Robert99

Al, You are leaving out some simple details. Where did Cooper get the can and the shovel to dig the hole where you claim he buried the can. Surely you cannot be claiming he had the can and shovel with him when he jumped. Your story is just another fairey tale which continues to hinder real progress in solving the Cooper matter. Robert Nicholson

Where is the "two or three bundles" documented? Not doubting it...just haven't taken the time to look it up and, since you're referencing it, I was hoping you'd know off the top of your head. Page 23 of Richard Tosaw's book has a discussion of Cooper offering Alice and Florence (the other two stews) one bundle of money each as they were departing the aircraft. Both declined to accept it. There is no indication in this book of Tina ever being offered a bundle of money. Robert Nicholson

There is NO attempted scam on my part. I might buy one bottle of wine every 2 months and as for smoking - I do not smoke in my house or my car...therefore I am NOT smoking when I am on the computer and only rarely have I treated myself to a bottle of wine. You are not infront of me so I can show you on a map and explain where Duane took me and the things he said - if you were, perhaps you might understand what I am trying to say. I believe Duane landed East of the plane route. I have never understood the wind thing and even with your attempt to get through to me - it is all gobbly gook to me. I wish you or someone you knew could sit me down with maps (plain black and white maps without all of the technical stuff on them) and show me exactly what you are talking about. Perhaps you know someone in my area that could do that for me - I would appreciate it. If you knew me you would know there is NO ATTEMPT on my part to scam anyone. If I was scaming anyone - ask yourself why at my age I have continued to do what I do (a scam artist would have already have written a book) and I would not be here on this thread submitting myself to being called names and accused of things I have not done. Please be a little more respectfuly when you talk about me. Jo, No offense intended. If your post #20208 had been written as clearly as the above, those remarks would not have been made in the first place. Robert Nicholson

Jo, I would suggest that you get a copy of Himmelsbach's book and check out what he says about Bohan. But the following is my response to your questions and I doubt if you will find them satisfactory. In 1971, there were two Victor airways between the Seattle and Portland (now Battleground) VORTACs. V-23 was a dog-leg type airway that departed the Seattle VORTAC (which is located on the Seattle airport proper) outbound on radial 175 and at the Mayfield (now Malay) intersection turned inbound to the Portland (now BTG) VORTAC on radial 329. V-23 had a total distance of 105 nautical miles between these two VORTACs. V-23 East was the other airway. It departed the Seattle VORTAC on radial 165 and flew directly to the Portland (now BTG) VORTAC with its inbound radial being 345. V-23 East has a total distance of 102 nautical miles between these two VORTACs. V-23 is the only airway mentioned in the transcripts of the flight crew discussions with the ground people in Seattle prior to their takeoff. But V-23 required only a minimum of 5000 feet altitude and V-23 East required 9000 feet. Based on my previous calculations, if NWA had chosen V-23 East they would not have been able to get to 9000 feet by the time they reached the sector that required that altitude based on their actual achieved climb performance on V-23. In Himmelsbach's book, Bohan is quoted as saying that he had "80 knots of wind, from 166 degrees, right on my nose" at 14,000 feet. This statement, by itself, requires that Bohan be on V-23 East and there are other considerations that require the same. It should also be noted that V-23 East passes closer to the Lake Merwin area than V-23 which the airliner was on. So Bohan's aircraft was closer to the initial estimated jump scene than the hijacked airliner. There is no information whatsoever to even suggest that Bohan was west of the hijacked airliner at any point or that he was ever close (say within 20 or 30 miles) of the hijacked airliner. If Bohan took off from Seattle "four minutes" behind NWA 305, he was undoubtedly on the ground in Portland long before the airliner got to the Portland area. If you want to see maps of NWA 305's flight path, take a look at the FBI maps (which I don't consider to be believable). I am not aware of any maps that describe Bohan's route (except the IFR low-altitude charts). Winds aloft are measured with respect to true north (or the ground grid lines). So if you can locate South and West, then face halfway between then and the southwest wind will be blowing in your face. I have never heard of a "Simple Map" but I can only assume that Bohan was speaking to Himmelsbach in plain English and speaking what he felt was the truth. Nevertheless, there is nothing to support Bohan's statement of 80 knot winds at 14,000 feet plus high winds on landing at the Portland airport. Due to several cloud layers and an undercast, it is very unlikely that Cooper could have identified anything in the Lake Merwin area or that NWA 305 even passed close to that area. Bohan's flight path probably fits the Lake Merwin area better. Your statement ". . . but the winds caught him [Cooper] and took him East and West" is something that I cannot comprehend. FULL DISCLOSURE: Jo, in all honesty, I do not find anything in your discussions about Duane Weber to be believable. That is, the attempted Duane Weber scam just doesn't fly. In all seriousness, I would suggest that you wait eight hours after popping a cork or having a smoke before writing e-mails about the Duane Weber matter. Robert Nicholson

Jo, Take another look at post #20139 on this thread concerning the information from Bohan that Himmelsbach included in his book. There is no discussion of Bohan's actual flight path and no support at all for his claim that there were 80 knot winds from the south at 14,000 feet and high winds at the Portland airport. Robert Nicholson

Sluggo, No apology necessary! As you know, the seventh of those posts actually made it online first and can be accessed through the link that 377 included in post #17840 on page 714 of this thread. Several of the posts just below that one also include the link. An additional post on this subject is still in limbo and will remain so for the immediate future. Sluggo, thanks again for posting ALL of the information that you have been able to find on the Cooper hijacking. Robert Nicholson

Link? Photo attachment? From the Seattle ARTTC transcript (page 3): 7:50:05 PM PST - Aircraft given Toledo altimeter setting of 29.98 inches of Mercury. 8:13:14 PM PST - Aircraft level at 10,000 feet. 8:15:52 PM PST - Aircraft given Portland altimeter setting of 30.03 inches of Mercury. Link? Ditto? Quade, You can find all of the sources that I have referenced on Sluggo's web page. As you may know, Sluggo regularly posts on this thread and you can find the link to his web page on this thread at post #20148 which is on page 806. Just click "web page" at the bottom of Sluggo Monster's post and you will be magically transferred to the site. You will need to do your own navigation to the FBI notes and the Seattle ARTCC transcript. If I can be of further assistance please let me know. How are your calculations coming along? Robert Nicholson

No. You're the one making the claim. Show me YOUR math. Show me YOUR data sources, a flight log from the PIC of both his indicated airspeed, the pressure and temperature, so I CAN do the math myself to check. I doubt they even exist. Quade, You are on! From the FBI Notes (page 004/017 in the upper right hand corner), 8:10 PM PST, in part, "Airplane now at 10,000 feet, 170K (i.e., 170 KIAS), TAT minus 7 degrees Centigrade". From the Seattle ARTTC transcript (page 3): 7:50:05 PM PST - Aircraft given Toledo altimeter setting of 29.98 inches of Mercury. 8:13:14 PM PST - Aircraft level at 10,000 feet. 8:15:52 PM PST - Aircraft given Portland altimeter setting of 30.03 inches of Mercury. The above is all the information you need, but here are some additional considerations. The crew was informed shortly after takeoff from Seattle that the speed for optimum range in their new configuration was 170 KIAS. They did flutuate a bit above and below this speed but 170 KIAS was what they were trying to maintain. What does a TAT of minus 7 degrees Centigrade mean? It is a value they got off their Mach meter instrument and includes the effects of temperature rise due to aerodynamic compression. Therefore, to be accurate, this temperature rise must be accounted for to give the ambient temperature which is what is needed to determine the true airspeed. My Jeppesen CR-3 circular calculator has scales which can account for this temperature rise. But in case your calculator doesn't have this capability, the temperature rise due to aerodynamic compression is 5 degrees Centigrade for the other conditions specified. This rise can be determined from other sources. So to put it another way, the ambient temperature is actually minus 12 degrees Centigrade for the specified flight conditions. From the above information, I calculate a true airspeed of between 194 and 195 knots. So to be conservative, I used 194 knots for most purposes. If you have any further questions on the above, please let me know. After we get this true airspeed calculation resolved, would you be interested in calculating the atmospheric density for the Portland area on the evening of the hijacking? And I mean including corrections for temperature, pressure, and humidity. In case you are wondering, the density from 10,000 feet to sea level in the Portland area that evening was about 2 percent above the density for the 1962 standard US atmosphere. Then after resolving the above, would you be interested in calculating the wind chill temperature that Cooper experienced on the stairs and immediately after seperating from the stairs? It was about 37 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Anything else you would like to calculate? Robert Nicholson

Robert 99, Are these quotes from Himmelsbachs book (the writer got several things wrong per Himmelsbach)? All and all it is still one of the most accurate accountings we have of the actual skyjacking. Perhaps the book is quoting the scheduled time and not the time Bohan's plane actually left. It just DOES not sound reasonable that they would release a plane on the same vector 4 minutes behind a plane traveling at 200 knots with a BOMB on board. This seems UNREALISTIC to a non-pilot. Safety was more of an issue than a scheduled flight being on time. To a layman what I have just read sounds like a major disastor in the making...there is a plane in that vector going 200 Knott and it has a bomb on board....plus I had been told the other flight was not sent out until after the Skyjacked plane cleared OR or was approaching OR. What I read might have put Bohan's plane right on top of the skyjacked plance considering the altitutude...perhaps Bohans route was to the West of the vector. Well, I am talking about something I know NOTHING about. One of you guys make some sense of it so a layman can understand it ... all of you know what I am trying to say. Jo, The quotes are correct but the remarks in the parentheses are mine. Captain Bohan's route is not specifically given but it would seem logical, as you say, that he would not be on the same airway as the hijacked airliner. At the time of the hijacking, there was a V23 East airway that ran directly from the Seattle VORTAC to what is now the Battleground VORTAC. This airway was east of the V23 airway which the airliner mostly followed to northern California. Perhaps Bohan was on it. Robert Nicholson

But that's not what you've done. What you've done is taken the course and speed made good (although you didn't actually provide the math for that) and used it based on what somebody else may have said was the true airspeed of the aircraft and have tried to come up with a simplistic formula in which somebody else can attempt to infer winds aloft. I'm telling you, that's BS because there are simply too many other unknown variables including the accuracy of the times. As much as we like to think that the pilots were being super accurate in their reporting of the conditions on their flight log, the fact is, they had bigger fish to fry. I seriously doubt either of them touched a whiz wheel during the flight to figure out their true airspeed. If it was done forensically, it was a guess at best. Quade, Something seems to be getting lost in the translation here. Let me give you a couple of items in my background that, I strongly believe, gives me some reason to stand behind my statements. I began pilot training at the age of 15 and retired from flying at the age of 60. I have more than 1750 hours of flight time including a relatively large amount of night cross country navigation time. I hold FAA Advanced Pilot and Instrument Ground Instructor Ratings. One of my college degrees is in Aeronautical Engineering and I have a number of years working professionally in the area of aircraft performance and stability and control. As Sluggo and Jerry Thomas can confirm, in early 2009 I did the basic calculations for the Seattle to Reno flight. At that time I calculated the airliner's true airspeed in the Portland area as being 194 knots at 10,000 feet based on the information that the airline crew passed to the NWA performance group in Minneapolis. Any private pilot should be able to calculate the true airspeed under the conditions this airliner described. And this is not BS but is something pilots do every day including, I'm sure, the crew of NWA 305. Sluggo used to have some posts on his web page related to this subject. However, he told me that apparently no one was reading them so I assume that he took them down. However, there is another source for some calculations on this subject. I refer to the famous thread on 727 take-off performance, which I started accidentally while trying to post to this thread, and which was locked by you after several posts. If my memory is correct, that thread contains a discussion of the entire flight from Seattle to Reno. Perhaps you would like to review it. If you want to duplicate the calculations for determining the true airspeed or anything else, let me know what kind of pilot calculator you have (Jeppeson, E6B, or other) and I'll tell you how to do it. But I stand by everything I have posted on this subject as being correct. If you disagree, please post detailed critiques that can be discussed. Otherwise, we can go sailing. Robert Nicholson

If you're going to attempt to lecture about navigation, you'll have a lot more credibility if you use the right terms. This would not be the aircraft's true airspeed. If the numbers used and calculated are correct (something not in evidence), then at best this would be "course and speed made good." Quade, the True Airspeed can be calculated (that's why pilots have hand held calculators) based on the pressure altitude, the ambient temperature with a correction for temperature rise due to speed, and the True Indicated Airpseed (which is what shows on the cockpit instrument and, also in this case, we have to assume no instrument or position error). The True Airspeed is the speed of the aircraft with respect to the air mass in which it is operating. The Ground Speed is the speed of the aircraft with respect to the ground. Ground Speed can be calculated from the True Airspeed if the winds aloft direction and velocity are known. Otherwise, Ground Speed can be calculated by measuring the time between two points (such as VORTAC stations). The True Airspeed was correctly calculated at 194 knots at 10,000 feet and the term "True Airspeed" was used correctly. The term Ground Speed is analogous to your words "speed made good". However, the phrase "course and speed made good" is not an aeronautical term. It sounds more like something a sailor would use for boats or ships. Are you a sailor? In any event, nautical and aeronautical terms are not necessairly interchangeable. To repeat, the True Airspeed was correctly calculated at 194 knots. And the terms True Airspeed, Ground Speed, and any other aeronautical terms I have used above are correctly stated and so used. Robert Nicholson

The high winds at altitude saga apparently originates from the quotations from a Captain Bohan which start on page 111 of Ralph Himmelsbach's book. Captain Bohan apparently told Himmelsbach that his jet was at 14,000 feet and "four minutes behind" the hijacked airliner. Bohan reported "80 knot winds from 166 degrees (this would presumably be about 183 degrees with respect to the grid lines), right on my nose". Bohan also reported an extremely high cross wind component as he landed on runway 10 at Portland. First, Captain Bohan wouldn't not have been "four minutes behind" the hijacked airliner very long since he probably had an airspeed of about 100 knots more than the Cooper aircraft, assuming of course that Bohan had retracted his landing gear and flaps and was operating his aircraft normally. The ground winds passed to the hijacked airliner, including those at Seattle, Reno, and points in between, were all of the order of about 10 MPH (or about 9 knots). Consequently, there is no support elsewhere for Bohan's high cross wind component which would have to be about 25 MPH to be a concern for a jet airliner. There is no supporting evidence of winds of 80 knots at 14,000 feet and plenty of supporting evidence that the winds at 10,000 feet were less than 30 knots from a southwesterly direction. Overall, the winds and weather that the hijacked airliner experienced were all relativey routine and, weatherwise, it was just another night at the office. Robert Nicholson

Atmosphere doesn't seem to be your strong suit. You might want to take a class or two on weather. Seriously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_gradient Quade, You need to take a basic course in aircraft navigation. For instance, take the time the airliner reported its last position just a few DME miles south of the Seattle VORTAC and then its time and position during the hand off to Okland Center near the Fort Jones VORTAC in northern California. You will have to get this last information from the Okland Center transcripts. Measure the straight line distance between the two points and then divide by the elapsed time. This will give the ground speed between those two points. The airliner's true air speed was about 194 knots at 10,000 feet. The difference between the ground speed and true air speed is the average head wind component that the airliner saw that night. The winds aloft were uniform at 10,000 feet and, after some juggling of your aircraft navigation hand-held computer, the average wind speed and direction can be estimated as not more than 30 knots from the southwest. But the airliner didn't fly a straight line between these points. It flew a more meandering route that was longer in the same time period. This means that its ground speed was greater and that the winds aloft at 10,000 feet were less than 30 knots from the southwest. This agrees well with the winds aloft information that is available for the time the airliner passed through the Portland area. Robert Nicholson

I don’t know why I am doing this, because I don’t think you are very serious. If you had taken my (and others) advice you would have found these photos posted previously. This photo from a newspaper article is in horrible condition, but it is the only one I know of. Now, if you really want to find out “the facts” of this case… do a little digging! The previous post is: HERE. while I appreciate your advice, I wasn't able to access the link you posted the first time, and 2 of them this time say they are expired. The two links Sluggo gave in the previous post worked for me less than one minute ago. Robert Nicholson

Perfectly good airplanes? Surely you jest. Here's a local one I've made a few jumps from: http://avstop.com/news_october_2010/faa_fines_the_parachute_center_for_aircraft_maintenance_failures.htm 377 Getting up to jump altitude may be the most dangerous part of the jump. Just as getting to the airport is the most dangerous part of flying. And I have a head full of stitches to support the last statement. Robert

Motive? Hell yes I've got a motive! And so do you. My motive is to find Cooper. Jo, in case you can't remember, your motive is to prove that Duane was Cooper despite not having a single bit of evidence to back up your claim. Good luck with your efforts. Robert Nicholson

Quade: If the money had just 'fallen', it wouldn't have been found all in the same place. I'm not suggesting individual bills fell or even individual straps (100 bills), but rather an entire bank bundle ($20,000) may have become separated from the rest. One of the major flaws in almost any heist movie is respect for the weight of whatever it is that the crooks are stealing. For instance, in the Batman movie with Heath Ledger as Joker, in an early scene, he's causally flipping huge duffle bags of money into the back of the bus. Well, a duffle bag full of money is going to weigh quite a bit. Unless The Joker is a hell of a lot stronger than he looks, those bags were essentially empty. 22 pounds of extra whatever strapped to a single point while also wearing these old school parachutes would make for an "interesting" time. A smart and skydive savvy DB Cooper might have opted to distribute the weight and literally not place all his eggs in one basket. What I'm suggesting may have happened, is it's entirely possible that in rigging up, a "bank bundle" of bills got out of his control. Think about it another way, IF DB Cooper survived, then how did that money get there? Certainly a DB Cooper that survived wouldn't leave it there intentionally. The money would have had to have simply gotten out of his control. The most reasonable explanation is it happened either during his gearing up or during his descent, but it's perfectly clear to me that if Cooper survived, he didn't just drop the money and decide not to pick it up. If a live DB Cooper could have lost the money, then so too could the Cooper that cratered. Again, I don't put a whole lot of stock in Tina's Bar being all that definitive as an indication where Cooper may have cratered/landed. Quade, Tina said that Cooper was tieing the money bag to his waist the last time she saw him. That means he had secured the loot, except for maybe a small amount that he stuck in his rain coat pockets. The stairs had not been lowered at that point. As Robert Blevins points out, if Cooper had lost some of the money during his descent, it would have been scattered any number of miles by the wind which was from the southwest at about 26 knots (at 10,000 feet) that evening. If the money landed at Tina Bar as a result of the wind, Cooper's jump point would have been 10+ miles southwest of there and well into Oregon. The only sensible flight path for the airliner would have been to fly almost straight south (with respect to the grid lines) from the Toledo, WA area to the point reported as 27 DME miles south of the present day Battleground VORTAC on V-23. Such a flight path would have taken the aircraft almost directly over Tina Bar. The much hyped idea of a flight path passing east of Portland is utter nonsense since it would have added about 10 to 15 nautical miles to the distance to Reno at the very time the flight crew didn't know if they had sufficient fuel to get there in the first place. And weather was not a factor in this flight. The only weather the flight crew was informed of before taking off from Seattle was some haze south of Portland. And the airliner did encounter some light ice in that area. But Captain Bohan's famous 80 knot winds from the southeast at 14,000 feet are pure bunk. At 10,000 feet, the airliner only encountered the 26 knot winds from the southwest mentioned above. Robert

You are correct. I understand that she is still performing at clubs in that area at the age of 73. What ever happened to the Tiger Girl at the Condor? Robert

Amazon, Have they gone to elastic POBs? That would surprise me, but progress often does. Those ones with metal springs inside hold tension for decades. I popped a belly reserve in 2000 that was last packed in 1974. POBs opened the flaps right up and the pilot chute spring did its thing... launched itself across the room. It had a kicker plate. Robert, Try a compass as your metal detector, it might be more sensitive than trying to feel a magnet pull. Look for deflection. A cheap magnetic stud finder should work too. Don't ask for one of those in SF, it wont be what you expect. 377 377, each of the bands has five very small wires. Each wire is in its own grove with the cloth between each wire stitched. While I can feel the wires, I can't feel the springs even going from one end of the band to the other. My NB-6 may have also had these wires in 1971 and I just never noticed them but just assumed they were rubber type bands. I happened to be in SF over the Labor Day weekend of 1966. Somehow I found myself sitting on a stool at a place of entertainment that was quite famous at that time. A lady by the name of Carol Dodo, if I got the last name spelled right, walked by me and brushed my left elbow with her famous 44+ whatevers. With that experience, there was nothing further for me to do in SF so I have not been back. Robert

But it's a ridiculous idea for finding the DB Cooper "crater." Think about it for just a few minutes. Let's say we could figure out where in 3D space he left the aircraft. That we also knew the wind speed and what altitude he pulled. Let's say we could be certain to within a 1 mile radius of where he cratered. Which BTW, is absolutely impossible with the current data, but for the sake of argument let's say we actually could do it. How long do you think it would take to sweep that area with a metal detector? Remember, you're probably going to be walking the search area at less than 0.1 mph and sweeping an area about 6 feet wide. Quade and 377, without giving away any of my "secrets" (since Jo doesn't advertise hers either), let me point out that the "current data" is not the only way to approach this particular event. I agree that there is no way to locate a jump point or landing point based on the publicly released FBI information. And if I remember correctly, I have pointed this out a time or two. Consequently, we (meaning me) have been reduced to just using common sense even though it may be inferior to "official" information. The Wisdom of the Ages includes the facts that the law of gravity still works for one an all and that water runs downhill. Possibly the only "fact" in this matter is where the money was found at Tina Bar and I think that location is generally agreed to within a few hundred feet. But one "fact" is all that is needed to start developing other "facts", etc., etc.. And developing "facts" is an ongoing process. Obviously, I do not subscribe to the "theory", even if it may be the "official" one, that Cooper landed 20 miles up the river from Tina Bar. I do not subscribe to the "theory" that the airliner passed on the east side of Portland, even if all three pilots gave sworn statements to that effect, since such a flight path simply does not make sense. I do subscribe to the theory that the Cooper hi-jacking is still solvable even at this date. And I will continue along that line. Don't color me "Alice (or Robert) in Wonderland". Just color me as being realistic. Robert

377 and Amazon, I now have the container referred to above in hand. It was manufactured in 1988 but never put in service. It has six, at least, horizontal metal bands as stiffeners and two, at least, vertical stiffeners. In the fall of 1971, and maybe in to mid-November, I owned an NB-6 that I used as an emergency chute. This particular chute's container and canopy were probably manufactured in the 1950 to 1960 time frame. There are some differences in the two NB-6 containers based on a 40 year old memory. There seem to be more metallic stiffeners in the new container. Contrary to 377's earlier statement, the packing bands on both containers seem to be elastic rather than having a metal spring. The other differences appear to be "product improvement" types. The six horizontal stiffeners are bowed such that the wearer's back would be sitting in a U. No one is going to be able to put even a 26 foot conical canopy in this container until they work over these stiffeners with a sledge hammer. And a 28 foot flat canopy fitting into this container is completely out of the question, beer talk to the contrary. If Cooper actually jumped with a NB-6, he may have done so due to a preference for Navy equipment. Robert Using the best magnet obtainable from Home Depot's cabinet door closing display, I have now conducted some experiments to determine what reacts with the magnet in the NB-6 container as well as other items. The NB-6 container that I have contains six horizontal stiffeners that strongly react with a magnet. It also contains one horizontal stiffener in each of the end flaps that does not react with a magnet. There are three vertical stiffeners and all strongly react with a magnet. There is one stiffener on each side of the container and the third is on the side flap that ends up on the top of the pile with the rip cord cones stick up through it. The flap opening springs react weakly with a magnet (and they are very small also). The hardware on the container that would be used to attach it to the harness also strongly reacts with a magnet. Does 377 or Amazon know if the other harness hardware and fasteners would react with a magnet? How about the coil spring in the pilot chute? Please remember that the shroud lines are sewn to the risers in the NB-6 and there is no hardware between your shoulder area and the pilot chute. Additional testing was conducted on belt buckles, pocket knives, and shoe nails. Some belt buckles react to magnets and some do not. Pocket knives react at least moderately to a magnet. The shoe nail testing was inconclusive since such nails are apparently not now used in shoes and I don't own a pair that is 40 years old. It seems reasonable, at least to me, that a metal detector would be able to detect an NB-6 parachute even after 40 years in the brush. Maybe we can induce the "Meteorite Searchers" of TV fame to do a search for us. Would someone care to call them and report a meteorite landing on the south end of the Fazio property and just short of that boat docking area and parking lot? Robert

377, That 26 foot conical canopy was what I was after. I used this chute in flying high-performance gliders which had a VERY cramped cockpit even for me (I fit in about the 55-60 percentile in height, weight, and major bone lengths for the male pilot population). In the 1960's era, the 26 foot conical canopy was in short supply and priced at least 2 or 3 times higher than 28 foot flat canopies. So they were hard to find, but my rigger found one for me and then, under his supervision, I removed some of the metallic stiffeners and maybe added a thicker back pad. The smaller pack with the 26 foot conical is what is desired. In high performance gliders, where the pilot is in a supine position, that back pad and other cushions are extremely important. Otherwise, since glider flights can routine last 6 to 8 hours, you may find yourself a long way from home and experiencing the tortures of the damned. Now that I have this container, I am just going to look at it for the time being. The guy I bought it from told me yesterday that he has four more of them if anyone is interested (send me a PM and I will give you his e-mail address in the Phoenix, AZ area). Robert

377 and Amazon, I now have the container referred to above in hand. It was manufactured in 1988 but never put in service. It has six, at least, horizontal metal bands as stiffeners and two, at least, vertical stiffeners. In the fall of 1971, and maybe in to mid-November, I owned an NB-6 that I used as an emergency chute. This particular chute's container and canopy were probably manufactured in the 1950 to 1960 time frame. There are some differences in the two NB-6 containers based on a 40 year old memory. There seem to be more metallic stiffeners in the new container. Contrary to 377's earlier statement, the packing bands on both containers seem to be elastic rather than having a metal spring. The other differences appear to be "product improvement" types. The six horizontal stiffeners are bowed such that the wearer's back would be sitting in a U. No one is going to be able to put even a 26 foot conical canopy in this container until they work over these stiffeners with a sledge hammer. And a 28 foot flat canopy fitting into this container is completely out of the question, beer talk to the contrary. If Cooper actually jumped with a NB-6, he may have done so due to a preference for Navy equipment. Robert

Wouldn't make for a very long OR interesting narrative...

Jo, In case you were addressing me with that remark, be aware that I do "know about 1971 and WHAT was available and NOT available" as well as 1961, 1951, 1941, and all the others since then. In fact, next Wednesday, November 24, 2010, will be the 39th anniversary of Cooper's hi-jacking and it will be another birthday for me as well. Robert