Georger wrote: "All Cooper victims may be entitled to a SubstaNTIAL cASH pAYMENT! File your claim by Dec 25th 2098."

I usually ignore those class action notices as almost all the money recovered goes to the lawyers and a mere pittance to the class they purportedly represent.

Just last week I received a letter from the Southern California Gas Co, a public utility, informing me that I had received my share of a class action recovery for some alleged overcharging of customers that happened long ago. The letter had metered first class postage on it which I think is about 49 cents. The amount of my recovery? TWO CENTS!

377

In 4022 that two cents will be a fortune. Worth at least a small condo on Mars!  So consider sticking it in asparagus futures.

Looks like FBI was on the CIA/Air America/Southern Airways 727 jump connection in Dec 71..

"(Johnny) Kirkley was later selected as one of seven air-freight specialists sent to Takhli, Thailand, on a secret mission to train to jump and drop freight from a commercial Boeing 727 jet. “There was unrest in Tibet on the Chinese border and the CIA wanted to do some tests to see if it was feasible to make high-altitude drops of paratroopers and cargo from a 727,” he said.
After making a few jumps and dropping several loads of cargo, Kirkley said the mission was eventually scrubbed.
“Fast-forward to the first week in December of 1971 in Anchorage, Alaska,” Kirkley said, continuing his story about being trained to jump from the back of a Boeing 727. “I was in my second year of owning and operating the Polar Bar on Fifth Avenue in downtown Anchorage. I was having a cup of coffee and talking to a customer when two men dressed in suits entered the bar. They showed me their FBI identi cations and told me that they were investigating a skyjacking that had taken place in Portland, Ore., on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving.
“A man called D.B. Cooper had extorted the airline out of $200,000 and jumped from the rear of a Boeing 727 over Oregon. They told me they knew that I had jumped out of a 727 when I was working with Air America,” he said.
“They then showed me a picture of the suspect and asked if I recognized him. I told him that he looked like Louie Banta (CJ-51) (aka Louis A Banta), who had been a smokejumper in Oregon and worked with me in Air America, although I didn’t recall him being one of the seven who jumped on the 727 project in Thailand. As it turned out, Louie also lived in Oregon, where D.B. Cooper deplaned, but Banta was thoroughly exonerated and Cooper has never been found.
“Over the years since, it has become a standing joke at smokejumper and Air America reunions that D.B. Cooper lives,” Kirkley laughed, adding that his close friend and former Alabama track teammate Charley Moseley was also questioned by the FBI about the still - unsolved D.B. Cooper incident."

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login


Apparently there were several test jumps...

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

The 727 first shown in the video of the CIA jump tests had "normal" airstairs the second with a slide showing cargo and jumpers didn't. Southern did have two planes N5055 and N5092... either the vid shows two different planes or pre and post modification.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login


..

Good on-topic post! Keep em coming... 

Where are the FBI 302s about investigating known 727 jumpers and 727 airdrop crews? Would be good stuff for Colbert’s FOIA battle. Make the FBI produce the entire record.

Might Rackstraw have known about the SAT 727 airdrop tests out of Korat Thailand? If so how? Sheridan Peterson, through his smoke jumper connections could have learned about the 727 airdrops while in Vietnam. He mentioned seeing smoke jumpers he knew working for Air America in Vietnam.

377

While laughing at the idea of his own involvement, Petey made a coy reference (in his interview segment "extra" on History) that the smoke jumpers he knew didn't mostly become skydivers. He said they became CIA - and that he knew some of them in Vietnam. I have occasionally wondered if some suspects may not be DBC but might have a strong idea who he was. I know he also has mentioned (Letters to the Wall) having seen "the horrors of the Phoenix Program". Anyone know if that program also employed military 727s? It's weird to me talking about secret agent stuff - I'm not much of a conspiracy watcher overall - but this was a time and place where that stuff was real and tangible.

Another 727 jump video. Exit whooshes clearly audible.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

377

FWW,,  Another 727 group jump video, no wooshes,,, the difference is the first video looked like a slide on exit, the second no slide. Maybe the woosh in the first vid was the divers landing on the slide..




.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Where are the FBI 302s about investigating known 727 jumpers and 727 airdrop crews? Would be good stuff for Colbert’s FOIA battle. Make the FBI produce the entire record.

Might Rackstraw have known about the SAT 727 airdrop tests out of Korat Thailand? If so how? Sheridan Peterson, through his smoke jumper connections could have learned about the 727 airdrops while in Vietnam. He mentioned seeing smoke jumpers he knew working for Air America in Vietnam.

377

Don't know if anyone already posted this list of Air America smoke jumpers - the author describes it thus: “The List”: Former smokejumpers who were Air America “kickers” or pilots and/or were field employees of the CIA in “overseas” positions between 1951 and 1975, when the “Secret War” ended.
 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

The WA/OR based shortened list (not complete).. Smokejumpers/CIA overseas "employees"

Mellin, Dave (RAC-66)   Deceased 1/26/98
Rainey, George (RAC-68)
Yeager, Charley (RAC-65)
Smith, Glenn (NCSB-40)   Deceased 5/28/88
Banta, Louis (CJ-51)
Hamilton, Cliff (CJ-62)
Kirkley, Johnny (CJ-64)
Manley, John (CJ-62)
Moseley, Charley (CJ-62)   Deceased 4/8/14
Swift, Mick (CJ-56)   Deceased 10/5/93
Ward, Hal (CJ-62)
Weissenback, Ed J (CJ-64) Deceased 12/27/71

also not listed but known,

Owen Lee Gossett  (not William P. Gossett)

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Another 727 jump video. Exit whooshes clearly audible.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

377

FWW,,  Another 727 group jump video, no wooshes,,, the difference is the first video looked like a slide on exit, the second no slide. Maybe the woosh in the first vid was the divers landing on the slide..




.

None of the WFFC 727 or DC 9 jet jumps had jumpers intentionally contacting the slide on exit. That would give you an unstable exit. All exits AFAIK were flying leaps from the cabin level floor right out the ventral opening.  Interesting about the lack of audible whooshes on this soundtrack.

377

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Where are the FBI 302s about investigating known 727 jumpers and 727 airdrop crews? Would be good stuff for Colbert’s FOIA battle. Make the FBI produce the entire record.

Might Rackstraw have known about the SAT 727 airdrop tests out of Korat Thailand? If so how? Sheridan Peterson, through his smoke jumper connections could have learned about the 727 airdrops while in Vietnam. He mentioned seeing smoke jumpers he knew working for Air America in Vietnam.

377

Those 302s are mixed in the first ten batches of releases .... there's a ton of them. The FBI worked tips from various jumper clubs or contacted jumper organisations and worked through officials in each organization. From this they developed dozens of suspects to look at ...

Thanks Georger. The FBI actually did a decent job looking at possible jumper connections. They went to Fort Benning, they interviewed and DNA swabbed Sheridan Peterson. They pulled all USPA membership records. Hell, they even looked into the infamous Latin Skydivers of southern California.

377

I am aware they looked at 'Latin' skydivers and their clubs - there are 302's about that. Just about every FBI office in every venue was doing active searches and processing people ... very intense activity.