Fooled?

Ah, April first!

I always used to enjoy this day when I was a kid. It usually fell on a weekday, and my classmates and I had a lot of fun with it.

Sometime when I was in junior high school, someone 'up high' got wise to this and ever since, strangely, April Fool's day has always been in the middle of the Mason City public school district's Spring Break! Imagine that.

I pulled a good April Fool's maneuver two years ago today. In 2006, April 1st fell on a Saturday.

The preceding Thursday, I was sitting in a training session down in the basement of the fire department's headquarters, up past my 'ideal' bedtime of seven in the evening, trying to stay awake. It seems to me the course might have been about disaster cleanup and debris removal.

I was a member of the Community Emergency Response Team in north Iowa, centered in Cerro Gordo county, more or less based in Mason City. I came on board in February of '04 and enjoyed one really good year. The second year things weren't looking so good. We'd had a lot of great things that ultimately were mere flashes in the pan, and a lot of turf battles and infighting had taken its toll on the organization. I'd been appointed the logistics officer, which started out fine and well, but had become a total joke as time passed. I was supposed to be responsible for all of our assets, but getting to them so I could take inventory just about required an act of Congress and once I was finally able to make it happen, it appeared that a large volume of material accounted for in my earlier inventory reports (taken when all was running smoothly) had disappeared. When I asked the Emergency Management Coordinator and our two operations officers about this, no one seemed to know anything about it. I was glad like you wouldn't believe that all of this was secured behind multiple sets of locked doors in county custody. Issuing me a set of keys didn't seem to have been a priority for anyone, so if anything was missing as it appeared to be, the blame couldn't be pinned on me! Still, this situation made me very uneasy. Where'd all this stuff go? No one wanted to tell me.

My enthusiasm had been waning for several months by the time I was struggling to maintain coherence throughout this class, which was classic 'death by Powerpoint'. At the intermission, the ops officers, both of whom were more or less friends of mine, told me they needed to talk with me. We went in an adjacent recreational room for the chat.

I'd recently volunteered to go down to the next county seat town thirty miles to the south on Tuesday nights and help train prospective team members there. None of them impressed me too much...their behavior was awful and it was obvious that two or three different groups of drinking buddies had signed up for this. No one was taking it seriously, to say the least. Generally, it was a waste of my time and my contribution was mostly allowing them to practice first aid and litter carry using me as their guinea pig. I've done that often through the years. No one's dropped me yet, but I sure thought it was going to happen down there!

In what had to be among the strangest five minutes of my life, the two operations officers tried to relate to me third-, or maybe even fourth-, or fifth-hand some kind of situation that boiled down to someone down there seemed to have some kind of problem with something, but nobody seemed to have any clue as to exactly what it was or who it was that had the problem. All I learned for sure was that a number of people were supposedly quite upset about it and somehow it was my problem to deal with it. The man who was trying to tell me about it hadn't been down there, had met none of the people, and had no idea what the deal was other than what he thought he'd been told. The other guy, who had been down there with me the last two times, kept shaking his head, telling me under his breath that he had no idea what was being talked about because he'd been there and none of this was making sense to him. It sure didn't make any sense to me! I'd think the EMA Coordinator would be the one to address this, whatever it was. Apparently he had better things to do, like presenting a course in the other room.

We returned to the training room, but I stopped trying to follow along. I was fully awake now, trying to figure out for the life of me what was going on. What had become painfully obvious was that this team had become entirely dysfunctional and that we weren't capable of mounting any kind of credible response to anything. Not good for an ' emergency response team'!

I'd thought about excusing myself from the group altogether on and off for several months, as it became increasingly clear that the team needed serious Critical Incident Stress Management counseling after we responded to a missing child case in July of '05 that ended badly. A lot of people took it hard, and the fallout from it literally destroyed the team. I decided it was finally time to step out of the picture and wait for someone else to make the next move.

The next evening, I received an email from a man whose name was prefaced with 'Major'. He knew knew the nature of my avocations and a little bit about my past, and he could really use me. I wondered if I was available to be in Ft. Dodge on Saturday afternoon.

Gee...we'd had a Search And Rescue exercise planned in Mason City that day. I naturally always took part in those, even if it was pouring rain, which it often did. I wasn't planning to go this time. I was going to give 'em all the gift of missing me. Sure, I was available!

So, Saturday, 1 APR 06, my teammates were trying to figure out where I was since I never missed a training exercise. I was standing in a brand new building at the headquarters of the 133rd squadron's headquarters, signing my name on a dotted line, seven years and three days after being discharged from the active duty Air Force because of orthopedic injuries...

APRIL FOOLS, suckers!


In the two years since, I've had a blast. Returning to uniform was one of the best things I ever did! I entered Officer Training School later that month, and earned my commission that September. Not only am I a 'blue suiter' once again, I'm actually an honest to God logistics officer now! And, yes, I still do Search And Rescue work, but with far more competent and dedicated colleauges. A little over a year later, the wing commander presented me with a Commendation for Outstanding Duty Performance. That just wasn't likely to happen where I'd been before it fell apart and I got fed up. Fate can be funny like that; opportunity knocking at otherwise inopportune times!

How about another April Fool's treat for everyone?

A week or ten days back, a parachute was unearthed up in Washington state. This created a heck of a lot of excitement, since this was the general area where a man claiming to be a 'D.B. Cooper' alighted a Boeing 727 he'd hijacked while it was in flight. This occurred in 1971, and has become legendary because it's the only hijacking in the US that was never solved and, of course, the ostensible 'D.B. Cooper' was never found.

After hijacking the plane, he'd ordered it landed. At that point, he demanded something like $250,000 in cash and a parachute, both of which he was provided with before the plane he'd commandeered departed the airport.

At some point relatively soon into the flight, he literally bailed out of the aircraft with the parachute and the cash, and disappeared into the night sky over Washington state.

I understand that a bundle of what is thought to be that same cash was discovered down river by campers in about 1980. I don't recall how much it was, other than it was a significant sum, but it wasn't all of it.

When this parachute was unearthed, everyone in the area understandably became very excited.

The supposed 'Mr. Cooper' was lightly dressed, and given the weather and climate, it's thought by virtually all experts that he likely didn't make it far.

Someone who was at the airport where the plane landed was ordered to offer up a parachute, and claims to have given up his own. I don't recall just who it was, presumably it was someone who was quite a skydiver - perhaps owner or manager of a skydiving school or shop located at the airport, or an employee of the Fixed Base Operator, if it was a smaller airport. (Keep in mind, I'm only generally aware of this story, I've not investigated it in depth yet, so I don't know what airport it was, which river the cash was found along, et cetera) This man claims he'd know it if he saw it since it was his own personal parachute and he'd recognize the serial number.

I thought about that as I read through a five paragraph item and a color photo that is said to have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, but placed in the Des Moines Register as 'Another View'.

The colors of newspaper photographs are generally not vivid and true, but assuming that they're even slightly close, this parachute is either consistently, evenly stained by the earth it was buried in from an original white color, or it already was a light olive/khaki color. Although pictured upside-down, the number '307551', stenciled in black, is plainly visible in the photo. Immediately below it appears the date 'FEB 21 1946', though, given the style and crispness of the stenciling, that '6' could have possibly been a '5'. '307551' could have been a S/N, or it could have been an Army Air Forces drawing number.

I'm no expert. I'm really not. Trust me.

Still, looking at that pic, I suspect that what is shown is a USGI T-7 parachute canopy, which, based on the date of manufacture stenciled on it, would have been 25 or 26 years old in 1971.

Without knowing what the rules were in the early 70's, I'd like to point out that as far back as I can remember, the FAA requires that all nylon parachutes be packed for a maximum of 120 days, or four months. This drops to 60 days, or two months, if it is a 'natural' parachute, made of silk or cotton, since they are more susceptible to fungus, mildew, and other forms of rot. At the end of those 120 (or 60) days, the chute is no longer airworthy. It needs to be pulled out, inspected and certified by an FAA certified parachute rigger, and repacked into it's 'container' (the 'pack' to the rest of us).

Would a rigger pack a 25 year old military surplus parachute in 1971? I don't know. When parachutes are sold surplus, most of the time, but not always, the shroud lines are cut or otherwise removed. I suspect this is for liability reasons more than anything else, especially in the case of cargo chutes. There's lots of other uses for them besides as parachutes, after all. A good number of ex-military chutes have been used by skydivers through the years, though I suspect what happens (again, I'm no expert!) is that the Government Issue canopy gets refitted into commercial harness, container, and line gear by a master rigger. The times I've personally seen 'Milsurp' parachutes with lines intact offered for sale, they've been from ejection seats. Since they're for emergency use, these chutes are white and often have orange panels. Combat chutes, such as the old T-4, T-5, T-7, and the more recent (though still relatively ancient!) T-10, used by airborne soldiers (paratroopers) for mass static-line jumps, are pretty much always camouflaged in either OD or a camouflage print patten of some sort.

If you ask a rigger, I doubt that he or she would certify or pack a canopy that was anything more than twenty years old. The military 'chutes are considered serviceable for up to sixteen and a half years, and that's a twelve year service life following no more than a four and a half year shelf life. So, a T-10 canopy made in July of 1980 could have sat in a depot until the beginning of 1985, and then it could've been in service until the end of the year 2000. At that point, the U.S. Army would have considered it to be expired, assuming that it had survived that long in the first place; I don't know how many would considering what they're subjected to in use. I'd imagine it'd either be destroyed or 'demilitarized' by cutting the lines before it was sent to the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO) for eventual sale at public auction. Who knows what they did back in the early 50's when the T-7 was still in use!

So we have a mid-40's parachute canopy, quite possibly USGI, and it was buried. It could have been bought surplus and fitted to more modern commercial skydiving gear. Or, it could have been someone's 28' diameter tarpaulin that outlived its usefulness or got caught in the wind and blew away. Have you ever tried to tarp a load in a truck when a stiff breeze is at your back? Hanging on tight is all right...up to a point. Pass that point, and you're looking at some unscheduled flight time!

Of course, one would think the thing would've ended up shredded in the trees somewhere, or weathering to the point of disintegration before it became covered over by pine needles and topsoil. Hmmmm.....

I don't know exactly where in Washington this happened, but there is a fairly significant military presence up there. Ft. Lewis and Fairchild AFB come to mind...

Following parachute insertion, burying the 'chute is common practice. The things weigh 25 or 30 pounds, so even if you gathered it up and stuffed it back in, you wouldn't want to lug it along with all the rest of your gear, which is likely to be substantial if you're a paratrooper. A lot of the airborne guys today are jumping at a total weight of 400 pounds between themselves and all their gear! Besides, the parachute container is worn on the back and the warrior's rucksack either travels seperately or may be a few feet ahead on another equipment line. You can only have one pack on your back at a time, right? Lose the chute! Burying it is the accepted procedure to minimize the chance of being discovered after enemy territory has been infiltrated. Yes, the idea of parachuting in is that you're being dropped behind enemy lines.

For most training, obviously you'd want to see those chutes recovered and reused whenever possible. They can be reused as long as they hold up in acceptable condition for up to twelve years of service, remember? Or however long the old T-7's were allowed to be used for. I don't know if it would fly nowadays, the way things have gotten to be, but I can see back in the mid-50's or so when they still used the T-7 that a chute that had passed its last inspection prior to being condemned may just be allowed to be buried at the bottom of its last jump. Realistic training!

Still, if our 'D.B. Cooper' had used a T-7 chute, or an old T-7 canopy, it had to have been an interesting trip down.

Those who jumped from C-82's or C-119's with T-7's could tell you some stories. After hooking their 15' static line to the steel cable that ran the length of the plane's cargo bay, when the jump master felt it was time, they leaped from the open door one after another, single file. When the end of the static line attached to the parachute container pulled tight a few feet outside the door, the main chute was deployed.

The T-1o is packed in a sleeve, so the shroud lines and risers deploy first, followed by the canopy. Not so with the earlier models, which were packed 'naked', so the canopy grabbed the air and ripped open right away, subjecting the parachutist to a legendarily brutal jolt.

I'm not entirely sure what they do now, but I can tell you that at least for many decades, one just didn't jump with rifle in hand! It was securely stowed in a padded bag and retrieved once the soldier was safely on the ground. During WWII, US paratroopers sometimes discovered that certain items, such as pistols, magazines, grenades, and other things stashed in pockets didn't stay there upon chute opening. They literally were torn out through the bottom of pockets and lost. Could you imagine trying to retain a bag full of cash when a parachute opens, especially at night?

It gets worse.

The old 'prop jobs', the C-47, the C-82, and to a lesser extent, the C-119, could be slowed down to roughly 100 mph or slightly less for the drop. This was a big help to the 'grunts', as it lessened the impact of the opening shock, which not only was a bit tough on the crotch (where a pair of heavy canvas straps crossed beneath the user's torso) but lead to friction burns on the shoulders caused by the risers, somewhat reminiscent of airbag burns on one's arms following a crash. The faster the airspeed of the plane, the more severe the jolt and the burns. With the C-119, troopers using the T-7 said it was hardly uncommon to see stars from the opening shock. This was because the '119 couldn't be slowed down quite as much.

Can you imagine jumping from a 727? I don't know at what altitude this would have been from, but I'm guessing the airspeed was a LOT higher than 100 knots or so.

Right there, I believe we have the best reason why our 'D.B. Cooper' was never found. He may not have even survived the trip to the ground. And this is assuming the chute opened correctly and that the canopy didn't invert, 'spill', or become a 'streamer'. The opening shock may have killed the guy in the air, and who knows what happened to the few hundred thousand in cash he was supposedly carrying. That would weigh a few pounds, and since it would've probably broke free from his grip at this point, where might it have gone? I wouldn't be surprised if it flew right up and hit him in the face. That couldn't have helped any!

Considering Washington, I'm guessing he landed in a tree. Lord only knows if he was alive or not by that time, but if he was, hypothermia probably caught up with him pretty soon. After that, I'd imagine wildlife had a feast.

His remains may still be found someday, though there wouldn't be much left. Bone fragments, likely. There's a lot of wilderness up there yet.

You've got to wonder: who was the fool and who all was fooled here?

the TiGor

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web thetigortalks.blogspot.com