Thanks for the info...I'm wondering if they opened the canopy in Reno. the serial number could be on the canopy. I've ask WSHS if this could be done with professional rigger. I was told they all have to agree and will get back to me...

I'm betting they opened the back chute left on the plane and the serial number is from the canopy and not the container. they measured the length and not the diameter?

Quote

As I understand it, the back pack that was left on the airliner still had an unbroken Cossey lead rigger seal when it was returned to Hayden.  If so, that guarantees that it was not opened

I don't see how that's possible? the card shows it was repacked twice...

repacked in 82 and 86...Hayden said he never used it?

Repacks are mandatory for use as an emergency parachute based on time since the last repack even if not used.

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Dr. Joe Leeker of U of Texas is the  undisputed expert on the history of US covert air ops using front carriers such as Air America and Southern Air Transport. Dr. Leeker told me that that no operational airdrops were made from 727s during the Vietnam war. The SAT 727 air drops of paratroopers and cargo over Thailand were test drops only. He said there was no need to masquerade as an airliner over an active war zone and there were many acft available in Vietnam that were far better suited for air drops that 727s. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Don Kirlin knows a ton about Boeing's 727 drop tests. He had to access an enormous amount of Boeing paperwork in order to get FAA clearance to use a 727 as a skydiving jumpship. Don is an expert skydiver, airline pilot (727 type rated) and former Navy pilot. He runs a very successful business supplying adversary aircraft for Navy fighter training. Among his fleet are two low time Mig 29s. Read about Don's remarkable business here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

From WIRED article: "Once he sets his mind to a goal, he's relentless. He soloed his first plane at 16, instructed at 18, and began flying corporate jets three years later. He flew in the Navy, got twin bachelor degrees in business and clinical psychology, and then an MBA, all from the University of Northern Colorado, and moved on to US Airways. In 1993, he asked the FAA to let him parachute from the rear stairway of a Boeing 727, like the infamous skyjacker D. B. Cooper, who disappeared over the Cascades with $200,000 in 1971. Kirlin shrugs his shoulders and grins. "I just wanted to do it because the only other person to do it was Cooper," he says. The FAA said no, unless he could prove unequivocally it was safe. A year later, he presented 6,500 pages of documents to the agency. He remains to this day the only person authorized to operate jumps out of the rear door of a 727."

Several people have tried to interview him about Cooper's 727 jump without success. He is a nice guy but just super busy.

377

This contradicts what Bruce said Everett Johnson pilot with cia world airways told him. So if this is correct and commercial 727 were not used in Vietnam then that dispels the myth that cooper could of known that the aft stairs could be lowered in flight from jumping them in nam. He could of known you can safely jump from a 727 from the air America drop tests but not that the stairs could be lowered in the air because those modded 727’s didn’t have them installed. This really narrows the pool of people that knew the 727 stairs can be lowered in flight. So again I beg the question cooper knew this very expert detail but needed to be shown where the clearly visible lever on the aft door was and that it just needed to be pushed down just not buying it. What makes more sense to me is cooper didn’t want to tip his hand so to speak as far as his aft stairs expertise, by taking off with them down he wouldn’t have to reveal his knowledge that the 727 stairs could be lowered in flight knowing this could put a spotlight on the small pool of people that had this expertise but once they didn’t budge he had let the cat out of the bag but to counteract this as a red herring he pretended to need tinas help to lower them and asked to cockpit to lower them knowing this would create a question on how much he actually knew about the plane. We are questioning this today so if that was his intention missioned accomplished. Cooper was playing 3D level chess here and if he was let’s say a Boeing hydraulic engineer who designed the aft stairs for the 727 he had to know they could possibly come under scrutiny. By asking for stairs down initially on take off that is also something a Boeing engineer wouldn’t attempt. In fact in one of the 302’s one of the fbi’s initial Inquiries into Boeing was investigating a group there who participated in a test program with the 727 aft stairs. This group told the fbi they would never attempt a take off with stairs down thus the fbi came to the conclusion it couldn’t of been anybody from Boeing because they would never attempt that and ceased any further investigation into Boeing employees. Again mission accomplished.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Dr. Joe Leeker of U of Texas is the  undisputed expert on the history of US covert air ops using front carriers such as Air America and Southern Air Transport. Dr. Leeker told me that that no operational airdrops were made from 727s during the Vietnam war. The SAT 727 air drops of paratroopers and cargo over Thailand were test drops only. He said there was no need to masquerade as an airliner over an active war zone and there were many acft available in Vietnam that were far better suited for air drops that 727s. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Don Kirlin knows a ton about Boeing's 727 drop tests. He had to access an enormous amount of Boeing paperwork in order to get FAA clearance to use a 727 as a skydiving jumpship. Don is an expert skydiver, airline pilot (727 type rated) and former Navy pilot. He runs a very successful business supplying adversary aircraft for Navy fighter training. Among his fleet are two low time Mig 29s. Read about Don's remarkable business here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

From WIRED article: "Once he sets his mind to a goal, he's relentless. He soloed his first plane at 16, instructed at 18, and began flying corporate jets three years later. He flew in the Navy, got twin bachelor degrees in business and clinical psychology, and then an MBA, all from the University of Northern Colorado, and moved on to US Airways. In 1993, he asked the FAA to let him parachute from the rear stairway of a Boeing 727, like the infamous skyjacker D. B. Cooper, who disappeared over the Cascades with $200,000 in 1971. Kirlin shrugs his shoulders and grins. "I just wanted to do it because the only other person to do it was Cooper," he says. The FAA said no, unless he could prove unequivocally it was safe. A year later, he presented 6,500 pages of documents to the agency. He remains to this day the only person authorized to operate jumps out of the rear door of a 727."

Several people have tried to interview him about Cooper's 727 jump without success. He is a nice guy but just super busy.

377

This contradicts what Bruce said Everett Johnson pilot with cia world airways told him. So if this is correct and commercial 727 were not used in Vietnam then that dispels the myth that cooper could of known that the aft stairs could be lowered in flight from jumping them in nam. He could of known you can safely jump from a 727 from the air America drop tests but not that the stairs could be lowered in the air because those modded 727’s didn’t have them installed. This really narrows the pool of people that knew the 727 stairs can be lowered in flight. So again I beg the question cooper knew this very expert detail but needed to be shown where the clearly visible lever on the aft door was and that it just needed to be pushed down just not buying it. What makes more sense to me is cooper didn’t want to tip his hand so to speak as far as his aft stairs expertise, by taking off with them down he wouldn’t have to reveal his knowledge that the 727 stairs could be lowered in flight knowing this could put a spotlight on the small pool of people that had this expertise but once they didn’t budge he had let the cat out of the bag but to counteract this as a red herring he pretended to need tinas help to lower them and asked to cockpit to lower them knowing this would create a question on how much he actually knew about the plane. We are questioning this today so if that was his intention missioned accomplished. Cooper was playing 3D level chess here and if he was let’s say a Boeing hydraulic engineer who designed the aft stairs for the 727 he had to know they could possibly come under scrutiny. By asking for stairs down initially on take off that is also something a Boeing engineer wouldn’t attempt. In fact in one of the 302’s one of the fbi’s initial Inquiries into Boeing was investigating a group there who participated in a test program with the 727 aft stairs. This group told the fbi they would never attempt a take off with stairs down thus the fbi came to the conclusion it couldn’t of been anybody from Boeing because they would never attempt that and ceased any further investigation into Boeing employees. Again mission accomplished.

There was an article in an aviation trade publication around 1964, about the same time that the 727 was entering commercial service, that stated that the 727 had been tested with the aft stairs deployed.  So the simple fact that the 727 could fly with the stairs down was readily available to anyone who kept track of the 727 program.  But Cooper didn't really understand how to lower the stairs, even after Tina showed him how to do it, and initially apparently thought that the flight engineer was the one who lowered them.

Do you have a link to this article? He first requested Tina to stay and help him lower them and then asked the cockpit to do it doesn’t make sense if he asked Tina to do it first then we would assume he believed they were controlled from the back so why the change of thinking when he requested the cockpit to do it after Tina showed him? Again I think he was intentionally creating confusion.

If someone knows how to contact Hayden, then I suggest that they do so and ask him the following questions:

     1.  Did Cossey assemble Hayden's two back packs in 1971?  If not, then who did assemble them and/or where did they originate?  That is, how and when did Hayden acquire them.  It is obvious that Cossey packed them.

     2.  Was all of the parts of Hayden's two back packs from previously used equipment or were any of the parts new and unused?  Reportedly, one of Hayden's containers had a wear streak on the covering for the rip chord housing.

     3.   Does Hayden know of any basis for the claims that his missing back pack was NOT used by Cooper in his jump?  Flyjack claims that the missing parachute was not used by Cooper but has otherwise been "accounted for", whatever that means.

Does anyone on this site know when the FBI and/or NWA personnel or anyone else on the planet first contacted Cossey about the hijacking?  Specifically, when did Cossey first hear of the hijacking?  I remember reading a FBI memo to the effect that an agent was still trying unsuccessfully to contact Cossey about 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM on the morning (November 25th) after the hijacking or on the morning of November 26th....

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Dr. Joe Leeker of U of Texas is the  undisputed expert on the history of US covert air ops using front carriers such as Air America and Southern Air Transport. Dr. Leeker told me that that no operational airdrops were made from 727s during the Vietnam war. The SAT 727 air drops of paratroopers and cargo over Thailand were test drops only. He said there was no need to masquerade as an airliner over an active war zone and there were many acft available in Vietnam that were far better suited for air drops that 727s. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Don Kirlin knows a ton about Boeing's 727 drop tests. He had to access an enormous amount of Boeing paperwork in order to get FAA clearance to use a 727 as a skydiving jumpship. Don is an expert skydiver, airline pilot (727 type rated) and former Navy pilot. He runs a very successful business supplying adversary aircraft for Navy fighter training. Among his fleet are two low time Mig 29s. Read about Don's remarkable business here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

From WIRED article: "Once he sets his mind to a goal, he's relentless. He soloed his first plane at 16, instructed at 18, and began flying corporate jets three years later. He flew in the Navy, got twin bachelor degrees in business and clinical psychology, and then an MBA, all from the University of Northern Colorado, and moved on to US Airways. In 1993, he asked the FAA to let him parachute from the rear stairway of a Boeing 727, like the infamous skyjacker D. B. Cooper, who disappeared over the Cascades with $200,000 in 1971. Kirlin shrugs his shoulders and grins. "I just wanted to do it because the only other person to do it was Cooper," he says. The FAA said no, unless he could prove unequivocally it was safe. A year later, he presented 6,500 pages of documents to the agency. He remains to this day the only person authorized to operate jumps out of the rear door of a 727."

Several people have tried to interview him about Cooper's 727 jump without success. He is a nice guy but just super busy.

377

This contradicts what Bruce said Everett Johnson pilot with cia world airways told him. So if this is correct and commercial 727 were not used in Vietnam then that dispels the myth that cooper could of known that the aft stairs could be lowered in flight from jumping them in nam. He could of known you can safely jump from a 727 from the air America drop tests but not that the stairs could be lowered in the air because those modded 727’s didn’t have them installed. This really narrows the pool of people that knew the 727 stairs can be lowered in flight. So again I beg the question cooper knew this very expert detail but needed to be shown where the clearly visible lever on the aft door was and that it just needed to be pushed down just not buying it. What makes more sense to me is cooper didn’t want to tip his hand so to speak as far as his aft stairs expertise, by taking off with them down he wouldn’t have to reveal his knowledge that the 727 stairs could be lowered in flight knowing this could put a spotlight on the small pool of people that had this expertise but once they didn’t budge he had let the cat out of the bag but to counteract this as a red herring he pretended to need tinas help to lower them and asked to cockpit to lower them knowing this would create a question on how much he actually knew about the plane. We are questioning this today so if that was his intention missioned accomplished. Cooper was playing 3D level chess here and if he was let’s say a Boeing hydraulic engineer who designed the aft stairs for the 727 he had to know they could possibly come under scrutiny. By asking for stairs down initially on take off that is also something a Boeing engineer wouldn’t attempt. In fact in one of the 302’s one of the fbi’s initial Inquiries into Boeing was investigating a group there who participated in a test program with the 727 aft stairs. This group told the fbi they would never attempt a take off with stairs down thus the fbi came to the conclusion it couldn’t of been anybody from Boeing because they would never attempt that and ceased any further investigation into Boeing employees. Again mission accomplished.

There was an article in an aviation trade publication around 1964, about the same time that the 727 was entering commercial service, that stated that the 727 had been tested with the aft stairs deployed.  So the simple fact that the 727 could fly with the stairs down was readily available to anyone who kept track of the 727 program.  But Cooper didn't really understand how to lower the stairs, even after Tina showed him how to do it, and initially apparently thought that the flight engineer was the one who lowered them.

Do you have a link to this article? He first requested Tina to stay and help him lower them and then asked the cockpit to do it doesn’t make sense if he asked Tina to do it first then we would assume he believed they were controlled from the back so why the change of thinking when he requested the cockpit to do it after Tina showed him? Again I think he was intentionally creating confusion.

I don't have a link for it but the article may be archived on Shutter's site somewhere.  It was in a British publication if I remember correctly.