Couple things about the front reserve parachutes...

This is a simplistic description, but a round parachute is made up of a series of long panels, or 'gores', that are sewn together vertically, into a circle. They're kind of triangular shaped, which gives the parachute its domed shape. There is no part that is technically known as a 'fold', but during packing the panels are folded/stacked ('flaked') on top of each other sort of accordion style. At this point the appearance is long and thin, and those stacked panels would be what was referred to by 'folds'. If they were sewn together along the edges, I'm surmising that's what Cossey did to hold them together to make the 'dummy' reserve easier to repack. To cut half of it off to reduce bulk, you could either cut some of those panels out vertically, which would be hard to do and keep all of the lines, or you could cut the top half off of it the other way.

There wasn't a standard marking for a dummy reserve, but it would be standard that it would be marked somehow, either by the red X, the whole thing painted, or I remember these cloth tapes printed 'Training Device - Do Not Jump' that were sewn on. It would definitely be clearly marked somehow so that it wasn't mistakenly used on a live jump.

It would definitely have a ripcord. That's just standard, how they're held closed and opened. Being hand deployed, what it didn't have was a pilot chute.

Pulling the ripcord and opening the container would not render it worthless. One of the flaps has cloth loops. The other flaps have grommets. Closing the container, the loops go through the grommets, then the ripcord pins go through the loops. If you wanted to hold the money in it, it would be pretty apparent how you could use parachute lines to just tie it shut.

Looking at the closed container, on the ends of it are handles made of the same material the container is. (Those handles are what those non-pink lines were attached to.) It would be easy to tie lines onto those handles and around your body or onto the main harness.

None of the descriptions of the dummy chute are mentioned anywhere in the 302's as far as I know. the red X appears to only live on the site known as the DZ. two different 302's give the same description of the chest pack missing with no mention of it being a dummy chute, training or non-functional or any type of X on the container.

A chute was found in 2001 and sent to the lab. they provided a description of the two chutes missing or so it appears that's how they described it as since only two are mentioned. one chest and one back pack..

The chest pack is described as a 24 foot, white nylon canopy white nylon shrouds- 14' length model T-7A. container was olive drab green 10" x 14" x 6". "Norm D" inscribed on the container..

The second document I have is only a partial of a 302 that I used for some reason and the date is unknown but gives the same description except for the "Norm D" inscription is not listed.

Neither document states the chute as operable or inoperable. since they appeared to have documented any writing on the container it should of been clearly visible to being some sort of training chute. I've wondered for years how Linn Emerick could of missed this given the knowledge he has. Cossey wasn't even there the day of the hijacking. could Cossey be wrong about what chutes really left the center?

What would make Cooper reject what you describe, assuming he tried this, and go back to the original money bag ?

Likewise, if he always had the option you describe why would he ask for a knapsack at all? Why not just go with this configuration if he understood parachutes so well?

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It's also interesting to note that apparently Emerick stated that the crew believed that DBC left the jet over Woodland.

There is a big difference between over Woodland and over Ariel--10 miles to be exact.

So  Emerick talked to the crew after the hijacking ?  What was  Emerick's impression of Hancock and Anderson ?  Or Paul Soderlind or Twila Bates?