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If we can rule out titanium contamination from Normans machine shop then Tom and his sleuths may have found a real clue. Tom postulates: (emphasis added) 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

S Didnt Tom conclude that pure titanium (as found on the tie) was not used in the aircraft industry, just alloys? Does anyone have info that contradicts that conclusion? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Who machines pure (non alloyed) titanium? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

From the ever resourceful Snowmman: http://www.metallurgvanadium.com/titaniumpage.html 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Bismuth is used in sleeve bearings. Some was found on Cooper's alleged tie. It is a constituent in Babbit bearing materials, types 10, 11 and 12, but only .08% From Wikipredia I still wonder if Norman's chutes were contaminated with shavings and other residue from his machine shop and picked up by Cooper's tie when he handled the chute. Bruce, any chance of re-engaging Norman and asking him whether he worked with pure (not alloyed) titanium and some of the other metals found by Tom? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

From Toms website: emphasis supplied. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Worth another read. Tom's titanium findings. http://www.citizensleuths.com/titaniumparticles.html 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Blevins wrote: Not that I've seen. Lots of stainless and aluminum on boats but titanium is too expensive to use on commercial vessels where weight isnt a huge factor. Geestman worked on Foss tugs. I doubt if they had any titanium on them pre 1971. Tugs of that era were not about weight, they were about power and strength. If you don't care about weight, steel is a lot cheaper, very strong and much much easier to work with as far as welding and machining goes. As I recall Tom said it was pure, not alloyed, titanium which shoud narrow the source down. The Navy can afford titanium, after all they spend not earn. Profit doesnt matter: I've read on websites that titanium is used in marine engines but I never come across it in commercial diesels back in the DBC era. Tug engines of that era were big brute diesels that did not turn high RPMs. EMD, ALCO, Sulzer and others made them. Sure you could make titanium pistons and save a little fuel but I never saw it done in that class of engine. The only place I saw titanium used was in brine chillers on tuna boats because it had spectacular corrosion resistance which was needed to work in super saturated salt water. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Belvins wrote So very very true. When the news of the money find broke I was elated. I was sure that it would help solve the case and things would move fast. How wrong I was. It has only added to the mystery. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The above was my response to G's suggestion that we concentrate on evidence. Let's try to stop the bickering for a while and do what he suggested. Any other thoughts on the titanium found on the alleged Cooper tie? I give Bruce a lot of credit for pusuing the whole Norman chutes matter and turning up something new rather than just rehashing old stuff. If it were not for Bruce I'd have bought the Cossy line that the chutes were all his. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Georger wrote: I found the tie-tanium evidence that Tom and his crew discovered very interesting. I always wondered if it could have come from Norman's machine shop where at least two of the Cooper chutes once resided or passed through. If that's true then it probably gives no clue about where Cooper worked as it didnt come from his workplace. I wonder too if the FBI DOES have the cig butts and good Cooper DNA samples from them and that's why they so confidently reject suspects based on DNA. They are holding back something they use to separate the wannabes from the real DBC. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Bob, If any of the cockpit crew was in on it, as you claim, no wacky tower based navigation was needed. They had VOR, DME and ADF gear to do navigation with far greater precision. A complicit pilot could signal jump run and exit with something as simple as power changes or rudder bumps. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Freddy gave me my first biplane jump at WFFC in Rantoul. Great guy and very accomplished aviator. He flew a big Sea Fury in the Unlimited category at the Reno Air Races. What a shame to lose him. I wonder what caused the crash? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I'd like a Bourbon Miss... and pour one for each of the guys up front too. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Blevins, What does your Seattle cop friend think about this? http://youtu.be/5mvLw2ksPz0 Or this http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/video-of-police-beating-released-in-washington/ Or this http://youtu.be/SbDknWIfnds Maybe these guys need to switch to decaf with their donuts. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo wrote Wrong Jo. Sealing and expungement are available. What you are reading is section 2 pertaining to discovery rights of defendants and their counsel. Section 1 covers sealing and expungement. I'm not a FL bar member and not familiar with their system but I do know federal cases in which youthful offenders who successfully completed their sentence and rehab programs were able to become licensed professionals, teachers, even lawyers. There are second chances in the US criminal justice system. Sadly, most young offenders blow the chance. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, A felony committed by a young person over 18 isn't necessarily the end of the line for them. Even Florida has a youthful offender statute designed to give young people a second chance. http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/Chapter958/All The Feds have similar statutes. As I recall the max age for eligibility for the federal youthful offender program was 23. These programs don't work for most participants. But still, it's good to give kids one last chance for rehabilitation. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I don't make the rules here but I don't get steamed up over promotions of books that are FREE. Blevins isn't trying to promote sales to forum readers. He is pushing a free publication. It's so easy to ignore posts that one finds worthless or offensive. Why get all angry about something that you can just skip over? I did quite a bit of research on parachute hardware to help Jo ID the item Duane had that she thought was from a rig. We didn't succeed although I sent her pix of just about every piece of hardware made between WW 2 and 1971. I give Jo a hard time but I do try to help when I can. I wonder what Georger's 50th high school reunion was like? Did any of his classmates know of his interest in DBC? Was his high school girlfriend in attendance? Were there any sparks? I love reunions. It's especially cool when you see the nerdy, shy or unpopular kids have blossomed into socially and professionally successful adults often leaving the former in-crowd kids in the dust. My high school girlfriend's husband won't let her attend reunions. He thinks they are trouble, too much risk of fanning old flames. When the weather warms up I'll be planning my DBC CB radio jump. What will it prove? Nothing other than what might have happened had DBC been equipped with a CB walkie talkie. I'll add an ultrasuede or fleece pouch for my USAF surplus URT 21 pinger if it will help Jo. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo unless you disabled it your web browser has a "history" memory that records the URL of all websites recently visited. Have you looked there? 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I always thought that after PLF and parachute training... that the students should have been taken out to the flightline... and given practical experience in egress from their aircraft type. Once you perform a procedure.. its no longer such a scary thing to do it again. But you know how it goes... can't damage the college boys don't cha know. I read somewhere that the USAF is no longer carrying chutes in KC 135s (basically a Boeing 707 with air refueling gear). Breitling made a wristwatch that had a "pinger" inside it. Very pricey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3R7lhLqVo8 The idiot in the youtube video could easily have triggered a search. You are only allowed to do test transmissions during the first 5 minutes of every hour. Signals heard during that period are generally ignored. I have a pinger watch but a much less expensive (and much less stylish) one made by McMurdo. It cost me $45 used. A used Breiling Emergency pinger watch costs several thousand dollars. Look at how the Breitling looks and how my nerdy McMurdo looks. My McMurdo has a BIG lithium battery in it and will transmit a lot longer than the Breitling will. Breitling: http://www.luxist.com/2005/08/09/breitling-emergency-43mm-chronograph-with-distress-transmitter/ McMurdo: http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&biw=1344&bih=706&tbm=isch&tbnid=S6N-9pUB9gFXVM:&imgrefurl=http://www.landfallnavigation.com/guardian.html&docid=3gGsyAOjrFfcPM&imgurl=http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/landfallnav/GuardianBand&w=176&h=250&ei=5-T2UMn_OJDMigLKg4CYAg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=279&sig=109144343739455266940&page=1&tbnh=137&tbnw=95&start=0&ndsp=36&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:0,i:112&tx=42&ty=61 Both operate on the civil 121.5 MHz emergency frequency and their second harmonic falls on the 243.0 MHz military emergency frequency. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

No thanks Amazon. I'm a 1 G exit kinda guy. If I want explosive high G launches I'll just shoot my Mini 14. Furthermore, I don't care to land anyplace that doesn't have cold beer. How uncivilized. You can buy a flyable MIG 21 with a hot seat for well under $100K. If you are feeling really lucky you can try punching out at Mach 2. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Farf is kinda right about ejections. A skydiver I know punched out of a Navy jet that was out of control and going down fast. He thought, being a hunky skydiver and all that, that he'd at least be in familiar territory. Sooooo wrong he told me. Spine crushing launch, disorienting deployment and descent, swallowed lots of sea water and damned near drowned. Still has back problems years later. I want Amazons brand new PLD. She's got all the cool gear. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Amazon wrote I have a PLD Amazon. Pretty compact kit for something with that much high strength webbing line. Looks like those folded flat firehouse holders in buildings. Never jumped with it. If Cooper had a PLD, a tree landing would not have been a show stopper. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo, I haven't been able to find anything about ultrasuede and pingers (also called bailout beacons, locator beacons etc). Can't see how ultra suede would uniquely solve any comfort or fit problem with pingers, but I'm no expert on the subject of pinger mounting. I also can't see why a pocket made from ordinary parachute rig nylon wouldn't do just as well as ultra suede and nylon is already a proven and accepted fabric for military rigs. I spent some time at the Toray HQ in Japan back in the 90s. I didn't know a Toray employee invented ultrasuede. We were sourcing a special laminate fabric at the time for a military contract and Toray had the best stuff in the world. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Jo wrote Jo, What makes you think there is a link between ultra suede and parachutes? As far as my knowlwedge goes, they have no connection. 377 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.