dudeman17

Cooper did not get the chutes he asked for. He asked for 'two back and two front' chutes. In those days that would mean two mains and two reserves. The back chutes he got were not mains, but pilot emergency bailout rigs. Had he got the mains he asked for, they would have been packed by whoever owned them, likely not riggers unless they were from a military base. If he had happened to get chutes owned by Cossey, sure, but he did not specify where to get them from.

Umm... ?? Did I miss something?

Actually, it's Falcon who thinks he's joking. The skit, in which Bond and the Queen end up parachuting from a helicopter, was for the opening of the 2012 London Olympics. No such quip occurred.

Thank you for posting that.

I agree with what gowlerk has said. Pilot chute and/or bridle over the nose is addressed in the FJC. The standard response is to do a control check and see if it causes you problems. But you didn't get that far, it was already causing problems. So think it through. If you had managed to wrangle it under control, what would you do, go ahead and land it? Then what if it starts to cause problems again... under a grand? in the pattern? on final?? No, cutting away was the correct response. The only other thing I would add is, if you haven't already done so, then it sounds like two cases of beer should be involved... One for your rigger (who packed your reserve), and the other for the dz because I'm guessing that was your first cutaway. Congrats!

Georger didn't address this in his replies, but the way I read that sounds more like the gooey vs brittle thing wasn't different places on the bundle, but more different times in the process. As in a gooey phase that later dries out to a brittle phase. It also sounded like he doesn't think Tena Bar was a dry enough environment for the gooey phase to happen. Have I got that right G?

But wasn't that beach a popular spot for fishermen and families? If the money was on top of the sand there wouldn't it have been found somewhat quickly?

Thank you for the answer. Yep, that's a standard USPA First Jump Certificate from the era. I don't need a picture of it, I have one just like it. I made my first jump exactly one month later, April 25 1979, at Perris Valley in southern California. But note that it does indeed say a 'static line' jump. That would have been made at between 2800' and 3500' AGL, not 10k. Your first post said 10k, apparently erroneously, which is what piqued my interest. BSBD! ------- Condolences on the passing of your parents. I went through that a few years ago. It's tough.

Still curious how you managed to make your first two jumps from 10k' in the '70's. I'm not challenging you, I'm genuinely interested. In those days it wouldn't have been too awfully far-fetched to have a jumper friend who had a pilot friend to just take you up, but you made a 'They wouldn't have allowed us to jump in bad weather' comment that sounded like you were at a normal jump school, which would have been doing static line programs. So... ?

I'm curious about how you made your jumps. In those days there were no tandems or AFF like today. Everyone, military or civilian, went through static-line programs, and the first few jumps would be static-line at about 3,000ft. There were a couple people doing harness hold 'buddy' jumps. A guy named Bob Sinclair famously did one with Johnny Carson in I think '68.

Yeah... umm, no. Those things didn't have pilot chutes, and without the relative wind of freefall, that thing at best is going to fall to the floor below where it's being held. If it is on the floor, or one of the seats, it's going to sit there until it's pulled out. If it did have a pilot chute, the pilot chute would pop out to however strong the spring was.

Why can't you delete a post? If you make a post then decide otherwise you can't delete the whole post. You can't even delete all the content without leaving at least a . or something there. Why?

.

As long as you're still looking at this thread and reminiscing... In that era Perris had a few DC-3's, but if you're thinking of the main one, the silver one, N26MA, check out the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. Same airplane. And if you happened to jump the Twin Beech they had I believe it's the same plane Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby does the buzz job in in Ford vs Ferrari. My mom took a whuffo ride in that plane I think in '80. great memories indeed...

Georger made a comment about it in one of his posts above. I think he edited it out while I was responding. I think both remarks were jokes. I actually don't know where it is. I think it has something to do with UFO's, there's a Discovery Channel series about it that I've never seen.

All the specific information I have on this case comes from you people on these two sites. It's always been my understanding that the money is in packets of 100 bills, strapped by standard paper bank bands. Those packets were bundled in 2's and 3's by rubber bands. The durability of the rubber bands have always been in question, in regards to how 3 packets of 100 would end up together on T-bar. Is that wrong? Is Skinwalker Ranch under the Western Flight Path?

Geez, I have to laugh again. I keep posting guesses and suppositions based on general knowledge, and you keep coming back with documentation that my guesses could be off the mark. So was this rig the same kind of WW2 container as the other one? Most of the forces and stresses of the rig is taken by the harness. It holds the person, and takes the opening shock of the canopy. So putting a newer, stronger harness on an older rig (Hayden's museum rig) makes sense. But having a (30 year old??) cotton harness still in use in the 70's...?? Maybe the FBI is convinced Cooper died in the jump because they tried their best to kill him by giving him the oldest, out of date rigs they could find! Yeah, that was something of a joke, but if you tell me next that the canopies were also WW2 vintage and silk, and his exit speed was 200 knots, I'm going to become more pessimistic of his chances. Ha!

That is an interesting question. Again, I think it would take a Master rating (as opposed to Senior) to do a harness change. That puzzles me the documents stating Cossey had just gotten his Master rating. I still have to wonder if that was just a renewal. If Cossey was the main rigger at Sky Sports' loft and taking care of their student gear, I would think he would need a Master. Makes me wonder how long he had been there and been their rigger. Also, when and by whom the harness change was done should be on the packing card, but the card starts with that May '71 pack job. Maybe the older cards were full and no longer kept with the rig. In those days repacks were required every 120, maybe 90, days. So at 6 months, that rig was no longer 'in date', or technically legal. (That would have no effect on it's functionality, it would still work.)

But there are two kinds of bands. The paper bank bands that hold the packets of 100 bills together, and the rubber bands that held 2 or 3 packets together. So how long did which kind last?

Well that would be a legitimate modification to replace a harness. It would take a lot of stitch-picking and sewing. Pretty sure it would require manufacturer approval and a master rigger to make it legal. Seems like a lot of work for such an old rig though.

Well, you say that the light responds to the lever, not the door. Even if the door opened on the first try, if Cooper never figured out to press the button, he may have played with the lever a few times trying to get the hydraulics to engage and push the door open farther. And failing that, he may have ventured onto the stairs a few times to see if his weight would indeed open them enough for him to exit, causing the multiple 'oscillations'. ------- What do you think of Bill Rollins' suspect, Joe Lakich? Certainly an interesting story.

Your theory above is interesting, but what also caught my attention is the description you posted at Bruce's site of how the stairs operate. Moving the lever releases the stairs and allows them to drop by gravity. Pressing the button and moving the lever further engages the 'hydraulic assist'. If Cooper never figured out to press the button, then maybe the hydraulics never pressurized, allowing the door to move more freely. Maybe the system was pressurized on the movie jet. ------- I miss Carl Boenish. He was one unique, interesting, fun-loving, likable dude.

nvm

The tone of that whole diatribe reads a lot like, "I jump a highly loaded canopy, therefore I have more madd skillzz than everyone else, therefore everyone else should stay the hell out of my way!" Hmmm... carry on...

Most fatalities, you can piece together what happened. But some of them are puzzlers.