was caused by the airstairs slamming back against the aircraft when his bodyweight was removed from them. The only way to do this in a rapid enough motion to cause the movement is to move to the bottom of the stairs and jump." Hmmm, looks like the bump and jump occured almost simultaneously. Is there any truth to the story that making the airstair deployable in flight was requested of Boeing by the military who underwrote the cost? If it were made to facilitate jumping then wouldnt it have been designed to prevent door slams after jumpers exited? Military subsidies for civil airliner mods are not unprecedented. Pan Am and others got big subsidies for having some of their 747s equipped with strengthened (and much heavier) floors to allow military cargo operations if needed in wartime. There was a fuel burn penalty from the extra weight but Uncle Sam paid for it, year after year. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Safrecracker wrote: "The Perris Valley DC-9 is more than likely equiped with something to prevent any aft stairs from slamming into the fuselage... that would be a law suit waiting to happen." When I jumped the DC 9 at WFFC in 2006 they had put sheet metal in the area where we exited and there were no stairs deployed outside of the fuselage. How was the WFFC 727 jumpship configured? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I think a 7-10 minute time error is entirely possible. Remember, nobody knows for sure at what time Cooper exited. If the pressure bump was unrelated to his exit, then he may have jumped many miles from where the FBI estimated his exit point to be. That is precisely why I wanted to see if the McCord radar tapes still existed as they might show a Cooper exit echo. We now have two jumpers saying there were no pressure bumps when a plane full of jumpers exited one by one out the rear of an unpressurized DC 9. Who on this forum jumped the 727 at WFFC in the late 90s? Were there any pressure bumps? Surely some 727 jumpers are lurking here, please speak up. I don't think Cooper did any visual spotting of his exit point with respect to rivers or other water bodies. I doubt if you could see much of any river that night. You might have seen lights, but not a lot else on the ground. Cooper had to be pretty knowledgeable about 727s. If he had guessed wrong about the door being operable in flight he'd have been totally screwed. He KNEW it could be opened. How did he know that? Who had that kind of system knowledge about 727s in 1971? All the other bits of info about his commands to the crew indicate quite a bit of knowledge about flying. I'd bet most pilots in 1971 had no idea that you could open the 727 rear door in unpressurized flight without any big problems. In 1971 I was a jumper and an aviation nut. I had no idea that you could open the 727 rear door in flight and would have bet against it. Who on this forum knew that the door could be opened in flight? If so, how did you know that? The money tells us a lot about where he exited and the commands to the flight crew tell us a lot about what he knew, which could develop into clues about his identity. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Remember, back in 1971 they didnt have cheap clocks which were radio slaved to the National Bureau of Standards atomic standard nor did they have GPS driven clocks. Various clocks at different locations were probably out of sync, possibly by a minute or more. Also, unless we have a radio voice tape with a time track on it we are guessing as to when unusual pressure events actually occurred. Even with a voice tape we only know when it was reported, not exactly when it happened. I was in a DC 9 with jumpers exiting a rear airstair and I dont recall any pressure bumps at all, so can we be so certain that the pressure bump coincided with Coopers departure froim the plane? Did the "sled" test confirm this? I heard "whoosh" sounds as each jumper left, but felt no pressure bump in my ears. Any other DC 9 jumpers have different memories? All of these errors are only on the order of minutes but at 727 speeds, minutes are several miles. I am now 99.9999% positive that there was no radio teletype (RTTY) gear carried by the NWA 727 that dropped Cooper. What we are seeing are transcripts typed by a NWA Company Radio operator on the ground who was listening to VHF radio voice reports from the 727. There are also contextual clues, eg referring to "305 Stew" after describing some of the "bomb's" appearance something that is far more likely to have been typed by the Company Radio Op to identify who was giving info on the visual appearance. The 727 cockpit crew would have been unlikely to have typed those words and placed them where they are in the overall message. Looks much more like something added as an explanation by the guy on the ground transcribing the voice transmissions. I have communicated with a number of old time airliner pilots who all say no domestic 727s had RTTY in 1971, but I still dont have it directly from a 1971 NWA 727 pilot so I cannot be 100% certain. 727 pilots from various airlines talked a lot about who had the latest gear (eg when Alaska airlines equipped some 727s with HUDs (head up displays) in the 1980s. Certainly 727 pilots from other airlines would have been aware of RTTY had it been installed in NWA 727s in the early 70s. I have a LOT of airliner and military flight manuals from the 50s through the late 90s, including a number of 727 manuals from the 70s (but not an NWA 727 manual). There are no airliner manuals in my collection showing RTTY gear in 1971 on any domestic medium range aircraft. RTTY gear is shown in military planes of that era but it uses HF radio for long distance RTTY communications. Domestic NWA 727s did not have HF radios installed according to a number of ex NWA tech and pilot people I have communicated with. They just had VHF voice comms. I still think if a calculated Cooper exit point cannot be reconciled with the location of the found money then the exit point calculation is erroneous and needs to be moved. Just my opinion though. I am very impressed with Safecracker's modeling using maps, water flow etc. If Ckret's info about Cooper saying that a flight plan could be filed in the air is correct, then that is a STRONG indication that Cooper was pilot savvy if not an actual pilot himself. How many people who are not pilots know that in flight filing of flight plans can be done? Cooper knew about flying unpressurized, flap settings, gear down, jump altitude without O2, exit speeds, the operability of the rear airstair door in flight and in flight filing of flight plans. Those are a lot of clues. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

"7 years... no crumbling within 1 year, crumbling" If the above assumption is correct, I wonder if the bundles might have been underwater. They would be shielded from both UV and ozone if submerged. Ozone concentrations are usually highest in sunny smoggy places like LA, not so high in cloudy rural areas with lower NOX levels. Ozone will permeate any gas porous material like a fabric bag. UV will fade colored ink. It is hard to tell from the computer image if the bills were faded. If they were exposed to the sun, one side of the bundle would be more faded than the other. I have noticed that when cellulose products such as paper and cardboard are in contact with dirt, leaves or other organic matter, they get attacked by bugs and microbes which eat the stuff from the edges inward. Paper or cardboard submerged in salt water doesnt show the same pattern. I dont have experience with cellulose products submerged in fresh water. The money shows that "inward from the edges" pattern suggesting contact with soil or leaves or other above water organic material. I can't tell how much of that occured before it was deposited where it was found. The money is the only piece of evidence on the ground which has been conclusively linked to the jump. The door placard might be, and probably is, but it could have come off many miles from Coopers exit point. If we can't get from our estimated exit point to where the money was found, using natural transport (wind, water etc) , we need to move the exit point. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

After seeing that terribly sad video of the fire tanker C 130A shedding its wings over Yosemite CA, I looked into the maint records of Earl Cherry's C 130A before jumping it at WFFC. A lucky web connection with an Aussie who documents ex RAAF aircraft histories yielded PDF copies of extensive wing box inspections and rework by Lockheed USA shortly before it was sold surplus. I felt safe jumping it. The C 130A center wing box structure is FAR weaker than subsequent models so the caution was justified. Lockheed thinks C130As have outlived their safe airframe life and will not support them as they will later models. Two air tanker C 130As have lost wings in flight, but air tanker service pushes airframes to their limits. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

"Could the container he was wearing stand up to 200mph exit speed and very unstable exit without getting blown open?" The riggers will have to give their opinions but wouldn't the surplus containers with 3 or 4 pins and cones be more resistant to getting blown open than a modern single pin and closing loop container? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Cooper is arguably the most famous jumper in history. That alone justifies some forum space here. As famous as he is, we don't know his identity and we don't know whether he is dead or alive. I can't think of a parallel situation in any other aviation category. Can you? Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal is the closest I guess and he has no aviation connection. He was an unidentified informant whose info leaked to journalists led to Nixon resigning as President. For years speculation raged and many were certain they knew who he was. Fred Fielding, President Bush's current White House counsel, was the primary suspect. Turned out to be an FBI agent who almost nobody suspected... and no, I dont think Ckret or any of his fellow FBI agents is Cooper. Let's stay civil on this forum so it doesn't get locked down. The folks who can do it are giving us strong hints. If this gets locked down I'll have to go back to watching crime shows on TV and they aren't nearly as entertaining. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Ckret, Gotta admit that the TTY transcript sure does look like a first person crew report direct from the flight deck, BUT EVERY source I have (flight manuals for 70s era 727s (not NWA though), talks with several old time airline pilots, online searching) says no RTTY gear was carried by domestic 727s in 1971. I'll investigate further and we will get a definite answer. The RTTY question is solvable, but unfortunately is not a pivotal issue. It just skews the estimated exit time a bit. The NWA Company Radio operators may have very quickly transcribed what they heard so we might be talking about substantially less than a minute delay between what the crew said on VHF voice and what shows up on a TTY printout. Just back plot the exit point by the estimated delay between crew voice report and radio operator transcription. Are any raw radar tapes available from McCord from that night? Bet Cooper's exit is on them, hard to find but there. We know that 1970s era military and civil ATC radar could see jumpers (and even accurately count them) from distances of at least 50 miles. You might even be able to tell when Cooper deployed if his echo is filtered out by the Doppler filters prior to the time you would expect in a continuous freefall from the 727. At some point his forward velocity would decay below the filter cutoff and his vertical freefall velocity appears as almost zero velocity to a distant ATC radar so his echo is blocked by the filter and disappears. If his echo disappears before you would expect in an unbroken freefall, that is probably indicates canopy deployment. My own jet exit experience from a DC9-21 tells me that Cooper tumbled wildly and probably lost anything he carried that wasnt inside his clothing. I wore my goggles extra tight and they were stripped off my face. My container is normally tight and stable yet on that jet jump the exit photo shows the flaps bowing out trying to come apart. He may have survived the jump but he very likely lost any external payload. I'd guess our exit speed was below the NWA 727 speed, but I dont know for sure. Perris jumps their jet from time to time. It wouldnt be expensive to simulate Cooper's payload (to the extent we can make and educated guess about how it was configured) and see if it stays with the jumper. To me, the fact that some of the money bundles were found intact argue strongly for in flight detachment of a bag or Cooper's death. If he landed alive with all the money I just cannot come up with a likely explanation about how the found money ended up where it did. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

more from the NWA 727 Captain I queried: You question intrigued me so I checked with another old time and he wrote this: "NWA had a very sophisticated system of communications in our early years. It was called “Company Radio”. We actually had radio operators that we called out/off, in/out times to and coordinated gate info/mx/flight pay times, etc. thru these radio operators. Very detailed for the times. If we had problems in the air, we called “company radio” and they forwarded all info. The Second Officer was required to monitor “Company Radio” at all times. It would have been normal for the S/O to call in to “Company Radio” with any Hi-Jack problem from the beginning. The radio operator probably sent a telex message to everyone he/she could think of, so a Telex message probably existed but not from the airplane. It came as a forward from these guys that sat and listened to a radio for eight hours a day and documented all activities. I have no doubt that a telex existed, but not from the airplane." I was close but not exact. What the agent has is the teletype from the radio network. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

What is Jo recalling? Could it have been sailboat rigging or rock climbing hardware misidentified as chute gear by the person who bought it from her? That stuff is generally smooth shiny and performs functions somewhat similar to parachute hardware. Para Gear's online catalog has a huge assortment of parachute hardware old and new. If what she had was part of a parachute rig certainly something in the Para Gear catalog would at least closely resemble it. I am puzzled about what it was that she had since the buyer said it was part of a parachute, not something an ignorant buyer would be likely to say about a bit of unidentified hardware, but not impossible either. Could be that the piece had nothing to do with parachutes, but I would like to see her find out what it was. If it was part of the gear that was brought to the NWA 727 it would have already been indentified by Jo as there are pretty good pix of NB 6s and chest mount reserves on the net showing all the metal hardware that is on them. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.