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quade

DB Cooper

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I know you are being sarcastic with the Jesus remark, but do not ignore the very real possbility that the Anti Christ is in the house. Mark of the Beast and all that. I smell Sulphur.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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Amazon: C-9 chest mount bailout container. So you're saying this is not a chest reserve, but a chest main?

Why would there be one hanging in the stack of apparently in-use chest reserves? (i just noticed it appears to have some nylon cord on the side handles, like the fbi chest reserve did..always wondered what the heck that cord was about)

Reading what you say some more, you think maybe it was modified into a chest reserve?

Referencing the picture again: do you think it is fully stuffed with a main or reserve?


It could very easily be one of the C-9 chest mount bailout containers where the aircrew wore a harness but not the parachute due to space limitations on some aircraft types and they would snap on the chest mount to the 2 D rings on the harness if a problem with the aircraft arose. They were pretty common on some of the large aircraft in the 50's, 60's and 70's.

I had one of those when I first started in the early 70's that had been modified into my very first reserve. AS a young financially strapped service member the fancy sport gear was just out of reach price wise, so many of us had surplus GI gear with modified surplus military canopies like the C-9 or a T-10 with a 5 TU or 7 TU or other cut.

Almost all of the DZ's I frequented back in the day used that kind of gear for students. The Seattle Skydivers Club at Snohomish still had a bunch of that stuff and I got to jump some a few years ago in 2003 at the Green Meet... CRAP those things seem to come down faster than I remembered:ph34r::ph34r:

http://seattleskydivers.org/v/events/greenmeet03/

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I was re-reading an old article and I just noticed that Linn Emrick says he selected the chest rigs (I had forgotten whether it was Linn or another employee)

But Linn admits it wasn't obvious to him:

Emrick of Sky Sports Inc., Issaquah, Wash., said the 'chute was for ground practice only and the canopy was sewn shut.

"I didn't know it when I went over and picked it out," he said.

from
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1LAiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KLMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5358,3529859&dq=hijack+chest+parachute&hl=en

If it wasn't obvious to Emrick, why bother trying to infer information about Cooper from Cooper's selection of which rig to cut the cords from?

Unless someone has info saying it wasn't Emrick who made the selection. (contrary to above)

I believe Agent Carr tried to argue some point along these lines. (a squeeze-the-charmin argument?)

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I'd like to challenge the alleged fact that KC did any freefall jumps while serving in Japan.

Amazon, your thoughts?

If he did who trained him? Show me any Army manuals from this time period that describe freefall jumping. The Army had training manuals for everything they did involving parachutes.

You don't just jump out of a C46 and become a stable freefaller. I was the master of the flat spin long before I learned freefall stability. We didn't have AFF. You were told how to fly stable and then jumped solo to try to put words to practice.

I think KC may have done S/L demo jumps without carrying external gear payloads, but I am skeptical about freefall claims.

377



I dont buy the free fall. Those that took static line training were usually assigned to units that always did Static line jumps.

War Two types who did freefall were usually very elite OSS or people working with the British SOE


My skydive training was also a self help project. I did my 5 static lines some with practice ripcord pulls and then an immediate pull on my own... then on to 5 sec 10 sec 15 sec etc. I progressed fast but many did not. On some of the longer ones I had Tom jumping with me to watch.. but there was no assist on any of them.

Military style exits with the tuck would not lead to a very stable freefall exit in ANY form http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7bR3BTTwPE

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According to Skipp Porteus, the story of Kenny jumping comes from a single letter dated August 4, 1946 from Sendai (a different city than what Blevins claimed in his book. Maybe that's the city Blevins moved to?)

There isn't detail in this snippet about what the $150 was for. Was the jump for being re-certified to receive paratrooper pay grade? My first thought would be that..not a "demo jump"

Where did the freefall demo jump idea come from? Did Mr. Blevins make it up for the History Channel?
Mr. Blevins: Do you have the letter?

From Skipp:

"“Dear Folks,” Kenny wrote home in one letter dated August 4, 1946, from Sendai. “I went to church this morning. I went last Sunday also. I had more reason to go last Sunday, as after ten months of hibernation, I once again donned a chute and reserve and entered a C-46. I cringed a good deal, but I managed once again to pitch myself into the blast. That jump was worth $150. The nicest thing about the whole affair was that I never had time to worry about it … Don’t get the idea that I didn’t get that certain stomackless [sic] feeling, because I did.”"


Mr. Blevins quotes this letter in his book, and provides no other Japan letters. Are there any others?

Kenny was deployed, after his initial training on August 16, 1945. [Ed. note: Japan surrendered on August 12, 1945. Nagasaki was August 9, 1945]

Looking at the ten month "hibernation" ..maybe this was his first jump after training.

Amazon: is there an annual jump certification required (back then?)



I do not know about the airborne units back in the 40's as far as staying current. When I was in I think it was a quarterly requirement to get my $55 a month. I never had to worry.. I was ALWAYS volunteering for any demo's or any slot that needed someone else to fill the aircraft when others had to get their money jumps in and I was getting about 10 a month:)

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Amazon: C-9 chest mount bailout container. So you're saying this is not a chest reserve, but a chest main?

Why would there be one hanging in the stack of apparently in-use chest reserves? (i just noticed it appears to have some nylon cord on the side handles, like the fbi chest reserve did..always wondered what the heck that cord was about)

Reading what you say some more, you think maybe it was modified into a chest reserve?

Referencing the picture again: do you think it is fully stuffed with a main or reserve?


It could very easily be one of the C-9 chest mount bailout containers where the aircrew wore a harness but not the parachute due to space limitations on some aircraft types and they would snap on the chest mount to the 2 D rings on the harness if a problem with the aircraft arose. They were pretty common on some of the large aircraft in the 50's, 60's and 70's.

I had one of those when I first started in the early 70's that had been modified into my very first reserve. AS a young financially strapped service member the fancy sport gear was just out of reach price wise, so many of us had surplus GI gear with modified surplus military canopies like the C-9 or a T-10 with a 5 TU or 7 TU or other cut.

Almost all of the DZ's I frequented back in the day used that kind of gear for students. The Seattle Skydivers Club at Snohomish still had a bunch of that stuff and I got to jump some a few years ago in 2003 at the Green Meet... CRAP those things seem to come down faster than I remembered:ph34r::ph34r:

http://seattleskydivers.org/v/events/greenmeet03/



There was a distinct difference in the standard 24' reserve and its container and the C-9 Bailout chest mount. Yes the C-9 was larger with a larger pack tray and yes it was a main. I cant tell what the ones in the picture you have are but I would say most of them are 24' reserves with the exception of the one on top. it LOOKS larger.

Yes I had one of the Mains with the larger container modified into a reserve and it had a panel on it with a stop watch and an altimeter that is VERY edible when cutting away from a PIECE of shit Streamer on my fifth skydive

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Thanks for all that, Amazon.

Looks like I erred in copying Linn's misspelled name from the article. It seems like both his first name and last name are constantly misspelled.

I'm going to go with "Linn Emrich" (not Emrick) because that's the author name he used in/on his book here (1970) (see cover)

http://books.google.com/books?id=WEITAQAAIAAJ&q=Linn+Emrich&dq=Linn+Emrich&hl=en&ei=2DrKTLuZHpTksQPk-LiWDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA

[edit] some touching notes here after his 10/1/02 death. Sounds like he was a nice guy.
(fixed link to better one). Hey some nice photos of him there over the years! Going to attach one with a rig on
http://www.memorialobituaries.com/memorials/obits_display.cgi?action=obit&memid=76188&clientid=flint

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I know you are being sarcastic with the Jesus remark, but do not ignore the very real possbility that the Anti Christ is in the house. Mark of the Beast and all that. I smell Sulphur.

377



A Halloween Miracle!

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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I'm reading the current military jump pay...

says $150/month regular, and $225 for Halo. You can only get one or the other.

Have to make at least one jump per 3 months.

also reading a vietnam account that says then you got $50/month extra for jump pay. (normal army private $78/month?).

So Jump Pay was relatively more significant back then?

Okay I found a WWII jump pay reference here:
seems to be talking about 1941-1943

Jump pay was $50 month (book is talking about before 1943 I guess) and $100/month for officers.
wow! have to double check that but book seems authentic.

So if the qualification was quarterly back then, then 3 months * $50 = $150 per jump. That matches the $150 reference in KC's letter.

"Combat Jump: The Young Men Who Led the Assault Into Fortress Europe, July 1943" By Ed Ruggero

http://books.google.com/books?id=q-hxi8i5OrUC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=jump+pay+paratrooper&source=bl&ots=tmvUqHt90B&sig=W81ct2ilmrZmIXIBTE6PGlis-1c&hl=en&ei=WXjKTO7zEIy6sAPKmo3aDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCUQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=jump%20pay&f=false

It's interesting that jump pay was so much of an increase back then. For enlisted paratroopers, that was a 130 percent pay raise.
(draftees were getting $21/month)

I can't understand how Porteus would skip over this more obvious explanation.

Who could come up with the idea of doing demo jumps in Japan for civilians to watch, within a year of firebombing a nearby city? (or nuking two). I can't imagine there's any account of such a demo, by anyone?

Porteus is a city guy. I wonder if that skews his thinking.

(edit) I wonder if the total number of jumps (static line) that KC did were just the qualifying jumps. It doesn't sound like went out of his way to jump..a la Amazonia.

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In the pdf file you distributed, you wrote on page 34

"Securing anything bulky to his chest besides the emergency chute might cause him to go into a tumble during a freefall. If that happened, once he pulled the ripcord on the main chute he would entangle in the lines and collapse the chute. However, he knew what to do. As he had done many times before in the Army, he would make the jump with any extra cargo dangling below him from a line tied to his waist."


I guess you could claim you didn't say KC had freefal experience from that paragraph.

But why did you use the word freefall there?

Seems like intentional deception, either of yourself or the readers.

This isn't attacking you. Just pointing out that you don't seem to understand how your writing is absorbed by readers. (edit) Or maybe you do? You did brag about your History Channel deal. So maybe I misread intent?

See, all those words imply Kenny had done this all before, and knew exactly what to do.

An alternative paragraph could have been: "Although this was Kenny's first freefall, he wasn't shitting bricks. Because he had sorted mail in Japan."

this is in reponse to Mr Blevin's post:
"First, I'd like to mention an important point. I never said in the book or to the History Channel that I thought Kenny made any freefall jumps. We just established he was a paratrooper and that's all. "

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Mr Blevins suggested:

"I have a comment about this Linn Emrich person who supposedly gave the FBI a name. In the first few months after the hijacking, if the FBI got a name, you can be assured that person was thoroughly checked out by the FBI."

Well you're wrong. I believe Bruce dug up some stuff that said they were looking for Sheridan back then but couldn't find him.

I don't know what you mean by "thoroughly checked out" though. Your standards may be different than mine?

And why say "this Linn Emrich person"? You make it sound like he's some dude out of nowhere. If you don't understand Linn's connection to the story..well, you don't seem very well read.? Are you saying Linn is not part of the story?

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I am your worst enemy. Woman with a keyboard. (edit) Correction: dog with a keyboard.
I don't want to engage you any more. You are obviously comfortable passing off uninformed opinion as fact.

I won't even comment on this passage from "Blast" but the jumpers here should chuckle at your vision of freefalling Kenny plus separate bag attached by cord...and that was the plan.

I'm not a jumper, and it's obvious you're just writing comics here:


"He fought his way to the bottom of the stairs, his heart racing. The tremendous roar of the engines was both deafening and an incentive to do what he had to do to get away from the noise. He held the bundle to his chest and jumped. The frigid air pierced his body like a thousand knives as he fell. He threw the bundle away from him and began a count. “One Mississippi! Two Mississippi! Three Mississippi!” He shouted over the blast of the wind.
A few seconds later he pulled the ripcord. The parachute opened and the harness jerked him violently. The heavy bundle dangling below him pulled hard on his waist. The wind whipped against his face while the rain pelted him and soaked through his clothes."
(page 35 of pdf)

Come to think of it, just change a couple words, and it's the same as the porn story I'm reading on the next window.

addition: I never said I was polite. Don't put that on me.

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BTW: Do you have an actual name and identity? It's traditional to introduce yourself in polite company.



Um, actually, this is an internet forum so it is not at all necessary to reveal actual names and identities.

And I'm not at all sure this would count as "polite company" :D:)
Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

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Orange 1 says in part:

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'Um, actually, this is an internet forum so it is not at all necessary to reveal actual names and identities.'


You are correct about this, but then if you don't you can't blame people for not taking you seriously. You could be just some sixth-grader from Kankakee, Illinois with a computer. Not you personally, but anyone who snipes at you in anonymity.

The real point here is that I answered the freefall question about Kenny as honestly as I could.



Or, that you made the freefall assertion in the first place. These are issues of fact - if facts have anything to do with any of this.

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The frigid air pierced his body like a thousand knives as he fell. He threw the bundle away from him and began a count. “One Mississippi! Two Mississippi! Three Mississippi!” He shouted over the blast of the wind.



yeah Nexus... the LAST thing you'd want to do in freefall is to unleash a tethered cargo. It could wrap you and prevent a pack opening or snag a deploying pilot chute and cause a high speed horseshoe malfunction. The tethered stabilizing drogue tossed by tandem masters in freefall is an entirely different thing and is engineered as part of the main deployment system.

You'd only want to do something like throwing a tethered bundle away from you AFTER you canopy is open to lessen the load on landing. The cargo hits first and unloads the canopy slowing its descent for the remaining suspended load which is the jumper..

As for Blevins referring to Linn as "that person", doesn't it remind you of Bill Clinton talking about Monica? I am not implying any impropriety, it's just a peculiar literary way of distancing or discrediting.

I'd really like to get more info on the Amboy canopy, especially about the risers if they were still attached. I want to know if they had Capewell fittings on the bottoms.

A LOT of people confuse nylon taffeta material with silk when they see an old WW 2 chute with yellowed material. My late mother worked packing chutes during WW2. I think she worked for Pioneer. She said they were all nylon where she worked but she had heard of some silk chutes being used in WW2.

She watched me pack my first C9 round canopy when I was 18 and said that my pack job would NEVER have passed inspection in her factory. She was astounded at how sloppy skydiver pack jobs were. She said at her factory they had to pack chutes absolutely perfectly, not one tiny bit of extra crease fold or less than perfect overlap on the flaked panels. I told her that it made very little difference if any in reliabilty and that the 4 line check was the most important part of the pack job. She laughed and said that they could have doubled output easily if they were allowed to pack like skydivers. She told me she had always worried about a tiny imperfection in her pack jobs having caused a military flier to die. I told her to stop worrying, and I think she did.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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377,

Your mother is who we all hoped would be packing our chutes.

You jumpers do a pack, put on a reserve, get in the plane and typically use at least one. Not so for the wingnuts which stay in the aircraft ‘acting’ like they are in control. That rig is a heavy, uncomfortable and a barely portable seat which ‘the Man’ forced us to wear in yet another display of tacit domination.

Snugly fitted within the shell of an ejection seat or stacked in a fuselage just waiting for some use, they were largely ignored and abused. After a separated and redundant system failed and we were out of airspeed and ideas; the only thing left in the entire airframe which may still be working is that sweet, easy to carry, damn glad to have it, chute.

Yes, I want every crease neatly tucked in a never going to fail fashion by people who understand and subscribe to Plato’s ethos of a social contract.

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Nice of you to keep tabs on her Sluggo. You are a true gentleman.

Hope Jo finds something that lets her put the quest to bed. Proving Duane was DBC really should come off her bucket list.

She has alrready proven it to herself and she will likely never prove it to the forum's satisfaction. I say it's time for Jo to declare victory and retire.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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377,

Your mother is who we all hoped would be packing our chutes.

You jumpers do a pack, put on a reserve, get in the plane and typically use at least one. Not so for the wingnuts which stay in the aircraft ‘acting’ like they are in control. That rig is a heavy, uncomfortable and a barely portable seat which ‘the Man’ forced us to wear in yet another display of tacit domination.

Snugly fitted within the shell of an ejection seat or stacked in a fuselage just waiting for some use, they were largely ignored and abused. After a separated and redundant system failed and we were out of airspeed and ideas; the only thing left in the entire airframe which may still be working is that sweet, easy to carry, damn glad to have it, chute.

Yes, I want every crease neatly tucked in a never going to fail fashion by people who understand and subscribe to Plato’s ethos of a social contract.



I wish my Mom were alive to read your post Farflung. She would have treasured it, really!

In retrospect I shoudn't have told her that her obsession with doing a perfect pack job every time was overkill. She was just worried about those last few pack jobs on Fridays, making her quota before the bell rang. She said allthough they passed inspection, they werent as perfect as her mid week pack jobs and that always worried her. In her training they were told that the slightest imperfection in a pack job would mean a horrible death for a flyer who was down to his very last chance. It was a toss up between quelling her worry and trivializing her pride.

My C9 was made by Pioneer and she really liked that. She told me that when she worked there they were obsessed with quality and perfection. I have to say my C9 was a real beauty. A fashion tailor could not have made straighter seams or more perfect cuts. I also had a Switlik military canopy and although perfectly sound it had a few wiggly panel joining seams and some sloppy looking sewing on the skirt band.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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