377

If there was no RTTY gear in the 727, what does that do to our jump run timeline? It would take time for someone to transcribe a VHF voice message from the 727 and then type it on a teletype and send it to another ground station. I am 99% confident that there was no RTTY gear on the 727. Nothing in the 1970s era manuals even mentions it and full photos of all panels and comm gear are shown. RTTY gear was definitely not on NWA 727s later (1986) when they still had the original 727-100 models in the fleet, according to an NWA Captain who flew and instructed on them. If they were ever there why would they have been removed? So... lets re-examine the jump run timeline. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Here is the unedited complete verbatim reply from a highly experienced NWA 727 Capt: "While I can’t say that I actually stood in the flight deck of a B727 on 1971, I certainly did stand on them in 1986 since they were still there then, even the -100s. There was never any comm. gear except the VHF radios. It seems HIGHLY unlikely that NWA ever paid for anything like Radio teletype gear unless they bought it used from the Army Air Corps. I agree with you that whatever he is in possession of has been mislabeled. No doubt what the agent has is a transcript from either the SEA or PDX station to Dispatch which originated from the airplane via VHF radio to one of those two stations." 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

http://www.milpilot.net/c17gouge/c17ad_studyguide.doc HUGE amt of airdrop info here, havent read it all yet. Whover thought you just slow down below 150 kts and push it out the door ought to read this manual. Military airdrops are apparently highly complex operations if done by this book. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Thanks Ckret. I am sure you are accurately reporting what you have, and sincerely appreciate your responsiveness. I am not sure what you have is a direct RTTY transmission from the crew. I could be wrong about RTTY gear not being in 1970s 727s, but I see ZERO mention of it in numerous manuals and searches. When I am wrong about some aspect of the case, I'll gladly admit it and take my licks... wont be the first time. I have emailed this guy to find out what comm gear was on NWA 727s during the time in question. I am sure he can find the answer if he cares to get involved: (name omitted for privacy) 20 Year-Northwest Airlines Captain Captain qualified in DC-9, B-727, A-320, and B-757 Instructor pilot DC-9 and B-727 28 year Northwest Airlines pilot 5 year US Air Force C-141 instructor pilot. Chief Quality Control Check Captain B-727, Northwest Airlines Former Assistant Director, Flight Training, Northwest Airlines Bachelor of Science, University of Iowa 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Ckret, are you 100 pct certain that the NWA 727 was radio teletype equipped? Just doesnt match all the info I have about early 70s radio gear in commercial airliners. I have 727 flight manuals (not NWA unfortunately) and no RTTY gear is shown. Same with all other medium range airliner manuals I have from that era. Where would the keyboard be located? Where would the printer or text display be located? What frequencies did they use? The only RTTY gear I see in 1970s flight manuals is HF (high frequency) RTTY carried aboard specialized military weather, sub hunter and radar picket aircraft such as the EC 121T, WV2, P3 etc. Domestic 727s did not have HF radios, just VHF. TTY was used a lot in ground to ground airline comms, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_teletype_system I wonder if a ground to ground TTY transcript talking about the situation was mislabeled as a RTTY transcript between the plane and NWA operations. Small point, sorry to be such a nit picker, but small errors can mislead us. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Very interesting, especially the resolution... sufficient to accurately count individual jumpers. Wow. Rain absorbs and attenuates microwaves, actually coverts their energy into heat just like your microwave oven. It also reflects them which is the key to weather radar's functionality. The key to busting through rain is lots of power. ATC radar is very powerful for this and other reasons. Small planes can bring down big airliners, so ATC radar is designed to resolve weak targets under adverse weather conditions. Could Cooper's echo have been seen on ATC radar in heavy rain? Nobody knows for sure but I'd bet yes. The Doppler velocity filter would suppress the rain echo but not Cooper's echo. If the radar transmitter had sufficient power, some would reach Cooper through the rain and be reflected back through the rain to the radar receiver. We had no velocity filters on the marine radar sets I used so rain squalls showed up great, but we could still see other ships. You just had to look more carefully amidst the rain clutter. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

IF Cooper used the word Interphone (as some say he did, but I cant get any verification) then I'd say loadmaster is a good call. They would use Interphones a lot. Military jumpers (paratroopers) might never use one or know what it is called. Intercom is what airline cabin crews call them. A lot of skydivers are ex Airborne, hope they chime in and give us corrections or affirmations. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Radar doesnt know if something is metal or feathers. It just sees reflected microwave signals and displays them on a scope. The more reflective the target, the stronger the received reflection and the more prominent the displayed pip on the scope. Despite intuition, wood, animals, even fiberglass actually give decent radar reflections. Using 4 KW marine radar I have seen Pelicans, fiberglass kayaks, and wood rowboats at considerable distances under flat calm sea surface conditions. Stealth design puts a lot of thought into absorbing the energy of the incident transmitted signal so that there is little energy left to reflect. They do this with special coating materials (RAM: radar absorbing material) and also with absorbing/attenuating cone and triangle geometric structural designs (look at the F 117 for examples) and flat angled surfaces that reflect the signals, but in a direction away from the radar that transmitted them. The British Mosquito WW2 aircraft had a mostly wood structure but it showed up fine on radar and would have (to a lesser extent) even without all the metal it contained in the engines, radios, etc. ATC radar has now, and had at the time of the Cooper jump, Doppler velocity filters that are generally set to reject echos from targets moving slower than the slowest aircraft you would expect to see. This is prevent slow flying birds and stationary objects like mountain tops from showing up and cluttering the screen. A skydiver exiting a jet is moving considerably faster than the filter threshold speed and would not be filtered out, at least not for quite a few seconds, definitely long enough to show up for a few antenna sweeps. I bet that Cooper showed up briefly on ATC radar but would not be noticed unless you were looking for it. You would expect to see a very weak target first showing up very slightly behind the jet, following the same course, and lagging further behind as he slowed down and the jet maintained speed. It is not a wild guess that ATC radar can pick up jumpers at a distance of many miles. The ATC guy quoted in my post verified it and an ATC jumper I spoke to at WFFC told me the same thing. Engineers can argue that a jumper falling straight down might still be filtered out because his velocity relative to the radar location is close to zero, BUT... Cooper had the initial exit speed and course of the 727 and his echo would not have been suppressed by the Doppler filters on the ATC radar until his velocity relative to the radar location fell below about 70 mph. ATC techs can jump in and tell us what velocity limit is set on the Doppler filters, but I'd guess it is somewhere around 60 mph so they could still see a Piper Cub or other slow plane. The lower the limit, the longer Cooper would have painted an echo. It would be interesting to pull the radar tapes that caught the jumps from Perris's DC 9-21 at WFFC in Rantuol Illinois in 2006. I bet you'd see about 85 examples of what Cooper's echo looked like. I was one of them. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Air traffic controllers from Chicago Center at Aurora, Illinois, also came to see what was happening on "the other end" of the 300-way world record attempt. While they were there, the controllers also made tandem skydives. Dave Cottingham summarized Chicago Center's cooperative spirit with the attempt. "It isn't as difficult as some would believe. Roger Nelson and these guys are going for a world record. We're just moving the other airplanes out of their way." Controller Steve Meitz described what he sees on his radar screen when the aircraft are in formation. "The airplanes are visible. But when the 300 skydivers jump out, they look like a large cloud of digital primaries [small crosses marking primary radar targets that don't have transponders]." GOOGLE Maps shows about 43 miles between Aurora (ATC) and Ottowa Illinois (Skydive Chicago DZ) but you'd really need to know where the radar antenna is located to get exact range. How far was the McCord radar from the estimated exit point? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Ryoder nails it again! When I lived in LA my wiper blades would be shot after a couple of months. When I moved to SF they would last waaaay longer. Now that I think of it ozone in the LA air pollution was a likely culprit as the car was garaged in LA during most of the sunlight hours. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Wish the NWA pilots had thought to dump fuel immediately after the oscillations or pressure bump or whatever the event was. I was fishing off the SF coast when an airliner having a problem after takeoff flew around offshore (at what looked like about 5000 ft ) dumping fuel to get the weight down so they could land. Even though it vaporized, it left a sea surface trail that you could smell for quite a while. Residents who lived under the 727 would have definitely smelled the fuel mist that came to earth. I still think someone should see if the raw radar data tapes still exist. Bet Cooper was visible as a small speck from exit until deployment, following plane track and falling sightly behind as he decelerated. Might only be visible for a sweep or two but worth investigating. If birds can be seen so could Cooper who should be a much better reflector than a Pelican. ATC radar has Doppler velocity filters to keep slow flying birds and stationary objects in the beam path from showing up on the scope. Cooper was going fast enough to avoid the filters until his chute opened. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

We used rubber bands to secure baits to commercial fishing gear. As long as they were submerged they didnt seem to rot. We never kept them long enough to see if they would rot when stored dry and dark. Give them a lot of sunlight and rot would begin. I have had old but unused parachute packing rubber bands "self rot" even when stored in "perfect" conditions, dark ccol and dry in their original box. There seems to be a difference between the self rot and the UV rot. The UV rot was characterized by cracks and surface oxidation but not much liquid gummy residue. The self rot seemed to be a lot messier, with goopy residue. I'd like to know more about the Cooper money rubber band conditions when found. Were they still elastic? Were they oozing gummy residue? Did they show surface oxidation more on the outside (sun exposed) than inside surface? If they showed substantial UV type damage then it was likely on the ground or in a tree before it was found in the river dirt. I'll bet there is a chemist or material scientist jumper who knows a lot about this. I noticed that the line stow bands in the unmodified NB Navy containers used cloth rather than rubber, probably to keep rubber band rot from spoiling a good deployment. I remain amazed by the money find and the door placard find. How unlikely is that??? Just about everything that left the 727 that night has been found, except Mr. Cooper. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Answer is probably is highly dependent on soil acidity. I have heard that the soil under conifer trees generally has high acidity. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I have seen surplus 26 ft Navy conicals and 28 ft miltary rounds with what is called a 4 line cut mod. I dont know when the military started doing this mod but it allowed some pilot steerability without cutting vent holes in the canopy. A rigger could tell us more about this mod, what it is, when it started and whether it might have been present on the Cooper chutes. I have jumped 28 ft rounds (many times)and a 26 ft Navy conical (once). Performance wasnt hugely different although the 26 ft canopy seemed to let me down softer than the 28 ever did. You wouldnt see a huge difference in the descent path of either one in my opinion. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Surplus canopies rot so fast you wouldnt believe it if exposed to direct sunlight. They cannot take UV for long without serious fabric degradation in my experience. If left out long enough the fabric almost crumbles to the touch. We used surplus canopies (various types, usually with ripstop fabric) as sea anchors on fishing boats. They hold up for many years if their only use was being submerged in salt water. It's the UV that kills em. We always stored them in canvas bags after pulling them out of the water with no rinsing and minimal hang drying. I think the shroud lines would last a lot longer than the canopy fabric if it hung up in a tree. Most people who tried using a surplus canopy as a car cover soon learned just how poorly they fare in sunlight. Riggers know all about this and could post more exact information. Nobody is going to find a full intact Cooper canopy snared in a tree. My guess is that at best youd find some rotted lines and tattered remains of the canopy fabric. At worst the remnants might be almost unrecognizable. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I think NB6 refers to the container which could hold any suitably sized canopy. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Safecracking PLF: Was the door placard find verified (was the NWA 727 missing the placard when it landed)? If so map the placard find point. Now map the money find point. Draw a line between them. Does the line match the plane course during estimated jump run? If not, then move the money point until it does. Is the moved money point located such that the money could have migrated from the new moved point to the actual find point by natural means? This assumes a lot, but is worth plotting. Results? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Right you are. Not a wrist mount alt in sight. Chest mounted reserves and a Twin Beech. The old memories are coming back. The surplus gear I jumped back then had a distinctive smell to it, probably some chemical they put in the Nylon webbing. Those were fun days. You could get a full rig used for $50. I did just that and lived to tell the story. What did the Mt St Helens eruption do to the landscape where Cooper likely landed? Did it burn up the forest? Did it lay down a few feet of ash? Or was it mostly undisturbed? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I have a collection of old skydiving altimeters. One of my rare ones is a very small one with CHUTE SHOP labeling on the face. It is from before 1972 but I do not know the exact date. It appears to possibly be a relabeled barometer. It is even a bit smaller than than the wrist altimeters of today such as the Alti III. It came in a custom leather wrist mount panel with a separate mount for a stopwatch. It still works but is a pretty lightly made instrument. I made a few jumps with it for fun but now it is retired... too breakable. It isnt wristwatch size but it is small. A Google search shows a nice looking mech altimeter wristwatch from 1962. "1962 was also important to Favre-Leuba as the year when the “Bivouac” was launched, the first wristwatch with an altimeter / barometer function. It was a runaway success and became a must for the major expeditions of the time. Paul-Emile Victor used it in Antarctica, Vaucher and Bonatti for conquering the north face of the Grandes Jorasses in the Alps. Many others followed in their footsteps." Does the crew interview file quote Cooper as saying he had a wrist altimeter, or is it an "Internet Fact", something that isn't true but has been posted so many times it is accepted as true? Even his mention of a wrist altimeter would be a significant clue, IF it happened. It is surprising how many people have claimed to be Cooper or claim to have known him. I guess everybody wants a piece of fame. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

IF Cooper had a wrist altimeter that he brought on the plane with him then if not a skydiver he must have at least had some contact with the jumping community. There is so much inaccurate info on the Internet about Cooper so I'd like to know if the alleged wrist altimeter statement was actually made. Perhaps Ckret can chime in on that point. Even if Cooper was lying about having a wrist altimeter, just knowing what one was and knowing that he could monitor cabin pressurization with it speaks volumes about his knowledge, background, etc. All his knowledge about flaps, pressure equalization, rear door operation etc says pilot or at least aircrew or airline mechanic to me. How many people would know that the 727 airstair could be deployed in flight? I am an aviation nut and I didnt know that before he jumped. If he truly used the word "interphone" when describing the cabin communication system then it point to military aviation background. I am hoping he didn't die in the jump but I am beginning to think he might have... but if he died, someone would have noticed the correllation between the hijacking and his disappearance and gossip would have started... so I am pulled in a circle. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

See below: (is this info accurate???) Cooper used the cabin phone to give the flight deck their marching orders. He wanted to go to Mexico City, but agreed to a refuelling stop in Reno. He ordered that the plane fly at 10,000 feet, wing flaps set at 15 degrees, airspeed of no more than 150 knots (172 mph). He ordered that the cabin not be pressurised. He said he'd use his wrist altimeter to ensure that his directions were followed. above from BBC website: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ettkc7d94GUJ:www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A24145490+db+cooper+flaps&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Whoops, you are right. He could slow down to terminal by delaying. He could never get a speed below terminal but only between airplane speed and terminal. I was not thinking about horizontal speed. I stand corrected, but he still would likely have delayed deployment to minimize opening shock and during that time I think he would give a radar echo. If I can see a Pelican miles away on an old beat up 4 KW marine radar then ATC radar which is far more powerful and sophisticated could probably get a hit from a falling jumper at quite a good distance. I spoke with a jumper at WFFC who was an air traffic controller and he said they could sometimes see jumpers on their screen. I didnt get any details about distance or other circumstances. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Beatnik's resurrection of these ancient canopies is fantastic, as long as he is the pilot and not me. I absolutely love skydiving history and read as much as I can find. I'd love to go back in a time machine to the DZs of the 60s, but just to party, perhaps ride in a few Fairchilds, Howards, Twin Beeches, DC 3s and Lodestars, but not to jump. I had my share of excitement with old gear fighting a sticky Capewell during a cutaway from a cheapo. I finally got loose from the 100% military surplus mess and watched my $25 Navy conical reserve deploy safely. The people were great, the attitudes were great, but the gear? Well... we were making history and blazing new trails so that the jumpers of the future could have the wonderful gear they jump today. I have no desire to relive the canopy part of skydiving history. I'll just watch Beatnik from the sidelines as I comfortably flare my Triathlon and watch him do a white knuckle landing in his Dactyl. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

"Another clue to the time is the ground radio teletype log. It my understanding that the teletype will automatically log the time with the communication. The crew typed a message which was logged at 8:12 and mentioned oscillations not a bump." Did the NWA 727 have radioteletype capabilities? Technically possible but commercially doubtful in those days. ACARS is installed in most airliners today which allows crews to type messages to dispatchers, operations centers, maintenance etc. but it wasnt operating in the 70s. RTTY (radioteletype) has been in USAF planes since the 50s, but was not widely adopted by commercial airliners as far as I know. Until the advent of ACARS most domestic airliners just had voice comms. So called "phone calls" were usually just VHF radio comms relayed through a "phone patch" on the ground which was the electronic equivalent of holding the radio speaker up to the phone mic and the phone earpiece up to the radio mic. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS Sorry for all the tech detail, but since the timing of the pressure fluctuation is so critical to the exit point estimates, I thought I'd mention that the assumption that the NWA 727 crew actually typed any message to the ground may be in error. Even if Cooper were an experienced jumper I think he'd do a very short delay before deploying his canopy. If you didnt know for sure if the main canopy was sleeved, you wouldnt want to risk a terminal velocity deployment. I know ATC radar has picked up jumpers in freefall. Has anyone examined the radar data very very closely to see if there is any speck that might have been Cooper exiting? The Doppler filters would not have excluded the echo since the jumper speed during exit and freefall is high enough to make it through the gate. Once he was under canopy he'd likely be filtered out by the Doppler velocity gate. Radar can pick up birds quite well. I have personally seen it happen many times aboard commercial fishing boats. Furuno even markets an S band "bird radar" to help tuna seiners find bird flocks that are flying over baitfish or tuna schools. X band radar can also pick up birds reflections but not quite as well as S band. I would have thought a bird to be the ultimate stealth aircraft but they reflect microwaves surprisingly well. What a great whodunit. Better than anything on TV at the moment. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Post: "Ok. I found it hard to believe that the flight recorder wouldn't have been accurate. No GPS back then, but the WAAS beacons that existed still correct GPS signals for accuracy from about 100 meters to about 3, even today. Not sure they were that accurate back then with all the upgrades, but we're certainly not dealing with mash." I think you are confusing DGPS beacons (operated by the USCG) with WAAS, which broadcasts local GPS corrections from satellites . DGPS uses ground based LF beacon transmitters and modulates them with a data stream that provides local GPS corrections to suitably equipped receivers which decode the data and correct the indicated GPS position. No USCG, USAF or FAA operated LF beacons were transmitting nav data back when Cooper jumped. They just transmitted Morse Code IDs and (sometimes) MCW tones, nothing more. They were sometimes used to establish position through ADF fixes. To the best of my knowledge nothing in a 727 back then recorded position data. The ground radar recording of the flight track is the best info we have and should be reasonably accurate. Why don't we hear much about the third cockpit crew member, the flight engineer? His panel had the only cabin pressure altimeter in the cockpit. What about the cockpit voice recorder? The mic in the cockpit might have recorded the pressure bump felt by the crew. The bump would be an acoustic event. Most CVRs had a time track on them. You might not hear the bump on replay, but it might be seen on a scope hooked up to the audio output. Even if the bump part of the tape was overwritten or erased there might be an artifact that survived and could be found with modern test gear. The skeptic in me says "no way" on the incredibly lucky and highly unlikely money find, but I actually think it happened as reported. There are huge clues in the money (condition, location, dredge discharge strata dating, etc) but for the life of me I cannot put it all together to where it points to a particular person. I do think all airtight alibis need to be reexamined and questioned. I have seen suspects dodge prosecution with false but apparently airtight alibis. A strong suspect and a perfect alibi are a combo that screams "take a second look" to me. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.