dudeman17

The surface answer is, I don't know, but I would think so. I've always been fascinated by the case, but I've never done any intensive study of the details. I've seen whatever documentaries I've come across, read a number of articles, and follow this thread out of curiosity. Most of the Cooper researchers seem to think he did, and I couldn't imagine someone trying to pull this caper off without having at least some experience. The deeper answer - I suspect he may have been a very experienced, current jumper. But I'll have to PM you as to why I think that.

Ha, I remember Paralerts. I've never worn an audible, could never fathom the idea that you should need one. (Though I have always thought that they should design one with a snooze button.) The best altimeter on the planet is... the planet. That's the one that will never break down and lie to you. I jumped for years without any altimeter, put one back on when I got instructor ratings. I use an altimaster analog, they're easy to see, never need batteries, and they're easy to adjust - when I'm doing AFF I always sync mine with the student's at their pull altitude on the way up.

You also asked something a while back about drop zones owning chutes,'keeping a few around in case someone wanted to make a first jump...' Actually yeah, drop zones definitely have student gear specifically for training first jump (and beyond) students. In fact, that's the bread and butter of their business. The idea of someone coming up with their own rig, and showing up at a dz to give it a try, that ain't gonna happen. In those days it was a static line program, you did a few of those and transitioned to freefall with short to increasing delays. These days first jumps are either tandem or AFF, freefall jumps from full altitude. Static line is all but obsolete these days, as are round parachutes. Which begs the question - Have any of you Cooper researchers ever made a jump? It would be real easy for you to find a drop zone near you and do a tandem jump to check it out.

Hmmm. Never knew Pete Best was a skydiver. Sorry

The back bailout rigs don't have D-rings to attach the front reserves because they basically ARE reserves. Someone a while back said something about 'no one delivering D-rings' to hook them up'. I doesn't work that way. The D-rings are sewn into the harnesses of sport mains. The front-mount reserves do not have harnesses and could not be independently jumped - there'd be no way to attach the parachute to the person. I read or heard somewhere that the possible reason that Cooper asked for 4 parachutes was so that they would give him good ones for fear that he might make one or more of the crew jump. The fact that they gave him 2 unusable ones, dummy or not, especially if they came from different people is kind of strange. Perhaps they were being clever, 'yeah we gave him the four he asked for', but only two are usable. The thing about Cossey moving the ripcord on one of them. Like Mark said, that's not that unusual, there are a number of reasons that might be done. The weird thing about that is, in that article about the parachutes that I believe Flyjack linked a while back, Cossey figured Cooper for a no-pull bounce because he thought that rig would be difficult for a non-experienced jumper to deploy. That doesn't make sense to me. Anywhere you could mount that thing on the front of the harness, it would be in reach. If anything, it may confuse an experienced jumper a bit if it's not in the 'normal' place (I doubt that, though), whereas a novice would just see where it is and figure that's what you pull. Also, Cossey, an experienced jumper and rigger, thinks that an inexperienced jumper would have a hard time deploying it, yet he would normally give it to a pilot (remember it's a bailout rig) who's probably NOT an experienced jumper? Cooper would have a lot more time to figure out the pull from 10 grand than an aerobatic pilot who's about to go in would. Hell, that rig could have been on Tina's back.

Anyway, I'm not a rigger, certainly not a 70's rigger, but I am a 40-year skydiver/instructor and here's a few general things about the parachutes. The measurement, 24', 26', 28', refers to diameter, not length. That was a typo/misunderstanding by whoever typed that report. Harness/containers and the parachute canopies are separate things, they connect at the connector links between the risers on the container and the lines on the canopy. That means that the container could hold whatever size canopy the rigger put into it, as long as it fits.

(Is there a way to turn the 'suggestion' thing off? This thing keeps changing things I write. Like Flyjack and back...)

Geez, I'm about to hit Blevins up for one of his Excedrin, and I'm just an old skydiver trying to follow along out of curiosity. I can see both of your theories, but, if I've got this right, the part of Flyback's theory that Blevins isn't getting is that the rig Hayden got back wasn't on the airplane. If they got 6 rigs, 4 back and 2 front, but only gave Cooper 2 of the bad ones, one of Haden's and one of Cossey's, then the one Hayden got back was one of those 2 not given Cooper. Is that right? If so, the other Cossey backpack seems unaccounted for.

Remembering... for whatever reason, every time I hear this song it makes me think of them..

Not that anyone probably cares, but it would seem that the point of my earlier post has been missed by some. The point was: 'Cooper' is a decades-old case that most of the world has forgotten about save for a handful of writers, amateur sleuths, aging parachutists, and other curious folks. One would hope that you could all find common ground and get along, even among 'friendly' disagreement about suspects and circumstances. A thought about the earlier disagreement: Mr. Shutter, if, after 48 years, you can't wait a few more weeks for your choice from a plethora of photographs, I don't know what to tell you. Actually, I do know, and it's this: If a trespassing Eric were to get mowed down by an errant Flatbed Ten logging truck, Weyerhaeuser could revoke Mr. Blevins' permit faster than an 80's NPS Ranger. Would that bother anyone else? Also, Mr. Shutter, I'll make you a friendly wager. If Blevins comes across an odd penny loafer or an unexploded roll of quarters, then you have to publicly declare that Klansnic was Cooper. If not, then a free tandem skydive awaits whichever of you is willing to show up to Elsinore on the hottest Saturday in August. [Disclaimer:Temperaturemustbeatleast115degrees.Tandempassengermustweighlessthan250lbsandbeabletoclimb4feetofladder.PassengermustalsopromisenottopersonallysuemeifImanagetogetusbothkilled,andmustalsoagreethatifyouthrowuponmeIwillcutyouawaylikeabadparachute.]

Dropzone.com is a skydiving website. I'm a skydiver. I'm going to tell a story about skydivers. This happened some years ago. For background, skydivers, like many adventure sports enthusiasts, like to video stuff. These days, those lightweight tiny Go-Pros are everywhere. But before they came about, back when those handheld camcorders were the thing, if a skydiver wanted to video stuff they had to set up a helmet with a camcorder mounted on the top. There's also a piece of skydiving gear that is known as a Dytter. It's a little thing about the size of a matchbook that you'd also mount on your helmet, and what it does is, you set it for a certain altitude and on the way down it beeps in your ear. You wouldn't want to rely on it for your life, but it's a handy little back-up reminder. Any skydiver would instantly recognize one, pretty much nobody else would. Anyways, where I was living, there was a ski hill not far away. Small place, not too popular, but it had some good steep runs and I could be there in an hour. So one day, like many, I went there by myself to get some runs in. After one particular run, I pull up to the chairlift line and there were these four guys ahead of me, and one of them had a helmet cam on. Didn't recognize any of them, but I says, 'Gee, that's cool, got a camera there to film your friends skiing...' They kinda half-heartedly turned around, 'Yeah, sure..' turned back amongst themselves. 'But', I continue, 'just where on the hill does that Dytter go off?' They all quickly turned around, looked at me with much more interest. 'What? You know what a Dytter is? You jump?'... Turns out they were jumpers from a different dropzone I hadn't been to, but we ended up skiing together for the day. I visited them at their dz, we all became friends. A couple years later, one of them went in. I was on his ash dive, and I cried... Camaraderie over a shared interest. It's fuckin' cool. You guys should try it. Anyway, I'm going to bed. Goin' jumpin' tomorrow...

Which looks like a possibility. It looks like they have lined the channel with sheet metal, but they appear to be direct-bag static lines. You can see the first guy's bag flapping around up there when the second guy exits. Can you imagine being 7th or 8th out with all those bags lurking up there? Unlikely, but possible...

That video 377 posted showing the static-line jumps from a 727 was interesting. You can see as they get inflation behind the plane that they do get a pretty fair yank on opening shock. The thing that got me was, look at the bag/pod as it comes out of the container, how it gets blown up into the top of the stair channel, and the canopy slides out of it. I'm sure they smoothed that all out to eliminate snag points, but geez, I might've tested the static lines a bit longer.

There are a lot of variables that would affect the answer to that question. In freefall, a 25 knot wind would cause some drift, but not a whole lot. I'm not sure the specifics of the canopy he had, but generally a bailout rig of that era, a round (was it modified/unmodified, drive slots, 4-line release?), might have 3-6 mph of performance to work with. The main question would be, at what altitude did he open the parachute? If he jumped at 10 grand and opened right away, he could indeed drift a fair distance. If he freefell down and opened lower, say 2 grand (agl) or so, it would be much less. Also, especially if he opened high, what are the winds doing at other altitudes? It seems to be known what they were doing at 10 and on the ground, but what were they doing at 7? At 4?...

It seems our friend is unwilling to reconsider. Mikelock, I'm curious what your experience is. See all these people disagreeing with you? Many of us are extremely experienced. Wise up, or we shall all be pissing in your crater.

That second-to-last question I couldn't answer because some of the statements in the paragraph contradicted each other or evoked different answers.

Yeah, Derek made another ID and posted something stupid. Not sure how your name was attached. His post apparently got deleted, did what I could to delete mine.

I've wracked my brain and I can't remember the name of the guy or the book. Maybe I can ask a couple of the people I hung out with in those days if they remember, but it's been a while since I've talked to them, and I'm a dinosaur, I don't do facebook or any of that crap, so it might take a bit of digging to find contact for them. A quick search indicates that 'Ha Ha Ha' was written in '83. Like I said, I read that book in probably the late 90's, but I couldn't say when it was written. Mr. Blevins says he read Ha Ha Ha and thought that it wasn't the author's first work. I'd be curious if they were possibly written by the same guy. I'd also be curious if you or Mr. Blevins figured the seven clues supposedly contained in Ha Ha Ha.

A few thoughts... First, regarding the idea of deploying the parachute while still standing on the stairs, I have to second everything wolfriverjoe said about that. Plus, deploying off the stairs into the fast turbulent air behind the aircraft would actually increase the chances of a malfunction, as well as the possibility of the parachute entangling with part of the aircraft. Would not be practical at all. And if Cooper was an experienced jumper, knew enough to find a pack and data card, he should be able to give the rig a gear check enough to reasonably ensure that he wouldn't have a total pack closure malfunction. As for the gutsiness of making a one-parachute jump without a reserve, again, as joe said, malfunctions are actually pretty rare, plus the fact that it was a bailout rig and not a sport main means that that parachute basically WAS a reserve. And Cooper probably knew that by the lack of D-rings for a front-mount reserve, and the fact that it had a pack and data card at all - sport mains do not have them. Also, base jumping is pretty much always a one-parachute jump, and not with rigger-packed reserves. I was intrigued by the mention of that book 'Hahaha', supposedly written by Cooper, and its account that Cooper did not jump over the Washington woods, but closer to Reno. Here's why: For background, as older jumpers will know, an integral era of sport skydiving history occurred in the 60's and 70's at a few drop zones in California; Taft and Arvin near the Bakersfield area of central CA, and Elsinore in SoCal. Bunch of barnstorming, daredevil, black death artists pioneered skydiving from a solo sport to a group activity known as relative work. Many of these people were Vietnam veterans from the 60's and other military. Anyway, some years ago, probably late 90's, I was jumping regularly at a drop zone in Taft. For a while, this guy would show up and hang out with us who was an older jumper and part of that era. He had written a book, his attempt at the not so great American novel. The book was basically a love story, and the main characters and plot line were fiction, but it was set in the real world of that skydiving era, and included many real-life people and events. Well, in the second half of the book as a secondary plot line, one of his characters pulled off the hijacking. Never mentioned the Cooper name or that it was national news, but the places and sequence of events were exactly the Cooper case. Except that he, too, had the hijacker jump on the approach to Reno. Somebody here mentioned someone witnessing Cooper back down the stairs, but I always thought the story was that the only people on board were the pilots and the one stewardess, but that after takeoff Cooper sent her up with the pilots so that there was nobody in the back with him. In this guy's book, the hijacker went to the back stairs and jumped up and down once, to give the pilots the idea that he left over Washington, but actually stayed on board until the Reno approach. Did this guy know something? Was he just writing pseudo-fiction? (Was he Cooper?) Who knows. As for suspects... There are a number of people who think they have the case solved. That Derek clown insists it was Klansnic. Jo was convinced it was her late husband. Blevins likes Kenny C. There was an ad in Parachutist magazine the other month for a book claiming Walt Reca was the definitive Cooper. But the FBI has closed the case as unsolved. Does that mean that they have evidence that disproves all of those, or do they just not have enough to beyond-a-reasonable-doubt any of them? I've heard that there were anywhere from a couple hundred to possibly over a thousand people who were at one time or another considered possible suspects. I'd be curious to see that list. I've also heard that the FBI holds out hope that someone will remember something, present a new suspect or evidence. Some people have done that, come forward saying 'I think it was my uncle/dad's friend/husband...' That leads me to wonder. If you thought someone you knew/cared about might be a notorious criminal, would you come forward? Risk getting someone in trouble? Or would you keep your mouth shut? I suppose if they've passed and are beyond prosecution you might want to know if the truth could be determined. But would you want to sully their name? Perhaps you'd be lionizing them as a folk hero? Hmmm.....

One of the best things about skydiving is the bond, the camaraderie, the brotherhood. A skydiver can walk onto a drop zone anywhere in the world and instantly be among family. And to whatever degree that you have tangented this family by writing in this forum for years, you are welcome. You've always shared personal things about yourself, and you seem like a genuine human being. Any skydiver that's been around for a while knows what it's like to lose a friend suddenly and unexpectedly, so we feel for you. Sincere condolences for your loss. Cry, scream, go outside and kick rocks, come back in and pet your cat. When you go to his house Saturday, tell stories. Poignant ones, funny ones. When someone goes, there's nothing you can do about it but revel in that they were your friend. BSBD

Again, I get your frustration and wasn't implying that you should just suck it up. I was mainly addressing a particular thing you said, and trying to give you a few other ideas as to why that may have happened. But to be sure, if you called to make a reservation and were told that there would be an instructor for you, then one should have been assigned to you. Definitely talk to someone. The dzo may have a lot of other stuff on his plate, the instructors deal with the students they're assigned to, so ideally if there's a school manager between them, that would be the person. Something else you said, though... You said that you're still jumping with an instructor, but then you said that they have sent you up by yourself before. That doesn't make sense. If you're just a couple jumps in and still under the direct supervision of an instructor, they shouldn't be sending you up by yourself. Could you elaborate on that?

Depending where you are in your progression, that might not be something you should worry about. If you're still jumping with an instructor and one isn't available at the moment, and/or you have yet to be trained for your next jump, then that doesn't really affect you, they're just looking for an up-jumper who can make a quick call. But if you're cleared for solo's and wind/weather isn't a factor, then yes you should be offered one of those slots. The same for there being student rigs packed and hanging on the wall, that's not really the factor, it's whether there is an instructor available. I understand your being frustrated, but it sounds like this wasn't your normal experience with them. Unfortunately, they often favor the walk-in tandems because they don't want those people steering their friends to the other dz. You should have said something before you left, and you should definitely talk to the dzo about it. Don't be confrontational, just express your frustration with the situation and see what they have to say.

I would have to agree with that. Perhaps mikelock34 is new to the sport and found that it is practiced more safely than he expected. It would be interesting to hear from him again and see if his perception has changed since his original post.

Geez, it's hard to rely on the details of 30 year old memories, but now that I watch that and think about it, I seem to remember him saying something about starting out on flipped-over right hand guitars, and when he got left handed ones he was used to the strings that way, so that's how he strung 'em.