DB Cooper

[nigel99 476]

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Amazon,

Is there a preference regarding gear extension? Why would Cooper want or think he wanted gear down?

In the cockpit, all we cared about was time over target, location of target, airspeed, heading and altitude.

It seems strange the jumpers would have a preference about the gear. It has more of a made for TV flavor than one created through experience.

What am I missing here?

Farflung - jumpers don't care about the landing gear - well other than on small Cessna type aircraft where you stand on the wheel during exit - and from personal experience it is not funny when the pilot forgets to put the brakes on! It is one thing to jump from a plane, another to fall off it!

My take on it is that it showed a lack of trust. If I understand correctly, you can't fly an airliner at high speed with the gear down without causing damage. Cooper would not have known the airspeed at altitude and would not have wanted to exit at 400+ knots. I see this as easy and verifiable insurance that he was at a "safe" exit speed. I can always tell when the gear is retracted as you hear the "kerchunk" etc - so you don't even need any indicator panels etc.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[Farflung 0]

377,

I've been hesitant to post much about my experience out of dread that it turn into a trump card for ignoring logic.

Any post should have enough data for independent verification, like with the EMO jumper.

I have some experience in 135s and 52s from more than 20 years ago. But that does not give me license to break the laws of physics or claim some special inside information which you must accept as gospel.

Ultimately, I'm still an idiot.

[Farflung 0]

nigel99,

Your assumption about the gear is correct in so far as keeping it below 400 knots.

The airspeed of 160 knots is not limited by the gear being extended. Same for 240 knots. The limiting airspeed is 'gear operation.' If Cooper wanted some insurance, he should have had the crew cycle the gear every 2 minutes, which would limit the airspeed.

The primary damage to a gear overspeed would be to the doors which cover the wells. Compared to the main trucks the doors are quite delicate.

[377 22]

Cool Farflung. One of my coworkers was an AC in B52Gs and Hs. He rarely calls them B52s, just Buffs.

I am a total airplane nut, but not a real pilot (about ten hours solo in ultralights). I have USAF dash one and NATOPS flight manuals for many acft including B 36 (ten engines!) B 52 and KC 135.

Lots of airliner flight manuals too including most of the Boeings and Douglases. I even have a flight manual for a Boeing 377.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[Orange1 0]

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Orange1: check with Jo again on what the FBI did back then.

I think maybe there was Kool Aid involved that hasn't been fully discussed.

Look, I haven't read the posts that brought up Kool Aid. But presumably when we are talking late 60s/early 70s there is one HUGELY obvious implication of Kool Aid? What are people saying, that Cooper was on LSD when he did the hijack??

I expected Kool Aid to bring in Jim Jones and his
cult. Im surprised Nomman didnt go there and bring us photos of Jonestown .... or the Great Wall ...
or Mons Olympus .... or something?

Did the FBI question Ken Kesey or Timothy Leary in connection with the Cooper case? They sure would have had major grudges...!! ...and would explain the Kool Aid

edit: in fact it appears Kesey actually took part in the MKUltra experiments with LSD... here we go full circle (well, as far as it is possible to go full circle on a tangent )

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[nigel99 476]

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nigel99,

Your assumption about the gear is correct in so far as keeping it below 400 knots.

The airspeed of 160 knots is not limited by the gear being extended. Same for 240 knots. The limiting airspeed is 'gear operation.' If Cooper wanted some insurance, he should have had the crew cycle the gear every 2 minutes, which would limit the airspeed.

The primary damage to a gear overspeed would be to the doors which cover the wells. Compared to the main trucks the doors are quite delicate.

So it could be that it showed a partial understanding of aircraft and substantial knowledge of skydiving? A whuffo doesn't think that air hurts! BTW I picked 400 as a random high number - I don't know how fast you can go before it hurts/injures you, I also don't know what the aircraft manuals would state as far as a maximum gear up speed is.

Maybe it goes full circle to the loadmaster argument?

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[377 22]

Speaking of the KoolAid crowd, was it Snow who proposed Hunter Thompson as a suspect?

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[Farflung 0]

377,

No one ever called it a 52....it will always be the BUFF...and the second F is NOT Fellow.

[Farflung 0]

nigel99,

Spot on about partial (real partial) understanding of aircraft operation. Would you think that Cooper possessed some great base of knowledge regarding aircraft operation if he was trying to guarantee 160 knots with gear down?

The jumpers appear to 'care less' about gear config, so how should this data point be viewed? As an indicator of Cooper's knowledge, lack of skills or as an unknown?

I feel he had little to no aviation experience. Jump experience....I have no idea.

[snowmman 3]

well, not a jumper strengthens the jump in the Columbia theory, I think.

There's nothing that strongly excludes jumping into the Columbia.
Most other theories have strong "not likely" issues.

The "not likely" issues around jumping into the Columbia aren't that strong.

[nigel99 476]

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nigel99,

Spot on about partial (real partial) understanding of aircraft operation. Would you think that Cooper possessed some great base of knowledge regarding aircraft operation if he was trying to guarantee 160 knots with gear down?

The jumpers appear to 'care less' about gear config, so how should this data point be viewed? As an indicator of Cooper's knowledge, lack of skills or as an unknown?

I feel he had little to no aviation experience. Jump experience....I have no idea.

Isn't jumping a form of aviation?

Focusing on the gear is interesting though. As a jumper I never questioned or looked at the gear on a retractable jumpship. Although the words "throttle back, brakes on" still gives me chills.

Why would someone think about the gear setting? He knew about airspeed/altitude and flaps. A non-jumper would not care about altitude or airspeed and based on my experience with non-jumpers I would suspect they would tend to want lower rather than higher altitudes. Even a person with military SL experience would tend towards an exit altitude of 1-4 thousand feet as it would be their experience.

My synopsis was that Cooper had jump experience. I suspect he shared my understanding that planes can't fly fast the gear down, and that this provided an upper air-speed limit.

I also suspect that unless the terrain dictated the specific request for 10k this was "ego" driven. My logic for this is that my experience of jumping was a traditional 8k exit altitude (maybe the US was different don't know). With no reserve adding height above 2 or 3k gives no benefit, just colder, harder to determine position etc. I say 2 or 3k as that is 15-20 seconds before you bounce - which is plenty of time. Another thought - jumpers think in terms of AGL, pilots in terms of ASL. So the 10k was "damn we only ever get 10k on a good day at the DZ or at a Boogie", lets get the max from this trip.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[Orange1 0]

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Is there a preference regarding gear extension? Why would Cooper want or think he wanted gear down?

Are you sure there was such a request? I do not believe Cooper asked for the gears to be down - he asked for the stairway to be down. These are things I let OTHER worry about.
Sluggo was the fact keeper - What does the FIOA state? Have you read it?

Jo, I gave you the link to the FOIA docs months ago. Are you saying you still haven't read them?

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

good points nigel99. good stuff to muse on.

Anyone have thoughts about the idea of "first to do it" coloring the problem? We're obviously looking at the problem with a lot of hindsight and more knowledge about jet jumps etc.

Do people's opinions on the issue, reflect putting their minds into the state of affairs for civilian jumpers in 1971?

I'm just thinking that if you know you're first to do it, you might add as much conservatism as you think you can afford, within the knowledge space you have. (edit) one can argue whether a night jump reflected conservatism, since "not being found" was an additional issue.

As I noted: we quickly put labels like "inexperienced" on Cooper because of certain actions, but I'm not sure that say a B/C license kind of guy back then, might not have done the same thing?

(edit) example of conservatism within one's knowledge space: 377 surmised that my quotes from the McCoy book, indicated McCoy had rigged a device for automatic reserve deployment.

(edit) addition to my mention of the Columbia. While I focused on whether the dredge could have been part of movement, note that any delayed water movement theory, like from the Washougal, could be equally applied to a Cooper Columbia landing.

The dredge isn't required, but possible. (remember the stories about the suicide bodies being regularly displaced by prop wash at the Willamette, as a an example of delayed object movement)

(edit) and for 377 the optimist, a Columbia money landing, doesn't guarantee Cooper had the same fate!

(edit) another way to state nigel99's 10k exit "ego" thing...there may have been a personal statement being made, consciously or unconsciously..issues beyond the money.

[377 22]

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and for 377 the optimist, a Columbia money landing, doesn't guarantee Cooper had the same fate!

Correct!

I just keep thinking that if he drowned or augered into the Death woods and hasnt been found, someone would have pieced two and two together with a missing person... UNLESS he was domiciled overseas and his failure to return would have been seen as a Yank repatriating and not seen as a suspicious disappearance.

Snow's Boeing employee-Smoke jumper-Skydiver suspect was domiciled in a VERY obscure rural OUS place before Nojack, but he is alive. If he had died, I doubt if he would have been missed where he had been living.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[377 22]

Jo has never responded to Sluggo's earnest suggestion about going on Coast to Coast AM.

Jo this radio audience is HUGE, many many thousands. One of them might have known Duane or know of some evidence that you will never find here with on audience of a few dozen. why not give it a try?

I am SURE they'd be interested in your story:

I was married to DB Cooper."

I don't think Duane was Cooper or even knew who he was but you have a better case for Duane being Cooper than many of the guests on the show do for their cases.

I'll be listening for you.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

on Coast to Coast, I would lead with how the FBI/CIA actively tried to bury the Duane Weber Story.

i.e. she started 14 years only half thinking Duane might be involved, but it was the actions of government agencies, including internet posters with secret identities and motives, that convinced her she had to do something.

It's tied in to how the country has gone downhill due to all of this.

Duane Weber is just the litmus test exposing the underbelly of why the USA is in such a cesspool today.

There's probably a number of other folks in similar positions, sprinkled throughout small towns, who have similar evidence of government conspiracies, and Jo's message may have a unifying effect, so they actually do something, like call in to the show to report their similar cases.

Sort of like Sarah Palin.

[377 22]

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Sort of like Sarah Palin.

Sara Palin can see Russian UFOs from her window.

She can't even get that AK SLAKKER Levi to marry Bristol. So much for her leadership ability.

I like it that she is a commercial fisher, but my AK friends tell me that her story is exagerrated, mostly a few fashion photoshoots on a gillnetter.

Snowmman really likes to see Sara in those yellow rubber Helly Hansen rain slickers, even though she has no Icelandic blood.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

The thing I'm mostly amazed at, is how the skydiving community is lending a hand to expose these things.

Normally, they're a little outlaw.

This reminds of the '70s when the Hells Angels did a little experiment with stopping on the roads to help people with flat tires and such. They would give them a little business card...forgot what it said.

Maybe Jo can include a shoutout to all the skydivers that have helped her, in addition to her behind-the-scenes crew.

Knowing that she has a small army of supporters, would help lend credibility to her story at Coast to Coast.

No one else has as much backing.
Where there's smoke, there must be fire.

[hangdiver 1]

Hey snow, getting back to your suspect, he wouldn't have happened to be living in a mud hut in Nepal 1970-1973?
I found a name but no picture. He's damn near my neighbor! Good suspect but probably not cooper.

Maybe a totally different guy from your suspect. Who knows.

"Mans got to know his limitations"
Harry Callahan

[Amazon 7]

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Amazon,

Is there a preference regarding gear extension? Why would Cooper want or think he wanted gear down?

In the cockpit, all we cared about was time over target, location of target, airspeed, heading and altitude.

It seems strange the jumpers would have a preference about the gear. It has more of a made for TV flavor than one created through experience.

What am I missing here?

I don't know.. I guess that way you make sure the drivers have slowed it down to make exits not hurt quite so much.

[georger 244]

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georger,

You have targeted a Cooper non-sequitur. An aircrew member would not ask for or care if the gear was down. They would know that a request for 160 knots was enough. No need for flap settings or gear operation.

Yet it is documented that Cooper did ask for the gear to be down.

An experienced aviator would not care. Would an experienced jumper? Or has the 'lore' of Cooper's request become part of the skydiving lexicon? Would any skydiver care about the disposition of the gear; to include if it fell off the airframe? My guess (just a guess) is no.

Does this simple request for the gear to be down betray anything else?

Let me be clear about this:

So you are saying N467US could have been flown at
180kts or even 160 kts without any regard to flap
settings or gear (wheels down) - simply by engine
control? Would this config be flight stable, with
what risk of a stall?


You ask: "Does this simple request for the gear to be down betray anything else?" That is a good
question!

Why would he ask for wheels down if it is a non sequitur?

(a) poor understanding of the flight dynamics
involved and the 727 in particular He does not
have either an avionics or parachuting background?

He thinks wheels down is required to slow a jet and makes it more stable in flight or enables a jet
to fly at a lower altitude and still remain stable
while avoiding a stall.

Is he thinking in terms of prop driven aircraft
vrs a modern jet or is his request a non sequitur
for any aircraft?

(b) he has something else in mind. ... wants the plane ready for a quick landing if he deems
that necessary or wants it? As for example, landing at some small airport ... or landing in the Columbia
or landing in some open space near Reno ???

This guy has no plan beyond hijacking the
aircraft and is flying by the seat of his pants?

[georger 244]

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nigel99,

Your assumption about the gear is correct in so far as keeping it below 400 knots.

The airspeed of 160 knots is not limited by the gear being extended. Same for 240 knots. The limiting airspeed is 'gear operation.' If Cooper wanted some insurance, he should have had the crew cycle the gear every 2 minutes, which would limit the airspeed.

The primary damage to a gear overspeed would be to the doors which cover the wells. Compared to the main trucks the doors are quite delicate.

So it could be that it showed a partial understanding of aircraft and substantial knowledge of skydiving? A whuffo doesn't think that air hurts! BTW I picked 400 as a random high number - I don't know how fast you can go before it hurts/injures you, I also don't know what the aircraft manuals would state as far as a maximum gear up speed is.

Maybe it goes full circle to the loadmaster argument?

As I read the transcripts wheels down was creating
turbulence and Scott had to slow and continue
to trim the plane to maximise the stability 'the
crew thought' would get this guy to jump!

They were doing everything they thought required
to get a jumper to jump.... to get Cooper to jump
and be gone. The whole issue was "the jump"
and they wanted Cooper to jump, and there was
constant communication back and forth getting
Cooper satisfied so he would jump and be gone.

As I read this (the transcripts) it became a joint
effort between Scott/Rat and Cooper with Scott
& Rat doing all of the technical work.

It appears everything Cooper and the flight crew did
from liftoff to 8:10 is a combined effort to accomodate Cooper jumping a.s.a.p and finally
by ~8:10-8:20 Cooper has been satisfied and
makes his jump ... and the transcript of communications suddenly goes blank until after 8:20! The communications that occurred between
8:10/8:13 and 8:22 have never been published.
They knew Cooper had jumped and the crew had
done everything necessary to trim the plane so
Cooper would be satisfied and jump ...

[georger 244]

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well, not a jumper strengthens the jump in the Columbia theory, I think.

There's nothing that strongly excludes jumping into the Columbia.
Most other theories have strong "not likely" issues.

The "not likely" issues around jumping into the Columbia aren't that strong.

How? The two have nothing to do with each other
outside of random probability in a scenario where
the jumper has no idea where he is, in the first place?

[snowmman 3]

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Hey snow, getting back to your suspect, he wouldn't have happened to be living in a mud hut in Nepal 1970-1973?
I found a name but no picture. He's damn near my neighbor! Good suspect but probably not cooper.

Maybe a totally different guy from your suspect. Who knows.

Yup. I said he's not Cooper, so I'm not disagreeing with you. The key thing is how he matches all sorts of things we talked about. Shows that our biases about whether certain types of people exist or not can be false (I'm thinking about Ckret's confidence that Vietnam was out of the question) (edit) especially biases about age and vietnam and civilian jumpers.

(edit) Also: how few people know about jumping in the NW in the early '60s (at least it seems that way to me!)

Also: if one exists, how many more?

There are 3 pictures out there. See if you can find them.

There's actually a lot more stuff, like I say he's an interesting guy. I was always wondering if he could tell us more first hand stuff about those days that might lead to Cooper.

He's got much more to brag about, then a lot of folks here...(although he's a little bit whacked now, I think).

[snowmman 3]

So, hangdiver, if you can't get the pictures, how about a reference that shows why I think he worked the ride operator job on the Bubbleator?


(edit) bonus points: what jumpships did he use in Saigon?
(edit) bonus points: name of first wife.
(edit) bonus points: name a skydiver that has jumped with him.