The FBI today announced that it is giving up the search for D B Cooper, the famous hijacker from the 1970's who bailed out the rear boarding ladder of a Northwest 727 somewhere over Oregon. No trace of hiw was ever found, but a tiny bit of decomposed money was found about a decade ago.

My personal opinion is that he died during the bailout.

Fascinating story! I was wondering what the effect of a 727's wake would have on a parachutist jumping out the back?

Eagle15 wrote:

Fascinating story! I was wondering what the effect of a 727's wake would have on a parachutist jumping out the back?

It would be a hell of a ride, but a human body with a closed chute is a dense thing. He would fall below any such effect very quickly.

I guess paratroopers jump out of C-17's....

DocLightning wrote:

Eagle15 wrote:

Fascinating story! I was wondering what the effect of a 727's wake would have on a parachutist jumping out the back?

It would be a hell of a ride, but a human body with a closed chute is a dense thing. He would fall below any such effect very quickly.

A 727 was used for a while in the 1990s in a skydiving operation somewhere in the U.S. A DC-9-21 was also used more recently in a similar operation. It was based at a small airport in Perris, near Riverside, California. There are several videos, one here. I think the event pictured was in Illinois.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TtL2cmlcM

The DC-9-21 was originally delivered to SAS in 1969 and had several later operators including Spirit, Valujet and Allegiant. The FAA still shows it registered to the skydiving operation but another site says it was for sale in 2014 and mentioned that the engines may have been timed out due to the number of cycles and would require expensive overhaul.

SAS was the only customer for the DC-9-21 which was designed to meet their needs for better performance from short runways at some of their smaller destinations. It used the short fuselage of the DC-9-10 series but the larger wing and more powerful engines of the -30 series. The 10 aircraft ordered by SAS were the only DC-9-21s built.