Historic

In 1946, the United Nations hosted its first meeting. President Truman created the CIA. The bikini bathing suit debuted, the microwave oven was invented, and B.B. King began his musical career. In aviation, the first rocket attained 100 miles in altitude; the Civil Aeronautics Administration certified the Bell 47, the first commercial helicopter; and a Lockheed Constellation made the first non-stop transcontinental commercial flight. And in July of that year, the National Parachute Jumpers-Riggers Inc. filed articles of incorporation in the State of New York. Its board of directors numbered nine. Dues were $5. Part of the organization’s stated purpose was to “provide for the mutual assistance, enjoyment, entertainment and improvement of the members socially and physically,” and it also focused on safety, training, education and competition. more »

Due to popularity, we decided to publish this older article online as well. Originally printed in June 2011.

Letters to the Editor about the article are published in the comments. Scroll all the way down to read them.

Skydiver Michael Kearns says, “I think it’s time.” Fourteen years after one of the worst mass-fatality accidents in skydiving history, Kearns and fellow jumper Trond Jacobsen have decided to disclose personal conversations and information about the incident to fellow skydivers. Many news reports at the time were incomplete or incorrect, stating the usual “their parachutes failed to open” explanation.

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In the first of this two-part series (Parachutist, March), skyjacker Richard McCoy Jr. had just extorted $500,000 and leapt from a commercial airliner in flight...

The sensation was nothing like the three night jumps McCoy had made in the past; he felt as if he were falling from a tall building. Then the blast of freezing air hit. McCoy later said that it practically tore his head off. more »

Skydivers have a special ability the general public just doesn’t have. Unfortunately, that special ability can be used in devious ways...

He planned a skydive that he thought was brilliant—every aspect of the jump was meticulously orchestrated. But it was a skydive so dangerously ill-conceived that it changed his world forever and left him running for his life. more »

High original genius is always ridiculed on its first appearance, most of all by those who have won themselves the highest reputation in working on the established lines. Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.

—James Anthony Froude more »

Turn back the clock for a moment and imagine it’s the early 1960s. The television screenwriters of the time are scrambling for something sensational to base their next show on. The genre of the day, aside from westerns, is low-budget action-adventure. The writers use a simple but sure-fire formula, in which some new-fangled technology forms the backdrop for good guys to fight bad guys. The concept worked successfully for scuba diving in “Sea Hunt,” twin-engine aircraft in “Sky King,” high-speed airboats in “The Everglades” and helicopters in “Whirlybirds.” So what’s left? Well, there’s this daring, new sport of parachuting looking for an outlet... Voilà! “Ripcord” is born. more »

The sport has come a long way from the T-10 rounds and Para-Commanders of yesteryear. It wasn't long after the first ram-air parachutes became popular in the 1970s that high-performance canopies were created. In 1988, Parachutes de France created one of the first high-performance parachutes, the Blue Track. It was a one-of-a-kind, elliptical, ram-air parachute constructed of the first zero-porosity fabric, and it promised a new type of performance. This paved the way for an extreme form of parachuting called “swooping,” and the sport has never been the same. more »

For whatever reason, hundreds of people are convinced they know who D.B. Cooper was—or themselves admitted to being the most recognized hijacker in the world. Maybe it’s the extraordinary circumstantial evidence. Maybe it’s the desperate need for an answer. Maybe it’s a secret wish to make a difference in the world. But sometimes, no matter how hard we wish, no matter how hard we believe, we just can’t make something true. Today, the FBI has DNA from Cooper’s J.C. Penney clip-on tie that he left on the jet and partial fingerprints from the cocktail glasses he drank from while in flight. They can now quickly confirm or eliminate suspects. more »

A single man, an immense amount of cash, four parachutes and a jump from an airliner. Where does the largest manhunt in the United States lead when authorities don’t have a clue as to who the suspect might be? more »