DB Cooper

[snowmman 3]

377 said:

"It's REALLY hard cutting away from a semi-OK chute, e.g. open but serious control issues due to damage."

Why? what's the problem? You already jumped out of a perfectly functional airplane. And you'll do that again next weekend...??

The problem with illusions is they are just illusions.

If you can't cutaway on a good day, how are you going to convince yourself you can cutaway after a midair collision that leaves your brain half-dazed and maybe blood on your face?

(edit) in terms of losing a canopy. Uh duh, why not use cheap radio transmitter to re-find it. Each DZ would only need one. Can rent it out.

(edit) is the reality that the safety is all about gear: i.e. the auto-reserve-deployment stuff?
If so, why pretend that you think your training and mental attitude is guaranteeing your safety? It isn't...your gear is.

[Orange1 0]

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No need to fear. It's a sure thing. Jo has told us.
The fact she won't expose it on Coast to Coast, just means she's part of the conspiracy.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[skyjack71 0]

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Jo, you asked what we would do if you are right. We have all told you this before: we would eat humble pie and congratulate you on being vindicated. However after a few years of promising proof that always poofs, it is clear that you are NOT right because you would have proved it by now. When someone asks you a simple yes or no question, you always give a long rambling response that can really be summed up in one word: "no". (Like the recent question about the notebook, as just one example.) Come on - I dare you - show us we are wrong.

The co-incidences keep adding up - today I DID place a call to the FBI, but I am sure I will never get a reply from them. Once specific information is confirmed (we are working on several things) - if the FBI does NOT re-open the investigation of Duane L. Weber being Dan Cooper - then something is very wrong with the FBI.

Again I cannot tell you what this is - but it is very significant and NO I am not paying anyone to assist me. Sometimes certain searches have a cost to obtain, but I have never been asked to pay for these services...there are people out there who believe me or/and they want to help...me to prove or disprove Duane was Cooper. They want to be part of the answer and the solution - regardless of what it is. This is ALL I have ever asked of anyone.

I understand that all feel put off, but if I revealed everything that is found and have a forum attack and destroy it before we have actually written documents susporting them - is NOT a very good idea. Remember there are writers out there who loft in this forum just for ideas to use in their own scripts - most of which are unrelated to Cooper...the most significant in your face kind was the NUMBERS segment using BuDop involvement.

I have had 2 wonderful days and I feel great, but anxious as I wait for the verification of what I feel will put Duane on that plane and in a chute. Perhaps I am wrong - I have been wrong before. Couple 2 things we have been working on with another co-incidence is just uncanny and something the FBI can NO longer ignore.

Since I don't know how to keep my mouth shut - and pre-maturely let out unconfirmed (or hints of) information I need to stay out of this forum for a few days. Should all of this information be of value and vindicate me - I would like to meet almost all of you at a later date, with the exception of Jerry. His actions have been exceptionally cruel and deliberately demeaning and no one should be treated in that manner. Under NO circumstances would any apology from him be acceptable.


The last few day I have felt like the old me - free of having this thing hanging over my head - of forever being ridiculed. ALL I ever wanted was the truth - regardless of the answer, but it had to be something that could help me to understand the unaswered question the FBI investigation left regarding Weber.

- I am not sure which emotion I feel the most at this time.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[Guru312 0]

Check out the recently started "Steve Snyder" thread here in SH&T.

Click on the SnyderArticle link. You'll note that Steve made his first jump in moccasins.

Clearly, he was DB Cooper. He knew he could jump wearing the shoes that he did. We are all wrong thinking that the shoes he is reported to have worn was a dumb idea.

Maybe Steve started ParaFlight with money he didn't bury at Tina Bar.

Guru312

I am not DB Cooper

[snowmman 3]

Jo, you've had more contact with the FBI than the rest of us.

Are any of the FBI agents really, really hot women?

Do they wear skirts? or what? Any wear jeans?

I'm just wondering.

(edit) I'm just saying, that if there's a meetup, and some of your people are there, those short black skirts are really nice.

[happythoughts 0]

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Jo, you've had more contact with the FBI than the rest of us.

Are any of the FBI agents really, really hot women?

Do they wear skirts? or what? Any wear jeans?

I'm just wondering.

(edit) I'm just saying, that if there's a meetup, and some of your people are there, those short black skirts are really nice.

The best approach is always the honest one.
Be direct.

Call up the FBI. If a woman answers, ask her what
she is wearing. That would certainly be easy to do.

[377 22]

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Again I cannot tell you what this is - but it is very significant and NO I am not paying anyone to assist me. Sometimes certain searches have a cost to obtain, but I have never been asked to pay for these services...there are people out there who believe me or/and they want to help...me to prove or disprove Duane was Cooper.

It's a relief to hear you are not being financially victimized Jo. Even though I give you a hard time I'd never want to see anything bad happen to you.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

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Jo, you've had more contact with the FBI than the rest of us.

Are any of the FBI agents really, really hot women?

Do they wear skirts? or what? Any wear jeans?

I'm just wondering.

(edit) I'm just saying, that if there's a meetup, and some of your people are there, those short black skirts are really nice.

The best approach is always the honest one.
Be direct.

Call up the FBI. If a woman answers, ask her what
she is wearing. That would certainly be easy to do.

excellent. However the "Snowmman way" would be:
Go to the DZ.
Find an AFF student that's about to do his first solo jump.
After he lands and is all excited back at the building...I go up to him and say "Oh there's just one more thing..kind of a initiation ceremony..goes back a long way...dial this number for the FBI and say this ...."

[377 22]

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Jo, you've had more contact with the FBI than the rest of us.

Are any of the FBI agents really, really hot women?

Do they wear skirts? or what? Any wear jeans?

I'm just wondering.

(edit) I'm just saying, that if there's a meetup, and some of your people are there, those short black skirts are really nice.

I dated a girl in college who was working part time as a typist for the FBI Snow. She typed up wiretap transcripts. She was really hot, honest. Long legs, blonde, but no skirts. It was the 60s. Just pefectly fitted bell bottom jeans.

She talked freely about the transcript contents, especially after smoking a few. The SAs would have died had they known. It was really boring stuff, gamblers and bookies operating interstate by phone.

I urged her to get some sexier phone taps to type up but she didn't think that was funny at all. She married a professor. Things got started when she went to see him about a grade. She got an A from him. I gave her an A too, but since it didnt go on her transcript it didnt mean as much to her.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[377 22]

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edit) in terms of losing a canopy. Uh duh, why not use cheap radio transmitter to re-find it. Each DZ would only need one. Can rent it out.

There actually was a commercial product developed to do just that. Riser mounted cutaway activated low power xmtrs bought by jumpers and DZ owned direction finder receivers. I think they operated on garage door opener freqs in the 300 or 400 MHz band. It never caught on even though it worked REALLY well in demos.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

okay, we let 377 go when he started talking about how nimbly he steered his rounds past barns and such, never having a collision.

Now he's talking about all the hot FBI women he's dated.

Well, I guess it's the right thread, if you're going to be B.S.ing.

[snowmman 3]

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edit) in terms of losing a canopy. Uh duh, why not use cheap radio transmitter to re-find it. Each DZ would only need one. Can rent it out.

There actually was a commercial product developed to do just that. Riser mounted cutaway activated low power xmtrs bought by jumpers and DZ owned direction finder receivers. I think they operated on garage door opener freqs in the 300 or 400 MHz band. It never caught on even though it worked REALLY well in demos.

377

well, duh, yeah. It removed the excuse of losing your rig, for explaining why you didn't do a cutaway.

And that was a marketing plan for the company? They should have said "use our product, .....it's scarier and you're braver!"

[377 22]

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If you can't cutaway on a good day, how are you going to convince yourself you can cutaway after a midair collision that leaves your brain half-dazed and maybe blood on your face?

I have cut away twice from malfunctions. One was a high speed mess with Capewells on the main and a belly reserve.

I am afraid to do a cutaway from a good chute on a nice day.

Believe me, when you HAVE to cut away, you do. The worse the malfunction, the easier the cutaway. The huge mistake is thinking you can land it, changing your mind at 500 feet and impacting just as you are getting reserve line stretch. It happens. It happened at WFFC twice in one year.

At WFFC 2005 I had canopy and line damage that rendered the chute unflareable (dove to the right hard when I tried flaring), even though it flew OK without brakes and looked pretty good. It was tempting to stay with it and try some kind of asymmetrical riser pull to tame it on landing, then my training kicked in: FAIL CONTROL TEST? CUT IT AWAY. Kerchunk, and an open PD 193 reserve at 1500 feet. SWEEEEET.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

377 said "The huge mistake is thinking you can land it, changing your mind at 500 feet and impacting just as you are getting reserve line stretch. It happens. It happened at WFFC twice in one year. "

see I think you're providing info that confirms my thinking.
The only reason you would hestitate and then change your mind, is if you weren't confident in your cutaway technique.

Since indecision is a big failure mode, like you say, you want training, such that in an instant, you look up, say "looks like shit" and cutaway without a second's hestitation and no fear.

The fear would be reserved for when you start the cutaway and realize that things are seriously bad and can't go normally.

(edit) don't try to tell me that the hesitation is due to worries about the $2000 rig?

(edit) I've read some accident reports that sound like newbies cutting away and entangling, when they shouldn't have cutaway but done something else to get a good canopy. That kind of reinforces the idea that the reserve really isn't a reserve. It's something else, but not what people say it is.

[snowmman 3]

orange1 mentioned reserve deployment reports
(maybe only in certain countries)

If that requirement, is keeping people from using their reserves more, then obviously it's a seriously messed up thing..i.e. it's causing less safety, not more safety?

(edit) or repacks
USPA should make it a requirement, that all DZs are required to repack reserves for free if deployed on a jump there.

[377 22]

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(edit) don't try to tell me that the hesitation is due to worries about the $2000 rig?

Cost wouldn't enter into my mind, but you'd be surprised about other folks decisions. There are DZs in FLA and other places where a cutaway main can and often does end up in a swampy bog, and is sometimes not recovered. I'll bet jumpers there have landed mains that others would have cut away from in less hostile areas.

It is really tempoting to land something that looks reasonably intact. Squares, unlike rounds, have to be flared or you get hurt or killed. When a damaged square is flying OK you tend to think you can handle it even when you know it can't be flared right. You start rationalizing: "ist a pretty lightly loaded canopy, so maybe I won't hit so fast if I cant flare, or I can do a semi flare and stop short of the point where it gets squirrely, etc etc.

Surely there are some analogs in the exercise of poor judgement in climbing, continuing on with damaged gear etc. What are they?

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

no 377, the rest of the world is perfect.
only skydivers are flawed.

Actually, skydivers are an easy target because there's less graceful degradation on failures.

it's kind of a one-shot thing..you don't have time to try a lot of different things when things go bad.

The time element is what boosts the risk up a lot.

(edit) I think there are social pressures around deploying a reserve that maybe people don't admit??

[377 22]

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USPA should make it a requirement, that all DZs are required to repack reserves for free if deployed on a jump there.

Didnt you read my post about how cheap skydivers are?

I guarantee you there would be a huge rash of "emergency" cutaways when the FAA mandated reserve repack dates were approaching.

The DZO's would be living in tents not trailers.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

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USPA should make it a requirement, that all DZs are required to repack reserves for free if deployed on a jump there.

Didnt you read my post about how cheap skydivers are?

I guarantee you there would be a huge rash of "emergency" cutaways when the FAA mandated reserve repack dates were approaching.

The DZO's would be living in tents not trailers.

377

Since we talked about the risks you accept due to the other jumpers on a load, it's interesting what risks you're accepting if everyone else is cheap, and you're not.

Being cheap is fun, when you need to be. It sucks when you don't have to be cheap, and playing cheap just gets you dead (or you have to be conservative, to accomodate the inherent risks created because of decisions that are cheap)

[377 22]

Well, being an unrealistic optimist really helps Snow.
I definitely am one of those.

Maybe Cooper was too. Really. It would explain a lot.

It's stormy, I've never jumped freefall, I don't know where I'll land or how I'll escape...

BUT... I bet it will work out OK, I'll figure out something to get by, I always have in the past.

Another Bourbon please Miss (heh heh...sure they impair my judgment but they are FREE!)

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

377 said "BUT... I bet it will work out OK, I'll figure out something to get by, I always have in the past. "

hey that's a good thought.

Rather than saying (negatively) that Cooper was a bumbler, maybe he kind of bounced around and just winged it on his trip thru life, and things kind of worked out in the end.

That's hugely mentally empowering, and can be the mental safety net people hold in their heads. (edit) Think of it as deploying your reserve a lot. You know it seems to work. So why worry?

I think on some of these things, it's not about how others think, but how you put your own mind together to create your own reality. The most unsafe thing is thinking that it's a matter of "just being someone else"...you can't escape yourself. You can change yourself. But it's still you.

(edit) Ckret I think labelled this as "knowing enough to be a danger to yourself"...but that's not really understanding the role mental confidence plays sometimes.

[Amazon 7]

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We ask Snow to make one solo FF jump.

He asks us to do ten cutaways.

What's wrong with this picture?

377

Hell I only have 8 cutaways since I started in 1972


Edited

5 of those were on Capewells almost always due to packing excellence on my part ( 1 of them was an Air Force rigger that I had a LONG chat with)

3 are on 3 ring rigs. My fairly new Samurai had a slider hangup on deployment after a speed dive at the meet at Jumptown MA in 2004.. friggin new canopy landed in the freakin river and found by a fisherman. As we were searching for it.. I saw him cruising down the river with it all wet and balled up in the bow of his little Aluminium boat.

[377 22]

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Hell I only have 8 cutaways since I started in 1972

Sheeesh Amazon. EIGHT???

That's nearly a 1% malfunction rate if your posted jump numbers (960) are current.

I can tell you aren't the type to cut away anything landable.

A little rushed when ya pack perhaps?

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[Amazon 7]

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Hell I only have 8 cutaways since I started in 1972

Sheeesh Amazon. EIGHT???

That's nearly a 1% malfunction rate if your posted jump numbers (960) are current.

I can tell you aren't the type to cut away anything landable.

A little rushed when ya pack perhaps?

377

Hell no.. if its flyable and landable... I aint choppin it.

At the Mardi Gras Boogie at Gold Coast in 2004 I had one of the steering lines come loose from the toggle( last time I loaned my big rig to a base jumpter to try out their new canopy)

It was a sunset load and I had my Triathlon.. I was to the west of the airport over a bayou at about 5500... about a mile out. I looked down saw Swamp Thing and his little reptile buddies just watchin me... I turned the canopy towards the LZ and I did some quick rear riser turns and a rear riser flare. I flew back and landed it.. a good riser flare with a little buttslide in zero winds

[377 22]

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Rather than saying (negatively) that Cooper was a bumbler, maybe he kind of bounced around and just winged it on his trip thru life, and things kind of worked out in the end.

I can tell you from experience that it DOES kinda work out.

My son has the same outlook. He once found a twenty on a street in SF. We never thought to check if it was a Cooper bill. He expects to find another twenty someday. After all he already found one and it wasn't hard to do. That one was just his first as he sees it. The future looks promising to him.

When I was jumping dirt cheap surplus gear my optimism was tested on every jump. I just expected things to work out OK and they did. When I had a malfunction even the dirt cheap $25 Navy conical reserve worked as well as my $900 PD square reserve did later. It just reinforced my optimism.

The only place I really messed up through irrational optimisim was in my marriage. I picked a really high strung edgy but smart and attractive wife. It was a fast thrilling ride, but it was like flying a postage stamp canopy. Trouble was 100% certain, just a matter of time.

I now fly a big canopy and have taken a no swoop vow. My girlfriend is small but very stable. Malfunctions teach you lesons. You adapt.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.