nitrochute

hey Gene.remember that old 61 ford falcon i had when i started at para flite?it used a quart of oil everyday(bad rings)i looked like james bond goin down the road LOL personally i agree with what one of the other posters said here about oil being cheaper than any repair work.

around 1965 Lew Brooks(D977)borrowed a crossbow from either Bill Fabrey or Jim Stewart( 2 navy guys stationed at Lakehurst NJ) at snyders dz in NJ. on opening, all 4 steering toggles broke loose from the risers leaving Lew with no way to control the canopy except for risers.the crossbow sarted making turns all by itself and Lew had to use all his strength to stop the turns. he lost altitude awareness and by the time he decided to cutaway, he was at 500 ft or less( and exhausted from countering the turns) To say the Crossbow was unstable would in my mind be an understatement.

ParaFlite DID indeed make some para foils in 1968/ 1969 . they had a license to build a VERY limited number of canopies(think well under 100). when nicolides(notre dame univ. et al as i understand it had the rights to jalberts patents) refused to issue another license to paraflite, snyder AND dick morgan decided that they could get around jalberts patents by eliminating the flares and attaching the lines rite to the lower surface.he then applied for the patents.the first para flite built canopies with direct line attach were made and jumped around february 1970.i know as i worked at snyders dz at the time(and was witness to MUCH of snyders development work) and later worked for paraflite for 10 years.

3 things to look at that would help identify this canopy.
1) is it made of a heavier (i.e. 1.5 oz) stiffer fabric or is more soft and lighter like f111?
2) is each cell constructed of 1 piece of fabric on each top/botton or is each cell made of 2 pieces of fabric on each top/bottom?
3) are the lines dacron or nylon?
it appears t may be some sort of prototype as the lines do not appear to be sewn(i.e. zigg zag) but just tied and wrapped with tape.

Steve's son, Howard(supposedly NOT named after the airplane) posts here sometimes. maybe he will come forward and let us all know if Steve (or his widow, Barbara) saved any of that old stuff.

In 1967(?) one of the jumpers was Rob Jenks from willingboro nj. he started jumping at steve snyder's dz(ripcord para center)when he was 16 just a year earlier(1966)

dont know if cossey was left left handed, but the modification he described would not have been very common.

i was refering to using the caribeeners as a means of attaching a reserve to the nb6 harness.i dont believe they would be strong enough to stay attched to the harness if cooper had to use a reserve in that configuration(not to mention how the load would be applied to the harness,as the nb6 is a rather strange beast,by todays standards,in that the main lift web becomes the risers after going thru an adaptor at the shoulders,sort of a floating main lift webb.if you attached a caribeener to the main lift web and then snapped a reserve onto the caribeeners,when or if the reserve was deployed the caribeeners would slide up the main liftweb and would also pull the mlw/riser thru the adaptor .i would even suspect you could get catastrophic harness failure if the loading was rite.wouldnt that be a bitch?survive a high speeed exit , have a problem with the nb6 pull,so you go to your ingeniously attached reserve only to have the harness come apart?LOL

the nb6 harness that cooper jumped with has no attachment points for a front mounted reserve.and caribeeners are NOT strong enough to withstand opening shock

it is very likely that old cooper had a dificult,if not impossible pull on that NB6. the Parachute Industry Association(PIA) canopy volume charts show the 26' navy conical has a pack volume of 573 cubic inches.The 28' C-9 has a pack volume of 815 cubic inches.That is about 40% more bulk. if the NB6 that cooper jumped did indeed have a 28 ' canopy and NOT the 26 navy conical it was designed and sized for,then cooper most likely died.

that last photo is of an airforce b12. harness appears to be a b4 because its olive drab.

the picture is reversed.there are adjustments on the leg straps,its just hard to see the way the harness is laid out in the pic. also, this one has the different legstrap hardware that i mentioned in my earlier post.also this harness looks different only because all the adjustments are let all the way out,and the way it was set up for the photo. just a standard nb6/nb8(minus the elastic keepers)

jeez surely you guys dont think yer gonna get rich in the parachute biz,do ya? i worked for steve snyder as his dropzone crew / chute shagger $2 A DAY!
duid it because i love this sport ,not because i love money.

if cooper didnt adjust the harness, it surely could have contributed to his difficulty in getting the ripcord out of its pocket.

those are actually BLACK cotton elastic webbing"keepers'. they hold the excess webbing once the harness is adjusted to the wearer.
round parachutes generally do not use sliders, as the opening characteristics are MUCH different than ram air parachutes.(there are some recent slider equipped rounds being produced, but not relevent to coopers rig)
that picture shows a standard nb6/nb8 HARNESS (used on both nb6 or nb8 containers)they are pretty much all the same.some had adjustable V rings on the leg straps where the adjustable quick ejector is in the picture,and a non adjustable quick ejector where the v ring is in the picture.)
the navy uses a rather distinctive webbibg on its harnesses.it is not type 13 like the army and airforce use.i dont recall the mil spec, but the navy webbing is slightly stronger than type13 and is a bit more coarse of a weave,and has a black tracer running down only one edge of the webbing.
HOWEVER in looking for sominfo on the chute that was dug up a year ago , i came upon an article in the new orleans newspaer that quotes cossey as saying he would" know the harness because he made it." yet i have seen a quote somewheres from cossey that states it was a stock nb6 .so who knows???

while all nb6's are not made by the same manufacturer, they are ALL built to the same specifications,drawings etc..
what is this purple webbing you are referencing? military deals in sage green or olive drab.

with respect to the nb6 , you are wrong. the most recent ones look almost identical to the older ones, just minor (i.e. subtle changes).

how about coffins on ebay?i also saw them at the swap meet here.

" jumped from near the top step" ..........hmmm i think i have to call bullshit on that one. he,she,or it,would have hit the rest of the stairs.

i saw a 32' 1.6 lopo on ebay not too lomg ago.it was red with the back 7 or 9 panels white.check out jerry irwins photos on flickr. there is at least one or 1.6 there

believe it or not YES. i worked there at sse/paraflite at the time in question.there had also been a similar reaction to an sse ad in DZ USA in the 60's.

i am curious. how many hikers and hunters have been in the search area over the last 37+ years??
it would seem that it would be likely that over all that time ,with all those people, that somebody would have found something?

those SSE ads were the brainchild(?) of Joel Schively,a texas jumper who also did advertising. Snyder sure got alot of complaints about them.

$40 regardless of the type of rig. i been in this long enough to know ya aint gonna get rich ,so i pack for my own enjoyment/sense of fullfillment etc.

its nylon