JCW1966

Blue Skies Pete, you still owe me a wingsuit jump. I'll catch up with you when I catch up with ya and when I do we'll have a laugh or two and spread our wings and fly! love ya, peace and blue skies my friend. Until we meet again....

Where on earth are you jumping at that rents student gear with no AAD in it? I jump without an AAD but it's my rig. And yes I do plan on putting an AAD in it. After watching someone's full face helmet come off of their head and and almost KO me in the face (I wear an open face Gath) I've decided that an AAD might not be a bad idea. As far as this time share idea of yours personally I'd be stashing money back every time I could until I could afford a rig. I rented gear for 5 years. I'm not married but I had college and all of it's expenses to deal with. I also was lucky that for a long time Thursday and Fridays were free gear rental so my gear renting expense wasn't anywhere as high as it could have been. You definitely need to get some gear. Nothing beats consistency under canopy than jumping the same thing every time you jump. Good Luck, I hope you find the deal of a lifetime. Nothing like owning your own gear

Not trying to sound like a jerk here but what do you really expect to get for $1500? I've seen folks on here try to sale a Sabre 1 in a Dolphin Container with a Raven reserve and no AAD for $3000 and every piece of the gear was over 10 yrs old. I bought a Sabre II 190, Mirage G3, and a R-Max 208 reserve for $2700. All of the gear was manufactured in 2004 but 7 years later when I got it, it still had less than 300 jumps and hadn't been jumped in over a year. The main is still got that shininess / slickness like a brand new canopy. The reserve has one ride on it. Rig was taken completely apart, inspected, and I was told that if I wanted to get rid of the main they'd give me a grand for it. I was quoted $1850 by a dealer for a new Sabre II. Well I didn't want to get rid of the main but it was a nice offer / try

I bought a used rig back in January. It had to have a reserve repack. Not only did my rigger encourage me to ask questions he taught me how things where done and why. I put the rig on, pulled the handles. then we took my rig completely apart, inspected everything and then I watched as he put it all back together. This took the better part of an afternoon. I have another reserve repack coming up in about a month. I doubt he will be offended if I ask to watch. I would hope that all riggers were this way. Now that summer is here riggers at some dzs will have less time to spend with customers like that unless you can get with them in the middle of the week.

Actually someone did mention the water about one page before your post. I have no problem with Brian jumping into the speedway. I'd do it if given the chance regardless. Is it good for the sport? Yeah it is, no argument there. What I do have a problem with is the USPA setting up a DZ for a day so some rules can be circumvented to allow a low jump number skydiver who happens to be a celebrity make a skydive that the rest of us drool over just thinking about it. Thanks for telling us how the organization that takes our money and tries to run our sport will circumnavigate their own rules when it fits their agenda. Bet they took money for a charter membership for this "DZ for a day" too.

Actually this video shows Vicker's landing and there's smoke / dust coming from his right foot when he's standing up and walking around right at the end of the landing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiM-R2vR1E0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Actually the media got this one right. I saw an interview with Brian Vickers a couple of weeks back. The Daytona promo was mentioned and he gave his whole skydiving history. So now he has 71 jumps.

Where have you been jumping? The Farm will have someone to help you out. Just holler at Hans or Andy and they'll get you hooked up with someone.

Yeah a friend showed that one to me back in July. Thanks for sharing the link it was fun to watch it again.

Makes it so bad it's even better. I hope they had a good time packing each other's chutes. LMAO

Yeah I have to agree with you but the technology is pretty cool and you know it will get better.

Yes she's a double bad ass, better hang on to her she sounds like a good catch!

N/A

LOL, thank you!

Ran across this on youtube. Those who are guilty will blast me for this but blasting me just proves that being a hall monitor in elementary school just went to your head. Get a life, locking out a thread due to drift? Give me a break. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HDQ9H_OVWo&feature=player_embedded

Thanks for the info. That answered a question or two, also gave me more questions. LOL.

I have to agree with ya on the immediate bail out. Law enforcement probably would have been all over him. Had Cooper been a commercial or military pilot would that have helped him to know where they were heading after takeoff? People have always talked about him being a skydiver. You never hear anyone mention anything about him being a pilot but he seemed to know a lot more about the 727 than your average person. I love airplanes and I made an aircraft carrier my home for 4 years. I didn't know the 727 had the rear staircase or what a Cooper Vane was until the early 80's and then it was only because of the stories about D.B. Cooper. Had it not been for Cooper I might still not know that the 727 had that rear staircase. On another note has anyone ever looked at Andrew Thorton, "The Company", and those he ran around with? In his skydiving death Andrew Thornton was wearing night vision goggles, a bulletproof vest, Gucci loafers, and a green Army duffel bag containing approximately 40 kilos (79 lbs.) of cocaine valued at $15 million, $4,500 in cash, knives, and two pistols. Where he jumped to his death at is over the Appalachians and the Smokeys, not a very nice place to be jumping into for sure. Oh and he was 26 in 71'

The damn story is so riddled with Myths (like the Dan Cooper Comic thing) that the truth is buried. Why not add another Myth about the place card. Georger was the only one who caught it. All one has to do is make one small statement (on purpose or in error) and before you know it it has become fact. No one knows how or why the placard was found in Toutle - did Cooper have the stairwell opened by then? Probably, but the FBI and others have used the placement of that placard to claim the flight was closer to I-5 rather than somewhat more East, Draw a straight line from Toutle to an area an area between Cama/Washougal and see where it goes. ....one would think that the flight path would have been laid out properly in 1971 by the media and the FBI in order to find clues. Did they have a reason to misdirect the public in 1971? Well I wasn't trying to add another myth to all of this. So the placard was found. We just don't know exactly where it was found. Now what are the odds of it being found period? Could it have been placed wherever on purpose? Look how many wrecked aircraft were found during the search for Fosset and these hunters found a placard? I did find this on Wiki: In late 1978 a placard containing instructions on how to lower the aft stairs of a 727, later confirmed to be from the rear stairway of the plane from which Cooper jumped, was found just a few flying minutes north of Cooper's projected drop zone. Surely the FBI had the sense to try to get some prints off of it? Doesn't help much other than confirming the placard was found. As did the FBI misdirect the public in 1971? When isn't the FBI misdirecting the public about something? Who knows what they did back in '71? I was only 5 and Scooby Doo was more along my lines than keeping up with current events. If they did misdirect the public maybe it was to not let Cooper know what all they had, didn't have as far as clues as to his crime and identity thus keeping him looking over his shoulder wherever he went.

That would be news to me if true. We have someone here who can probably answer this. I actually read that on here, it's the first time I had heard it. The problem is to go find it there's almost 800 pages of posts to rummage through

LOL, I have to agree with you there. But see that's also part of my point. If that dumb ass could get away with it for a few days until he was caught..... And where he jumped has some nice clear areas to land in, but there's a lot of trees and very thick woods surrounding any open space of land in that area. He got very lucky he didn't end up impaled on something. As far as his gold goes, who knows. Why did he even mention it? If he had the gold I could still see him doing it though because he wanted people to think he was dead. I haven't been down there since the news released that part. I figure there's people stomping and trespassing all over the place looking for it and it's probably not there. Probably an excuse to say I had it but I don't anymore and it's really somewhere else and he'll grab it 10 years from now when he gets out of prison. Obviously D.B. had his crime planned out way better than the dufus jumping out of his plane over the state I live in. Speaking of determining a jump point how hard would that have been in Cooper's case? If you know the plane is going to be flying from point A to point B at a certain speed I would think that one could figure it out. The "fly right under 200" has always intrigued me. The plane could have gone slower than that making for an easier exit but yet he wanted right under 200, why?

I have to say there's a lot of interesting reading here. What I find amazing though is those who think D.B. Cooper was killed doing this. They say there's just no way anyone could survive. There are plenty examples of people surviving what was thought to be unsurvivable. So how can anyone say that with absolute certainty? You can't, just like we can't say he survived for certain either. Everyone talks about the cold and the clothes he was wearing. Maybe he needed to look like a businessman instead of being dressed for the task at hand. Maybe the business clothes were needed for a certain look after he was on the ground. I'm still trying to figure that one out but I definitely believe there was a purpose in his dressing that way and it had something to do with being on the ground, not in the plane, and not in the air. This guy obviously had a reason for what he did and how he did it. The placard from the 727 was found in a cemetery. Maybe Cooper left it there on purpose. I'm mean really, what are the odds of that placard landing in a cemetery? Maybe by leaving it there he was making a statement. As meticulous as D.B. has appeared to be about things it wouldn't surprise me if it was left there on purpose. Was that placard ever finger printed? I'm also thoroughly convinced that he had an accomplice or transportation in place on the ground. Now that would mean he would have to know where he was at in relation to the earth below during the flight and up until he left the plane. How hard would that be to do? If you knew where the plane was at in relation to the earth then you would have the navigation problem licked. A compass, a map, and a little math would get you pretty close. Why have the plane fly just below 200 knots? I think he was calculating where he was at. The plane could have flown slower than that. According to Boeing approach speeds for the 727 - 100 is 124 knots and the 727 - 200 is 133 knots. 200 is a round number and easier to do math with than say 178. If the pilot followed his instructions and kept it just under 200 and he was somehow figuring out where he was he wouldn't be off by much. I know the chances of most people surviving something like this aren't all that great. But the right person and wham it's done. I think back to Marcus Schrenker. If you don't know who he is Google his name. Marcus jumped from a plane where I fly my rockets at in an attempt to fake his own death. There's nothing there but fields, forests, creeks, cows, goats and a lost rocket or two. Yet a farmer picked this guy up, gave him a ride to police in Childersburg, AL. Schrenker told officers from the Childersburg, Ala. Police Department that he was in a canoeing accident and asked for a ride to a hotel. Unaware of his pilotless plane crashing in Florida, officers agreed. When they returned to the hotel in search of Schrenker, he had disappeared. The officers learned he had paid for his room in cash before putting on a black cap and running into the woods next to the hotel. He went about 10 miles or so to a little town called Harpersville where he had a motorcycle in storage and he was gone until he was caught in Florida. This guy was from Indiana, flew to Florida enough to know about the vast open space and woods he chose to jump over in Alabama, put a motorcycle in storage less than 20 miles where he jumped from, and even had the police, unknowingly, help him escape the area. And this happened in January of 2009, not 1971. This guy really didn't plan this out all that well either and caught some lucky breaks. One he didn't have enough fuel in his aircraft to fly on out into the Gulf of Mexico and as soon as his plane crashed and there was not a body inside the game was up. Yet here he is 4 hours north being helped out by the local police in making his escape. Obviously law enforcement in Childersburg did not know about the pilotless plane that crashed 4 hours south of there in Florida. Why? because they were not in touch with law enforcement down there, had no reason to be. Which brings up a question about D.B. At the time that he left the plane how many of the local law enforcement agencies in that area even knew about the hijacking? How many found out when they read the morning paper with their coffee? Remember this was 1971 and law enforcement agencies interacted with each other a lot less then they do now. And the FBI is not known for it's willingness to bring in other agencies now, how much worse where they about that in 1971? How many of the local sheriff depts found out the next day? Back to Marcus Schrenker. This guy, from what I have been told, never even completed AFF. I can't confirm this to be true. but he does not hold a USPA membership. Also I can't find anyone to claim they taught him how to skydive either. And now through his attorney, he claims that when he jumped from his plane he did so with 1,400 ounces (50lbs) of gold attached to his body and that he hid it in the Coosa River. Estimated worth, approx 2 mil. Gold closed at 1364 an ounce yesterday making his loot worth 1.91 mil So this highly experienced stunt pilot, jumps from his plane, gets a helping hand from a farmer then the local police dept. in making his escape only to get caught at a K.O.A. in Florida, broke, in withdrawals from the pain meds he was addicted to and suicidal. Sometimes fact is weirder than fiction and if the truth ever comes out about D.B. Cooper I think we will find this to be the case in this mystery as well.

My rig is equipped with an AAD. But I have not used it yet. Now that's a good thing!

okay I figured out the poll thingy. Now there is a poll for do you use an AAD, and if so what brand / model. Wouldn't want to discriminate against anyone

Thanks for taking the time to take this poll.

The poll thingy would only let me create 5 choices. Since none is not a brand it doesn't matter to what I'm trying to learn. But that would be another good poll to do,