dudeman17

My thought process was along the lines of... He writes books about finance and investment. Was he successful at that? Did he need money from what he might have thought would be a popular book about a (at the time) current interest? Would he be worried about it damaging his credibility? Did he have FU money, where he wouldn't care about any of that, and write the book out of personal interest? Does the answers to all of that inform whether he might make it all up, or support the idea that he was in fact actually contacted by somebody? Questions, questions...

My curiosity was more whether he was a successful investor.

Was Gunther himself rich?

It was the summer of '80 or '82, one of my first few years in the sport. A buddy and I were standing on the sidewalk between the manifest building and the packing area at Perris. Suddenly, Jeremy went running by, a dead serious look on his face. I looked at my friend, with a somewhat puzzled expression. A moment later, Al Frisby ran by, same direction, same countenance. My friend looked puzzled. "How often do you see those guys running", I said. Jeremy was one of those people, along with Al and yourself, Mr. S, who I figured I'd better listen to if I wanted longevity in this sport. No, he wasn't one of those 'official instructor' types who went around preaching proper practices and protocols. But he knew what the f was what in a down-in-the-dirt kind of way. I wasn't one of his closer friends, but I knew him, I liked him, and I respected him. BSBD, fly free...

I'll leave it up to you guys to determine what ought or ought not to be done with that rig. But if it were to be tested for DNA, a couple other places to test would be the underside of the shoulder part of the harness, as that is the most apparent and common way of picking it up, and also the pin protector flap on the back of the backpack. Along the edges of that, especially where those five snaps are that hold it closed. If Cooper knew enough to do a full pin check on it, he would have opened and reclosed that. All of these areas would also have been touched by the rigger that did the two repacks after Hayden got it back.

Exactly. No one is going to put a seal on it as airworthy and usable. But he could unpack it, photograph it, and confirm that it is what it is suspected to be. And he could repack it so that returns to a displayable condition. True, but it's still a tangible curiosity. As I once said to Blevins, if his plane was on fire and losing a wing, I bet he'd be willing to change his mind. Ha!

Again, '26' conical' and '28' canopy' are the canopies themselves, not the container. As with 377, my first reserve ride was a 26' conical, mine deployed out of a Wonderhog container.

The designation of " 26' " or " 24' " refers to the size of the canopy inside the container. People casually use the term 'parachute' to refer to either the canopy, the container, or the whole rig. In the "P2-B-24" designation for the container, the '24' might refer to the size of canopy it's intended for, it might not. Usually a few sizes of canopy will fit into a particular container. It's rigger's discretion of what canopy can be put into a container as long as it fits, unless otherwise specified by the manufacturer. When you have said this before, weren't you referring to the NB-6/8 containers, not the 26' canopy? Not necessarily. It does not appear to be a complete 'Frankenstein rig'. It's simply an older container that has had a newer harness put on at some point, not an unusual repair. Whatever canopy is in it is whatever it is. Some time ago Shutter was going to look into this. I suggested he contact Skydive Kapowsin, the major DZ in that area, to find a suitable rigger. He ended up in contact with Jeff Farrington, the DZ owner, whose whole family are jumpers. It was Jeff and his son Andy who did the re-creation jump in that last History Channel(?) program that Bruce was in. The pandemic hit and the museum was closed for a while. Shutter got otherwise occupied. Bruce was going to take that over, but he's since retired from the case. If someone wanted to follow that up, I'd suggest contact the museum and Jeff at Kapowsin, and see if they're still willing to make that happen. Jeff has been around a long time, and has the credentials, ratings, and experience that the museum would want for someone to handle that rig.

Another factor in the lighting is that the longer he is in the dark, the better his night vision would be when he exited the airplane. Whether or not he had that in mind is anybody's guess...

Yeah I'm not doubting what you say, it just seems odd to me. I'm not completely familiar with all the details of all that older gear, but most harnesses are pretty similar, because a body is what it is. I'm not aware of a front pack only rig with an integrated harness, just those bailout systems that have been previously described where the crewman wears the harness, and clips on the front pack chute if he needs to bail. A lot of older harnesses also had belly bands, like the chest strap but lower. He might have had one of those that was tight enough to hold him under the rib cage.

That would depend on a number of factors. I basically agree with what olemisscub says about it. (I also agree with R99's assessments.) If Cooper loses the money on opening, if he's still in the clouds and cannot see exactly where he is over the ground, then he's out of luck. Under canopy, he will drift with the wind far more than the bag in freefall, so the higher he opens, the farther away from it he will land. If he opens really low, can see where he is, and lands soon after, he might have a chance of finding it, but in the dark? It would be predictable that the searches would occur, so he wouldn't want to stay out there long. But if he knew where he was, then after the searches were called off without anything being found, he might go back to look. However, something olemisscub said about McNally... That just does not seem feasible. The leg straps are the main structural support keeping you in the harness after opening. It would be hard to imagine undoing both leg straps and not falling out, and that would not require undoing the chest strap. Some of those older harnesses were a 'seat' type, where there was a fairly stiff cross-connecter between the leg loops, but still, the whole thing is flexible, and held in place by the legstraps being connected and tightened. The harness part where your arms go through go over your shoulders and run down your sides to a juncture at your hips, at the top of the leg loops. You could conceivably catch yourself by the armpits there and hang on, but that would take great effort.

Hell, she looked great in all of them, but in Fathom she flicked! (I know, I know, but close enough for the alliteration.)

Fathom Harvill

It came from gallows humor, blue sky black death. A large part of the culture back then made grim jokes about everything, whether it was warranted or not. If you were around then, you ought to remember that. The reality, though, is that many of the sport's most respected survivalists jumped those rigs. And swore by them. While they weren't all that popular by volume, they had about the strongest owner loyalty.

Looks like either a bass player or drummer for a metal band!