Since I can't read the dark background, I've re-posted. Once we get the coloring straightened out, we can erase one of these copies. - BAS
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Last Monday, Sail and I met at the Seattle Yacht Club with one of Sail's fellow yachties, Don Bennett. Don is also a retired 727 "production" test pilot for Boeing and flew 727s extensively in the Cooper era.
Right off the bat we asked Don if he knew anything about the secret testing of the 727 as a jump platform in the late 1960s.
"I heard rumors about dropping the stairs in flight, but I was not involved in any secret testing," he told us.
As a production test pilot, Don told us his primary responsibility was to test 727s as they came off the assembly line.
"The 7-2-7 was a lovely airplane," Don said. "It was a hell of an airplane."
Don's love of this aircraft was still evident as he discussed the old days of test flying.
"The 7-2-7 was a very odd airplane, and the center of lift was ahead of the landing gear." Don explained that this meant that the pilots had to land a bit differently than in other Boeing products, such as how Sail has described here in his post, namely that the pilots had to lower the nose a bit just before touch-down on the runway.
Don also used the typical parlance for Boeing employees and called this aircraft the Seven-Two-Seven, and not a Seven-Twenty-Seven, as is common elsewhere in Cooper Country, such as with journalists.
One tidbit that attracted my attention is Don's statement that not only could the 727 take off with the aft stairs deployed, the extended stair system also added lift to the take-off.
"It would act like a flap," Don said.
However, Sail reminded me later that deploying the stairs for take-off would also increase drag and thus be a hindrance.
Further, regarding the secret testing, both Don and Sail said that the operation would most likely have taken place away from the central Boeing facilities in the Seattle area and would have been conducted out of the way, such as in Moses Lake, Washington.
We also asked Don about Stan Gilliam, whose grand daughter had told us that her family had a long story about Stan receiving a very probing and mysterious phone call about the technical aspects of deploying the aft stairs in flight. The woman, Jayme Nimick, says her grand father thought it might have been DB Cooper calling to get advanced knowledge about the jump. OF course, Sail thought the phone call originated from Sheridan Peterson in Building 9-101, but Don thought it was internal security from Boeing checking up on Stan and the 727 testing operation.
"It was the Boeing CIA," he said with a chuckle.
This remark initiated a lengthy conversation about Boeing security and how it monitored its employees out of country. Don had numerous occasions to train foreign flight crews in the operation of 727 and came in contact with lots of strange people, including a voluptuous Russian named "Natasha."
In the course of the conversation, Don also confirmed that he knew Stan Gilliam, and remembered he was a test flight engineer, and was also on some of these foreign test programs, which jived with what Jayme had told me.
Despite the espionage, babes in black, and hulking Russkies, both Don and Sail dismissed the sinister notion that the 727 was developed as a secret jump platform for American commando troops.
"It was just one more canny angle from the marketing department," Sail posited.
Along those lines, I asked Don is a 727 could be landed on an aircraft carrier and he agreed. This feat, and it's role in the Boeing marketing strategy for selling the 727 to the military, was one of the few really interesting items delivered by the WSHM staff during their Symposium last November.
Don also told us that the 700 series of numbers were used by Boeing because when they developed the 707 - the world's first commercial jetliner - they didn't know what angle to set the wings. Apparently the wing sweep is very critical in turns as the lift and drag factors on each wing vary greatly and the aircraft could become unstable very quickly.
"The story at Boeing was that the engineers went back to the Germans from WW II and their designs for their jet aircraft and found that 70.7 degrees was the optimal angle. As a result, the plane was called the Seven - Zero - Seven.
Don also told us that the 707 was first developed in 1955 and Boeing sank $19 million dollars into its creation.
"The total worth of Boeing at that time was only $25 million, so Boeing had everything riding on this aircraft," Don said.
This discussion dove-tailed with my query from 377 as to the veracity of Tex Johnson rolling the first 707 prototype during a fly-over conducted in front of potential airline customers. Both Sail and Don agreed that it happened, but the disagreements over what happened next were hotly debated for the rest of the luncheon. Don said that Tex was shipped off to some Boeing flight gulag as punishment, while Sail said that Tex eventually got a promotion and a raise. Don countered and said that Tex lost his pilot's license of a spell, which was again countered by Sail.
In the course of this debate, Don told us that he respected Tex as a pilot but didn't like him as a person because he hit on his wife in front of him and a bunch of Boeing pilots.
"But Tex was a helluva pilot. One of the best," Don told us. "But I didn't like how he treated my wife...."
Surprisingly, the incident occurred after Don and some other pilots had just flown a B-17 bomber into Boeing Field, so this event places these characters in a historic moment in time.
Another surprising comment was that Don told us he was flying a C-141 out of McChord on a training mission when DB Cooper was flying south to Mexico.
"I listened to the transmission during the skyjacking for about an hour. It was fascinating."
Don told us that he was instructed to vacate the area for several hours, and he flew west. This jives with what Everett Johnson told us about flying into Seattle during the skyjacking and having to make an emergency landing at Paine Field in Everett, WA.
This places further skepticism on Captain Tom Bohan's account that he was four minutes behind 305 into PDX and that the cross winds were up to 80 knots as reported in Himmelsbach's book.
Lastly, Don flew the second 727 plane built and instructed a Piedmont crew in its operation. However, the pilots insisted on taking off during a snow storm and several inches of snow blew off the top of the airplane and were sucked into the tail engine, causing it to malfunction. Later models of the 727 then had the #2 engine mounted six inches high above the fuselage to prevent this problem, according to Don.
Don also told us that the first 727 built in production was a 727-100, identical to the one Cooper used. However, this first plane was struck by a Cessna during its Piedmont crew training and was destroyed.
Poll