dudeman17

This cannot be stressed strongly enough or often enough.

To me, those are separate issues. As per Blevins' account of Hayden's rigs - Everything Hayden said in Blevins' interview could be true and accurate, same with the FBI report he uses to back that up. All of it could be accurate as per Hayden's rigs. (And Cossey may or may not have owned those rigs at some point.) Completely separate, is whether or not Cossey also supplied other rigs, and how that may have happened. They are not mutually exclusive. Each could have supplied rigs, unbeknownst to the other.

Here's one my dad liked - So you know the old saying, "Honesty is the best policy". well here's a rebuttal... "Honesty is NOT the best policy. In fact, it's not a policy at all. You either is or you ain't."

Robert quotes Ulis... then says I've said this before somewhere, but I'll submit it again... The market for used parachutes is very limited and the community of people who deal in them is very small. If that store where Hayden bought his rigs used Cossey for pack jobs, it's entirely possible that they also bought rigs from him. I'm not saying that Cossey had owned those rigs at some point, I would have no way of knowing, but it would not be far-fetched if he had.

You took that down? I wasn't going to flame, but I sure was curious. Wow indeed. Curious what the TI makes. I'm guessing you're getting a lot of applications for the TI slots, but are being extremely selective.

lol yes - see pics 4 & 5 of your photo sequence then better packing too yes you do then we'll just wait for your ash dive I think we can tell

Re: 'scene ended her marriage to Joe DiMaggio'... On one hand, poor Joe (sort of), but geez, if you know you're a jealous man and you marry Marilyn Monroe, what do you expect? Sort of related story - Back whenever it was that Simon and Garfunkel's 'Mrs. Robinson' was a hit, supposedly Joe DiMaggio was at a New York restaurant and saw Paul Simon at another table. Joe went over and challenged him, "what do you mean 'where have I gone', I didn't go anywhere?!".

Congratulations on getting back in the air! Is that Taft? It looks like Taft, but I thought you were farther north. I'm also guessing it was windy because it looks like you've got a shagger lurking to help collapse your canopy. I made some jumps in June to keep my AFF rating current, but I'm standing down again while Delta does it's thing.

I think you're conflating whether the lines were daisy chained with whether Cooper may have known it. In any case, daisy chains are not permanent. They are easy to do and undo. It would not be a reason for Cooper to avoid getting lines from it. It would also not require the person daisy chaining them to be the one who made the dummy. How many dummy reserves they had would depend on how many students they typically trained at a time, and whether they exclusively used a hanging harness or just practiced standing on the ground. Interesting video, Flyjack.

I think Cossey did say that he got a rig back, but like most of what he said, it's hard to know if that's true. Hayden definitely did get a rig returned from the FBI, but there is a possibility that it was not the rig left on the plane. If the FBI got (back) rigs from both Cossey and Hayden, then we wouldn't know which two they gave to Cooper. The rig Hayden got returned may never have been given to Cooper. See some of Flyjack's recent posts for theories on that (according to the serial numbers). Some of this may be solved if and when the Museum lets Shutter's rigger examine Hayden's rig and he collects serial numbers off of every component, including the pilot chute and bridle. Hell, that could have become Emrich's next dummy training reserve!

No it doesn't. To the casual observer, they may look similar, but they're not. Depending on the canopy inside, it might be bulkier. And the color? And it would have the D-rings, but those might not be readily apparent to someone who doesn't know them. And it doesn't have a seal or packing card.

I don't know what to make of Cossey's statements because there's no way to tell if they're true or accurate. But if they are... A sport main would have the D-rings for the reserve. So if Cooper knew what he was looking at, he might have been better off to take the sport rig and the good reserve. However, the money was bulky, so maybe he didn't have room for both the good reserve and the money. So maybe he figured that the bailout rig, being rigger packed, was more reliable for opening. But for choice of landing area, he's better off with a steerable canopy. But maybe he doesn't know that the reserve is non-steerable. But, but, but... I don't know, but I have a hard time imagining that the FBI would give back anything that was actually used in the case. That Hayden got his rig back kind of supports the idea that there were more chutes and that one was not given to Cooper. I dunno. Look at how they deal with the Amboy chute, they claim it wasn't used but they won't let anyone see it. They kept the front reserve. Like I said, I dunno, but I would expect them to keep anything left on the plane.

I don't do any social media, so I don't have facebook, but there's an old school skydiver's page on there where he or someone like him might be found. NickyB knows where that's at. In normal use the lines were stowed in rubber bands. In those front reserves they were usually in the base of the container. Those bands can be seen in the Tom Kaye pictures of the reserve in FBI evidence. Sometimes a deployment device known as a diaper was on the bottom of the skirt of the canopy, and the lines would be stowed on that. That would sequence the opening a bit, reducing the possibility of some types of malfunction, but would take a bit longer to open.

Any reserve or bailout rig (which IS a reserve) is required to be packed by a rigger and thus has a seal and a card. Sport mains do not. One thing I have wondered is, when they ask Emrich for the reserves but not the mains, he has to wonder where they're getting the mains from. If they tell him 'oh, from some pilot', then he knows they are bailout rigs and do not have the D-rings for the reserves. That could be why he gives the dummy, because he knows it can't be used anyway. If he points this out (or if he asks in the first place) he may be volunteering two more of his rigs that he'll never see again, so maybe he just keeps his mouth shut. (This kind of depends on whether Cossey's story of supplying back chutes is true, and if Emrich knew about it.) It has been speculated that Cooper used the dummy reserve container to hold some of the money. Or he may have seen it was a dummy and it pissed him off so he pitched it out. Like most of this case, anything is possible.

There is no way that he didn't. Emrich - jumper, instructor, owned the dz which includes the student and training gear... Any other jumper who may have been staying on site would either be a rigger, instructor, or possibly a young jumper who went through training there... Any one of them would instantly know that training dummy from across the room, in the dark, half asleep, and fully drunk. I, too, have speculated that it may have been intentional. At the time, no one would have any idea of Cooper or the folk lore that he would become. But a lot of hijackings were taking place by terrorist types with political motives. So Emrich may well have given the cheapest, most replaceable gear he could, and who cares if the guy goes in. 'Take me to Havana? Here's your Havana!' And the thought of someone just opening the door and letting the cops grab what they may is totally unlikely, because if Emrich wasn't there, someone who jumped there would be.

So would that still be Sheridan's statement, or yours? Pretty sure I already know the answer, you don't need to reply. Although I'm sure you will...

Yeah, when doing tandems with these kind of dogs, only a Strong rig will do. Sigmas, Racers, Eclipses, even the old Vectors, none of these will do. Dude, how did you even find this place?

I read the book. Are you sure those were skydiving adventures?

What readers of this thread WANT is discussion of the Cooper case. This is not your facebook page. You were in a very long term relationship. You broke up. Within short order, you have a new girlfriend who is your 'fiancee', owns half your company, and you make sniggering remarks about basic, universal, but PRIVATE human behavior. How old did you say you were?

That is probably the most practical advice for the OP. Worth at least a nickel.

The way people think these days is mind boggling. To a degree, I suppose, but really no. And you've been around long enough to know that. This isn't Disneyland. Skydiving is a blatantly elective activity, and it's a blatant act of self-reliance. It isn't for everybody. It's really not for many people at all. At some point people have to take responsibility for themselves and what happens to them at a dropzone. I say that point is when one first decides to take an fjc. Sure, if one has different rigs for different disciplines, or if one is buying a couple rigs at the same time, there are things that should be considered. But the OP appears to be a fun jumper who's wondering if it's ok to keep his old rig when he gets his new one. A rig he presumably has jumps on and is familiar with. (And his mains are similar.) There really shouldn't be a problem with that. Sure, he has to pay attention to what he's doing, but that is a requirement anyway. If that is beyond someone, then they really shouldn't be doing this. I mean, is it black death to take your spouse's car to the store because it's parked behind yours in the driveway? If it is, you should sell the damn things and use a ride-share.

If you're buying multiple rigs at the same time for a specific purpose such as team training, sure. But someone keeping an old rig when they buy a new one shouldn't be a problem, as long as they pay attention.

If you 'have' that other Sabre, I'm guessing that you've jumped it regularly and are familiar with it? If so, then I don't see a problem. Well... I think Deimian makes a fair point about that, but the point is not that your two rigs need to be identical, but that you need to pay attention to which one you're using.

Are you sure there was another card? Unless I missed something from the more recent posts, I don't see what the difference is from before, when the different numbers indicated that the rig left on the plane and the one Hayden got back were possibly not the same rig. I recall those numbers coming from the documents that describe it as a 'second' canopy from the same rig, 'an integral part' of the parachute. That description sounds like they got the numbers by looking at the contents of the rig, which would have required them to open it. That description sounded to me like they were describing the pilot chute, and it was a typo saying it was 24 feet, rather than inches. Again, I recall those other numbers as coming from the document that didn't specifically mention a second (back chute) card. Did I miss something?

Ha ha, yes I do. Doing the squeeze up against the wall of a literal brick shithouse.