Farflung 0
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Orange1 0
QuoteThere must have been tens of thousands of Non-WHUFFOS without jump experience in WWII. You see they weren’t WHUFFOS because the planes were not perfectly good, so it made sense to jump. How many of them lived? What a bitch to survive a swarm of Messerschmitts, get out of a spinning bomber then ‘eat it’ because you didn’t arch enough. Oh well.
Yeah but those guys had training on what to do if they needed to eject. We have no clue what Cooper's jump background was.
Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.
Orange1 0
QuoteI had low skill and very high determination. That's actually not a bad combo for a student jumper. You perservere. You don't give up. You eventually figure it out.
I can't tell you how excited I was when I finally mastered stable freefall. I was on cloud nine. I still am.
377
Oh, that pretty much describes me too
took me 12 freaking exits (from a sitting poised position) before they'd let me go to freefall... progression normally 3 exits then 5 DRPs, I did 6 of each 
. I surprised myself by actually being pretty good at freefall just about from the word go. Landings were another story altogether... ![[:/]](/uploads/emoticons/dry.png "[:/]"){kind=small}
btw everyone loved the spin test jump, I think for most of us it was one of our favorites!
Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.
Robert99 50
QuoteRobert99:
You say "What was visible to Cooper when he jumped?
I mean below him to say 5000feet. Around him
in the air/sky? Above him standing on the stairs? "
DB did have wind rushing past him (at least 180 knots) to use as a frame of reference as to which way down was and be able to arch his body into a stable position (belly down. Spinning could be detected by an experienced skydiver and by use of arms and legs could change direction of spin and quite possibly stopped the spin. As 377 points out, by pulling the rip cord, the spin would stop anyway and get everything in control.
Bob
sailshaw
Sailshaw and everyone else who has not made a free fall, somewhere on DZ.com there is probably a list of vertical wind tunnels. Find one in your area and give them a call. Tell them that you want to see how easy it is to control your body position during a free fall.
The tunnel people can probably arrange a few minutes in their tunnel for around $150 per person. You could make it a family affair. The experience is well worth it in my judgment.
I have spent a few minutes in the tunnel at the Casa Grande, AZ facility. In the preparation for going into the tunnel, we were shown a video of four kids (I believe both boys and girls) in their tunnel. These kids were about 10 years old and had their own team jump suits, etc.. They did controlled formation turns and other things and were always under control.
But looks can be deceiving. In my particular case, I found that I could no long go into an arc position without getting leg cramps. When I straightened out the legs to stop the cramping, I would go head first into the wall. Basically, I spent my tunnel time just banging my head against the wall.
Farflung 0
Don’t think there was much ejection training in WWII.
My neighbor bailed out of a B-17 and never said a word about it until I was in flight school and home on vacation. He asked what they ‘trained’ us to do in such a situation. I said there was exactly one approved method and only one technique mentioned. That was the ‘Tuck’ position where the knees were drawn to the chest in a sort of cannonball profile. He said nothing had changed since his jump in ’44.
So if ‘training’ is being told to tuck everything in….. then that was the training. This was literally all the instruction I received (10 seconds total) but I’m sure this too can be made much, much more complicated. Using the chute, ejection seat, PLFs, survival kits, jumping into pits, swing landers, yes even radios and flares we were trained and trained and trained. We even had to eat bugs and drink our own urine as part of the training. OK, the urine part was a lie but jumping and freefall…………………. tuck.
What did McCoy, McNally, LaPoint and Heady do? Why do these case studies always seem to suck the oxygen out of the thread? Is it because they abate the BS factor perhaps?
My neighbor bailed out of a B-17 and never said a word about it until I was in flight school and home on vacation. He asked what they ‘trained’ us to do in such a situation. I said there was exactly one approved method and only one technique mentioned. That was the ‘Tuck’ position where the knees were drawn to the chest in a sort of cannonball profile. He said nothing had changed since his jump in ’44.
So if ‘training’ is being told to tuck everything in….. then that was the training. This was literally all the instruction I received (10 seconds total) but I’m sure this too can be made much, much more complicated. Using the chute, ejection seat, PLFs, survival kits, jumping into pits, swing landers, yes even radios and flares we were trained and trained and trained. We even had to eat bugs and drink our own urine as part of the training. OK, the urine part was a lie but jumping and freefall…………………. tuck.
What did McCoy, McNally, LaPoint and Heady do? Why do these case studies always seem to suck the oxygen out of the thread? Is it because they abate the BS factor perhaps?
quade 4
Quote. . . the BS factor . . .
You really have to ask yourself how the BS factor creeps into the conversation to begin with.
I think it's like a writer who has committed to how his story is going to end before writing word one. He pictures this great moment for the end of the story and then works backward to create a scenario wherein that happens.
Lots of people in this thread have pet theories about who DB Cooper is. If the suspect lived through the experience of jumping and the following Escape and Evasion (E&E), then the author has to concoct a series of events which allows the suspect to be able to have done that.
They cling to notions that reinforce their position and dismiss ones that don't.
If their favorite DB Cooper suspect has almost no known sky diving experience, they tend to believe the jump part was trivial. Hell, instinct will save the guy! Well, that part just isn't true. They can easily believe it though because they have no experience in doing it, yet just the briefest amount of experience would clear this up greatly in their heads.
It has been stated before but is worth repeating, anybody writing a story about this DB Cooper thing really ought to take the time to learn what a skydive is. Go make a few jumps. It will cut your BS factor by quite a bit. If you can, make a jump out of a tailgate aircraft. It's not a jet, but will give you an idea about the differences in stability encountered during the exit phase due to wind initially only hitting part of your body. You also might learn how silly the notion of being able to see the ground and stars would be.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver
The World's Most Boring Skydiver
georger 244
QuoteQuoteIn response to georger's comment . . .
QuoteCooper would have instinctively taken counter
measures when he jumped, measures which
probably help in stabilisation?
You never made a jump in your life, have you? In fact, by that statement I'd wager a guess you've never seen how typical first timers react to free fall. And I can damn near guarantee you've never made a free fall jump at night.
You have NO idea what you're talking about in this regard. None.
"Measures which probably help in stabilisation? (sic)" Don't make me laugh!
INSTINCT don't enter into it. Humans have NO instinct about free fall. None. They have instinct about falling from a height of a few feet, but any way a normal human might react to that situation has ZERO relevance to falling out of an airplane. None.
Because of this, inexperienced jumpers have a tendency to curl up into the fetal position and fall unstable. Virtually everything they try to do instinctively is 100% wrong.
Somewhere in a skydiving history thing I remember reading about, I think it was some french skydivers, that actually "figured out" how to be stable in freefall (and which laid the basis for what we are taught today) and this was decades after people started jumping from planes. Quade is right, there is no instinct. I'll see if I can find the source/story.
Orange, this is proving to be very instructive, to me
at least. The vids Quade posted speak plainly. Its
very easy to see how anything in Cooper's pockets
could have come out. Its basic issues like this that
help define the case.
georger 244
QuoteWhat Quade and others says about there being no instinct for stable freefall is true.
I learned to jump in 1968. No AFF. No tunnel training. Just a few static line jumps with dummy rip cord pulls and then they threw you out of the plane solo to teach yourself freefall.
I can personally attest to stable freefall being non intuitive. I made elaborate plans to be the exception. I was going to show them by making perfect stable jumps from the outset. I practiced in a swimming pool, exhaling to get neutral buoyancy and then going spread eagle with a strong arch. I was solid as a rock. I'd show those jumpmasters a thing or two next weekend.
It all went to hell. Even on short delays I was turning or flipping or both. On one memorable 30 second delay I got into a horribly tight spin at about 15 sec and couldn't arrest it. My training taught me to pull under those circumstances and I did. I was certain I'd be wrapped up in deploying lines but got a completely normal spin stopping canopy deployment.
After a while you learn, but it sure doesn't come naturally.
They let little kids fly in our local tunnel. I've seen 3 and 4 year olds put teens to shame in very quick learning of freefall stability skills. It's quite amazing. Still, it has to be learned.
377
Last night it was said the reserve chutes were built to
open during a spin, but the old back packs not. Can
you confirm or deny and cover that aspect of this
matter?
georger 244
QuoteQuoteAs 377 points out, by pulling the rip cord, the spin would stop anyway and get everything in control.
Bob
sailshaw
There's a difference between pulling in a spin and pulling while tumbling though. None of us have any idea whether he spun or tumbled on exit.
And if he had no experience of training, who knows whether it would have occurred to him to pull while spinning or tumbling?
Out of interest, 377, when in your training did you get taught how to stop a spin without pulling? It was part of the requirement for my A, but (no offence) I did my training quite a while after you did yours!
) I did my training quite a while after you did yours!This matter of reserves open in spin/tumble vs.
back chuites wont open under those circumstances
is crucial. Cooper had only the back chute functional.
georger 244
A reserve is designed to work. Speed, body position, whtever. Pull. It works.
You guys keep saying this - why!?
What is there about a reserve that would open vs a
back chute?
Cooper had no functioning reserve (Cossey says).
pek771 0
I seem to recall my Dad saying it was get the canopy open, dive out behind the wing and try to miss the tail section. Then, pull the cord. I suppose that was Navy training. If you are over open ocean, lots of other bad things can follow, but at least you have a chance this way. Did the term "freefall" actually exist during WWII?
And, BTW, how does anyone know DBC had an imbalanced load when he left? I am assuming that any load you can put on your "low pressure side", such as your main chute, constitutes "balanced"? Is the preferred method front and back symmetry?
And, BTW, how does anyone know DBC had an imbalanced load when he left? I am assuming that any load you can put on your "low pressure side", such as your main chute, constitutes "balanced"? Is the preferred method front and back symmetry?
What did Gary Powers do on his single and only, record breaking jump?
From 60,000 feet to 15,000 feet I suppose a person could learn to stabilize themselves (at least he did) then pull at the right time or let the altimeter do it for you. Was he given a secret CIA freefall instruction along with a poison pin (so exciting)? Tens of thousands of aircrew knew how to use a chute but were not trained on how to fall or jump.
Of four succeeding copycat jumpers, three had jump experience, two kept their money upon landing but both of them injured themselves. What did they do? Deploy from the stairs or freefall only to spin, what techniques? Something tells me there won’t be any empirical data about these events either.
There must have been tens of thousands of Non-WHUFFOS without jump experience in WWII. You see they weren’t WHUFFOS because the planes were not perfectly good, so it made sense to jump. How many of them lived? What a bitch to survive a swarm of Messerschmitts, get out of a spinning bomber then ‘eat it’ because you didn’t arch enough. Oh well.
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