dudeman17

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!

Is there a version of that sketch with the sunglasses on?

I wasn't expressing an idea of Cooper. I was merely saying that just because someone doesn't come off as a badass doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't one. In fact, my observational experience is often the opposite. People who come off as badasses are often projecting insecurity, they have a need to be perceived as such. The people who truly are badasses don't really need other people to know. People will find out if and when they need to, and as or more often that's when they're saving someone's ass as opposed to kicking it.

A lot of people with brass ones don't necessarily act like badasses. Many people in adventure sports - skydivers, base jumpers, extreme skiers, big wave surfers, big wall climbers, aerobatic pilots... and the like, even some extremely badass military people I've met, people with balls and nerves of steel, don't act like badasses. A lot of them are pretty chill, have great senses of humor, laugh a lot like giddy kids having too much fun.

Math of Insects, most of us are pretty much anonymous to each other. But we're all just friends, typing stuff about a common interest. I'm genuinely curious about what your experience is that gives you an opinion on bouncing bodies. Mine comes from watching people do it for forty years. BSBD!

Spotting an exit point in order to land in a specific area requires more info and control than Cooper had. You'd want to see the ground, at least familiar reference points, you'd want to know the upper winds (to calculate drift), and you'd want to be able to ask the pilot for corrective heading adjustments. So he was pretty much rolling the dice as far as where he'd land. If I were doing it, I'd want to know as much as possible about the surrounding terrain. How much was mountainous and tree'd as opposed to flatter and more open fields. How does that stuff relate to the city lights you might see? I'd want to take a test flight and time how long into the flight were the better areas, as opposed to the mts and lakes. But, how much variation is in the flight path from 'go to Mexico' and 'settle on Reno'? Having trouble with the stairs affects your timing. The whole thing is a crap shoot, especially in those days with rounds, especially with the non steerable ones he was given. As far as getting off the stairs, you'd just have to do whatever worked. It depends on how far they opened. Once you're at the end, it's loud, it's cold, you really can't see where you are (in his weather conditions) so you might as well just go. The timing of the pull... Hopefully you're at the requested 10 grand. But that's MSL. What is the terrain elevation below, specifically the highest points? I'd like to know what the lowest cloud base was. If I knew I had a couple thousand feet between the lowest cloud and the highest mtn, I'd fall through the clouds and see where I was. But rainy often means lower clouds, so you probably wouldn't have that luxury. So I'd time it to accommodate the highest terrain, unless I knew for sure I was elsewhere. There are just so many variables that were out of his control, or that he would be able to see. You'd just want to prepare yourself by knowing the possible terrain as well as you could. The guy certainly had the magic combo of stupidity and balls.

I don't think the weight of the money would affect it that much, it's his body weight leaving that allows the recoil to happen. However... The stair recoil resulting in a pressure bump is an odd thing to me, and unless Cooper was familiar with the engineering involved, it would be a hard thing to predict. Again I refer to the Treat Williams movie, those stairs don't move very far or very fast. That could be due to a cameraman on them further up, as Flyjack pointed out, but I would think it might also have to do with whatever pressure is in the hydraulic system. If there is any to much pressure in them, I would think it would dampen the movement. I would think that you would have to pull the emergency release, disconnecting them from the hydraulics, in order for them to move freely enough to recoil that much or that fast. But Fly says that didn't happen. So hard to say, but I don't see the pressure bump as a predictable occurrence. Yet it also happened in at least one of the subsequent jumps (McCoy's?).

On more modern gear, the closing loop that the pin goes through is cloth, like a piece of line, or similar to a skinny shoelace. Sometimes those break on impact and the container comes open. But in those days the pack closures were metal cones with a hole drilled through them, and the ripcord pins went through those. So metal on metal closures, plus the fact that there are 3 or 4 pins on the backpack, very unlikely for it to open on impact.

I don't mean to be an argumentative jerk, but this is my wheelhouse, where I try to be informative. Unfortunately, I've had far too much experience with exactly this scenario. While there are varying degrees of resulting damage, never, not once, have I seen nor heard of a terminal impact resulting in total unrecognizable obliteration, where there is 'just not much left to find'. You have not shared what you know, and I am genuinely interested in what you have experienced that makes you think otherwise. ------- As for animals, I don't have a hunting background so I can't speak as authoritatively, but it's my understanding that with a larger corpse such as an adult human, animals don't rip it apart and carry it off, they feed on it where it lays, which would still leave recognizable remains, particularly skeletal. As well as the clothing and the rig.

I agree with Robert on this. It's not the grace, or lack thereof, of his exit. It's the sudden removal of his weight from the stairs.

Many skydivers just wear regular clothes, some even jump naked. Jumpsuits are just cloth, they're designed for flying aerodynamics, not gak retention. Again, what is your experience in the matter?

With respect... Exactly how can you assure me that what I described is not usual, and is far less likely than a much worse state. How many skydiving bounces have you seen? I have been studying parachuting fatalities like my life depended on it for over forty years. I've been teaching people about parachuting fatalities like their life depended on it for over thirty of those years. I guarantee you I've seen more dead skydivers than everyone else on this thread combined.

Balderdash. A body does not just explode into obliteration like a water balloon on impact. It's more like a sack full of steaks, sausages and bones. Sure, stuff breaks, cracks, splits, leaks, and what-not. But the body as a whole usually remains pretty much intact. Even on hard-as-concrete sun baked desert dirt. If Cooper went in, it might be grim and gory, but he would be laying there easily recognizable as a body, still in the rig and his clothes.

A few days ago I came across an old episode of 'Mission Impossible' (the TV show) from '72. The bad guy's name was Cooper. At one point he mailed a letter, and it appeared to have Flyjack's stamp on it.

Hmmm... This could be an interesting ploy. Lawsuits are expensive to defend regardless of the outcome. If they send back an unairworthy rig and someone jumps it and goes in, they could be sued. If you threaten to sue them for not returning your property, maybe they'll offer you a new rig as a cheap (insurance) way out. I've got an old Vector in the closet, I think I'll send it to them...

(I know this isn't that thread but I couldn't resist.)

But do you have a Corvette?

That last document you posted, where Lyle Jr. talks about Sr., what is that from?