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I've recreated all of the witness and crew testimonies in their unredacted format and put them all in one place. Many of the copies floating around the net look terrible and have gross watermarks, etc. norjak.org/testimony

Joseph Kittinger - Wikipedia

My understanding from H and Jerry Thomas and JT's wife, is that Jo originally claimed Duane 'might be' DB Cooper, not that he was. That began the period where Jo conjured up a case claiming real evidence, but that took at least a year. During that period H diverted Jo to Jerry Thomas and his wife with countless phone calls passing back and forth, many of the calls recorded. All of the internet versions of Weber's story omit this important factual history! It took Jo several years to make up a case. During that whole period her claim was that Duane 'might be' DB Cooper, not that he was! Jo even explained her motive: she was beginning a realty business and wanted to use the DB Cooper angle as advertising.The factual distinction is crucial to the Weber story, but historians socalled always leave that factual documented history out. The whole thing has been an Internet travesty. Go back and read JT's posts about this here at DZ. The Weber story should never have achieved the attention and the traction it got - on the Internet.

Yes, it seems that way..

"canvassing hotel-motels, vicinity of airport" Investigation in Portland territory negative.

The Bing sketch hadn't been made yet,, there was that very first sketch that may have been made by then. IMO, it is entirely BS or extremely embellished.. The FBI was canvassing hotels.. maybe that part is legit and in the late 90's the clerk saw the Duane narrative contacted Jo and greatly embellished the incident. This was the first sketch..

The only thing I've seen actually work is close mentorship by an experienced local canopy coach. I've long since stopped telling people what they should and should not do and instead encouraged people to get good mentorship from a local expert. People who want to rush into things unfortunately need to a higher frequency of feedback on their shortcomings from someone who paints them as areas of improvement towards a grand goal. This is not exclusive to CP. Whoever suggested a system of endorsements, I support the idea. Seems to work for the FAA with pilot licenses. And we already have one in the B license canopy course which is effectively an endorsement.

Since the FBI may read this forum.. Can you put hotel/motel info in the next Cooper vault doc.. and info for the slide with the hair and any details on the chute packing cards Thanks

FYI, We're officially calling this person the "Rodeway Inn Road Warrior"

Jo's emails (ca 2017) about this are hard to understand, it appears like she had access to the letter as she reproduces the verbiage perfectly in some areas. However it doesn't appear as she completely understood the letters contents. (eg she talks about needing an ID to check in when the letter explicitly states otherwise).

I thought for sure it would have been "Just the Two of Us"

When we were at Himmy's grandson's house we pulled out like a dozen letters that Jo had written to Himmy. Some weren't even opened. Since we knew Jo was full of shit and our time was limited, we just set them aside. I do wish I had glanced through them though.

He kindly sent me this after I wrote him a few years back. I'd mailed him this page from the Dec. 1960 National Geographic and he signed it for me. Was a childhood idol and his jump got me dreaming of the days when I'd be jumping, too. RIP.

Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster (2 awards) Distinguished Flying Cross with Silver Oak Leaf Cluster (6 awards, 2 for high altitude skydives) Bronze Star with Valor, 2 Oak Leaf Clusters (3 awards) 11 months in Hanoi Wow is all you can say.

Tô me, the possibility of change is a positive attribute. Like every other human, I’m more in favor of some changes than others, but “set in one’s ways” isn’t a recommendation to me Wendy P.

Oh my. Another legend gone. But what a life! Wendy P.

Irish.

I read this yesterday, and was surprised how sketchy his background is; So sketchy in fact, that it made me wonder if it is accurate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Whelan_(security_director)

A dishonest FORMER Marine with a BCD. A disgusting FORMER Marine who attempted resorting to espionage to make money, his country be damned. Fuck him.

I've been following this discussion since the beginning. I don't agree with the idea of requiring qualifications to jump a wingloading and have said so. But I had a thought yesterday: How much difference would it make? That is, how many people who are getting hurt or killed would have met the qualifications and been 'legal' to jump the w/l they were? From what I've seen & read, the answer would be 'not many'. Most of the people I know who got hurt were fairly well qualified. They had the experience, the jumps and the skills to do what they were doing. They just screwed up. Some had the jumps and the advanced licenses, but didn't have the skills. Some of the 'new jumpers' who got hurt were under reasonably conservative canopies. They just thought they could do what the 'cool kids' were doing and flew themselves into the ground. This applies both to what I've personally experienced and what I've read on here. The one big exception to it was Sangi. And he had everyone on here telling him he was going to hurt himself for a fairly long time before he proved them right. The actual number of people who were on a canopy beyond their skill level when they got hurt is pretty small, as far as I can tell. Again, this is just my 'gut feeling', and doesn't really have any facts or statistics to back it up. I welcome correction from anyone who has better info.

You keep saying "refused" as if USPA has made a policy decision on this. Most likely it has never even been formally debated. As far as I can tell you would seem to be the only one concerned about it here. And even then all you do is keep asking about it without making any personal recommendation about just what it is you want from USPA. In brief, the reason would be that very few jumpers want USPA to impose such restrictions and therefore it has never been seriously considered. USPA is run by jumpers for jumpers. It's just that simple.

Good thing I got my D license already. What a mess this would make... Lots of high and mighty going on here. What works at your DZ may not work at others. I have plenty of friends who broke themselves underloading a canopy. There's already enough people on here screaming a GoPro under 200 jumps will kill you because USPA says so. I don't think further undermining credibility of USPA recommendations with this idea is necessary.

USPA has not "refused" to implement a wingloading restriction. Wording it that way suggests the organization should implement one but won't. That would be incorrect. Wingloading restrictions have been discussed on numerous occasions and the collective opinion is that there are simply too many variables to have a one-size-fits-all rule. I am pretty well educated on performance canopy flight and can attest to this. There are jumpers who begin formal performance flight training early in their careers and others who have thousands of jumps before testing the CP waters. Some jumpers take to performance flight quite easily while others struggle with their progression. The list of variables goes on and on, and that's the point. What is safe for one jumper of a given license or jump numbers may not be safe for another. Local leadership is in the best position to evaluate, educate, and enforce. While we're at it, why do you not mention D license holders in your suggestion to make a restriction? I know some D folks that I would never want to see playing with higher wingloadings. License levels do not verify skills beyond those required to achieve the license.

As Paul said, USPA's position on wing loadings for licensed jumpers is to lend guidance through recommendations rather than dictate through ruling making.

Doubtful, the USPA has no place telling non students what to wing load at. That falls under the pervue of the S&TA at your local DZ.

The answer is no. And I believe that will never happen. There may be recommendations, but never any rules or requirements telling a licensed skydiver what size canopy may be jumped. In fact, if you look at the latest actions of the Safety & Training Committee, they developed & published a canopy sizing chart much like you described, very detailed and color coded. But it is a recommendation. Skydivers are grown-ups and capable of making adult decisions, and taking responsibility for those decisions. The S&TA and DZOs certainly will suggest, recommend, and push a jumper toward appropriate canopies, but I don’t ever see the USPA Safety & Training committee deciding what canopy a skydiver must have. I should know, as I serve on the committee. Paul Gholson, USPA Southern Regional Director

#1 PChapman has it right. BUT,,, keep asking this question, studying, learning, and talking with your rigger (especially if (s)he has experience with it...) I was right there with you when I started jumping, I was asking this exact same question. At this point (30 years later) have >12 intentional cutaways in addition to 3 real reserve rides. From my experience with both real and planned, I will echo some critical points: - can you, yes* (*start with PChapman's info and then seek out professional help) - any system setup to do so safely is by definition more complex and I would NOT hand it to a newer jumper (thinking 'C or D' license minimum) It DOES give you more chances to F-up and get hurt. - does it give you additional feel for what a cutaway is like and confidence? oh-yea... YES!! - does it tell you what an actual emergency is like? oh-H3LL no... For me, the journey was worth it, and I'm looking for more options down this road, but PLEASE proceed with great care and caution. JW PS - this is an unusual enough jump, you'll need to be prepared for several things beyond just getting the rig put together: - practice/practice/practice... know by feel each handle and the pull order for every possible scenario. If the rig design permits it, make a "normal" jump or two with the gear before the intentional. (I've seen designs that require the first canopy to be deployed/chopped (or landed) before the real main can be deployed. Mine allows the dummy canopy to be left undeployed. - who is going to gear check your one-off gear? prepare to train your DZ rigger/S&TA on how to pin-check your gear. - is the S&TA and DZO going to allow you to use it at their DZ? - what are the DZ procedures (if any) for doing an intentional (I literally wrote the manual for my local DZ - wonder if they can still find it? ;-) ). - make sure Manifest and the Pilot know what you're doing, good idea for manifest to announce it to those on the ground (some like to watch and it will keep other's from freaking) - be prepared for someone off DZ to call 911 on you (I've been met by the ambulance on one occasion)... another reason to make sure manifest knows before you go.

Never mind the finer points of law and manufacturers' instructions. We only expect reserves to last about 20 years, 25 deployments and 40 repacks. After that they need a factory inspection before returning to service. Those standards were written by Performance Designs almost 30 years ago. PD eventually dropped the requirement for tensile testing because they saw little difference in strength over a 20 or 25 year period, however they were patching too many reserves that tore when improperly tensile tested. Some European countries insist that all reserves retire after 20 years in service. This allows a Polish parachute dealer to resell 21 year old reserves to Americans, whose laws are not as rigid. The only exception should be for "closet queens" that have spend the bulk of their live hiding in a closet and rarely jumped. The reduced wear-and-tear from so few jumps might mean that they are still airworthy more than 20 years after manufacture. However, if reserves were made before the internet became fashionable, it may be difficult for younger riggers to access older Service Bulletins. Therefor, no rigger should be required to pack a reserve older than himself or herself.

I do remember these but it was at the very beginning of my jumping so I can't say that I had full understanding of the issues at the time. Here is what I can put together from my current understanding crossed with my spotty memories of that time. Keep in mind that this was around the time of transition from F-111 to ZP canopies. It was not uncommon for people to still buy F-111 canopies at least as their first canopy. The saber had been out for a while. Precision was building the Monarch. I'm trying to remember if the Stiletto was out yet but I don't think so at least not where I was at. Glide path needed a new canopy. They had been playing with a design called Ariel in various forms. I knew a big cameraman guy from canada that had been doing some test jumping for them and still had one of the prototypes. The Nova was another design that they were playing with. Paragliders were getting better and I once heard that the air foil was based on one? Rumor. CFD was getting better and I heard that they had hired a consultant to help them with the new design. Rumor. What I actually know. One of our instructors went off to Quincy and jumped a bunch of their demos that year. He came back to Texas and we got a couple in that he and others were jumping. For Glide path they were supposed to be the hot new canopy better then the Saber. I don't think I jumped any of them. They were out side my skill set at the time. But I remember that Scot liked them. I packed them for him and he had good openings then one bad one. It of course happened when he was shooting video Which was a lot more chalenging back then when the cameras weighed over 7 lb. I'm trying to remember if he bought one but he got sick with ball cancer and quit jumping. No one considered them to be bad canopies. There were no problems with them around here. Then there were a couple of incidents. High profile very public incidents, I think in FL but I don't recall which drop zone. Collapse on approach to landing, possible turbulence. Suddenly people started to get gun shy of them. Glide Path went into panic mode and recalled them. I'm not sure if they ever really came to a conclusion as to the root cause of the issues on those canopies. And I don't think it was wide spread. There were not a lot of them out there but they were out there and people liked them and were not dieing. They didn't have flares like most of there canopies. I heard that the tape they put in the bottom seam to spread the load was shrinking and distorting the airfoil. Rumor. Line shrinkage was not a widely known concept at the time and I have heard since then that the collapses were caused by them going out of trim. Rumor. I don't recall it having a nose on it like you see on many canopies today. PD had some kind of patent on how they sewed their nose lip, I recall that later Flight Concepts was trying to work around that in their construction on newer canopies. I've heard theories that the issues were with how the canopy pitched front to back, when a canopy surges forwards it loses lift on the front of the canopy and the front can roll under. I herd that this was a product of the airfoil, the max thickness being farther back then on other canopies. Rumor. None of it really mattered. They pulled the cutaway handle. I don't know if there was a lawsuit or just the fear of one but Mike Furry got out. He was done. Some of the other people there went on to buy him out and start over with a, legally, unrelated company, Flight Concepts. They went on to build many good canopies including CRW canopies. They have kind of fallen off the stage as far as sky diving is concerned which is a shame. I don't think there was any thing special about the Nova. It was just another of the post Saber ZP nine cells. It was an early attempt at a "high performance canopy" and it seemed to be a good canopy but I don't think it would be any thing to write home about to day except for the mystique that has grown up around it. I wound up with one years later. A 170 or maybe a 190 I think. Too big for me never jumped it. I was surprised how many people were interested in it. Gave it to a CRW guy that was smart enough not to jump it in turbulence and he never had a problem with it. I think he sold it to his DZO, lost track of it sense then. I think people blow them out of proportion both their porformance and there problems. If you want to jump it, I'd say do it. I'd advise you to play with it up high testing it's stability. I'd advise against jumping it on a turbulent day. But if it behaved up high I would probable land it. See what the fuss is about but I think I think that you will find that there is no fuss and if you a sencable about where and when you jump it I don't think you will be in any real danger. Lee