georger 247
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377 22
Georger wrote:
It's a real longshot but I wonder if any researchers were running Doppler vertical wind profilers in that area back then. Some friends and I were doing HAHO jumps from 18,000 ft over Monterey CA area. With the Pacific Ocean so close, I wanted to take serious look at winds aloft historical data to insure against our being carried out to sea and becoming fish food. FAA and NOAA data was sparse and not very geograpically specific. I found an obscure US NAVY POSTGRAD SCHOOL website that was connected to a research Doppler wind profiler that was running 24/7/365 right next to our DZ unbeknownst to any jumpers. It gave current and historical info. Another possibility might be recording anemometers that were located on moutain peaks in the suspected DBC jump area.
In West Coast spring and summer NW prevailing wind weather, you can sometimes get winds aloft that are coming from a radically different direction than ground winds. In winter SE storm winds, my experience is that these radical direction shifts are very uncommon in winds aloft compared to ground winds. I judge it by looking at cloud movements. I know its not very scientific, just anecdotal.
Where is Orange?
377
These are surface wind records. We still have no
data whatver about winds aloft above 5000 feet.
That data is crucial to this case. Who cxares what
the surface winds were doing! It is the winds aloft
which have always been crucial to this case and for
that we have nothing.
It's a real longshot but I wonder if any researchers were running Doppler vertical wind profilers in that area back then. Some friends and I were doing HAHO jumps from 18,000 ft over Monterey CA area. With the Pacific Ocean so close, I wanted to take serious look at winds aloft historical data to insure against our being carried out to sea and becoming fish food. FAA and NOAA data was sparse and not very geograpically specific. I found an obscure US NAVY POSTGRAD SCHOOL website that was connected to a research Doppler wind profiler that was running 24/7/365 right next to our DZ unbeknownst to any jumpers. It gave current and historical info. Another possibility might be recording anemometers that were located on moutain peaks in the suspected DBC jump area.
In West Coast spring and summer NW prevailing wind weather, you can sometimes get winds aloft that are coming from a radically different direction than ground winds. In winter SE storm winds, my experience is that these radical direction shifts are very uncommon in winds aloft compared to ground winds. I judge it by looking at cloud movements. I know its not very scientific, just anecdotal.
Where is Orange?
377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.
Farflung 0
First of all let me say, I don’t know, I have no pet candidate for the crime.
Secondly, Cooper asked for 10,000 feet pronto (according to the transcripts) after takeoff. Based on that I don’t think visibility or getting his bearings would be a consideration since he could have asked for XXXX feet per minute climb initially.
The attribute that did not match his ‘plan’ was having the stairs down for takeoff. That became priority ONE because all the other demands were satiated. Again, I am guessing here with as little weirdness as possible.
Now he has ‘target fixation’ on those stairs. Tina may have explained or showed him how to use them but it didn’t work. That placard getting torn from four rivets has more male frustration than windblast from my assumption (I’m assuming here).
Next assumptions (assumptions that is) are that the aircraft’s ascent will cause a pressure differential which will impede the stairs opening. This is true for the over wing hatches that use the pressure differential as a sealing device; not so a cargo door or aft stairs. The pressure differential (assuming the Co-pilot was trying to pressurize) would have aided in blowing OPEN the stairs since they are neither pressurized or a ‘plug’ type of aircraft closure. All that aside, what is the delta between 7,000 feet and 10,000 feet in force?
At this point I want to know why an aircraft savvy Cooper would need to be shown how to open the stairs. Why isn’t this second nature for ‘Mr. Boeing/Northwest employee/CIA Special Ops flying expert’ guy? And why did he want an intermediate level off at 7,000 feet since that would not help lowering the stairs? All this occurred in the first eight minutes of flight.
All my ASSUMPTIONS (I’m assuming here by the way) point to a person who did not know how to operate the stairs on a 727. He did not understand the dynamic of pressurization or how a higher altitude could have been a problem solver (again assuming the pressurization system was operating). Those stairs not being lowered before takeoff betrayed a great deal about DB Cooper and the depth of his knowledge from my viewpoint, yet made him more invincible in others. Oh well.
Add to this Cooper answered the pilot on the PA feature versus the cockpit isolate or alert/call button is a second strike against the experienced hijacker school of assumption.
Secondly, Cooper asked for 10,000 feet pronto (according to the transcripts) after takeoff. Based on that I don’t think visibility or getting his bearings would be a consideration since he could have asked for XXXX feet per minute climb initially.
The attribute that did not match his ‘plan’ was having the stairs down for takeoff. That became priority ONE because all the other demands were satiated. Again, I am guessing here with as little weirdness as possible.
Now he has ‘target fixation’ on those stairs. Tina may have explained or showed him how to use them but it didn’t work. That placard getting torn from four rivets has more male frustration than windblast from my assumption (I’m assuming here).
Next assumptions (assumptions that is) are that the aircraft’s ascent will cause a pressure differential which will impede the stairs opening. This is true for the over wing hatches that use the pressure differential as a sealing device; not so a cargo door or aft stairs. The pressure differential (assuming the Co-pilot was trying to pressurize) would have aided in blowing OPEN the stairs since they are neither pressurized or a ‘plug’ type of aircraft closure. All that aside, what is the delta between 7,000 feet and 10,000 feet in force?
At this point I want to know why an aircraft savvy Cooper would need to be shown how to open the stairs. Why isn’t this second nature for ‘Mr. Boeing/Northwest employee/CIA Special Ops flying expert’ guy? And why did he want an intermediate level off at 7,000 feet since that would not help lowering the stairs? All this occurred in the first eight minutes of flight.
All my ASSUMPTIONS (I’m assuming here by the way) point to a person who did not know how to operate the stairs on a 727. He did not understand the dynamic of pressurization or how a higher altitude could have been a problem solver (again assuming the pressurization system was operating). Those stairs not being lowered before takeoff betrayed a great deal about DB Cooper and the depth of his knowledge from my viewpoint, yet made him more invincible in others. Oh well.
Add to this Cooper answered the pilot on the PA feature versus the cockpit isolate or alert/call button is a second strike against the experienced hijacker school of assumption.
Robert99 50
George Nuttall states in his book, page 95,
that Ralph Himmelsbach (quoting the copilot) told
Nuttall's research associate, Harry Grady, that the
cloud cover below them in the Portland/Vancouver
area was so dense that they could not see
landmarks or even the glow of city lights.
Robert Nicholson
Ralph and the helo were all ocver the place, flrew
north 20 miles or more... so Ralph's report applies
to where? I dunno.
His report cannot apply to PDX. Attached is the
hourly record for PDX on 24 Nov 71.
Ckret's report conflicts with Ralph's report? Maybe
not. Who knows "where" Ralph is talking about. He
may be speaking about what it was like 20 miles
north of PDX-VCR ?
And no report to date specifies what conditions were
like above 5000 feet. It is those conditions which
bear directly on what Cooper could see or not see
from Malay south. (*I know where the winds aloft
records are but I have never been able to pry them
lose from the beaurocrats who have them ... )
There is one interesting aspect of the hourly records
below, however. That is the shifts in wind direction
which were happening that day almost hourly ...
from SE to SSW to SW and back again.
These are surface wind records. We still have no
data whatver about winds aloft above 5000 feet.
That data is crucial to this case. Who cxares what
the surface winds were doing! It is the winds aloft
which have always been crucial to this case and for
that we have nothing.
Georger, The quote in Nuttall's book applies to the Portland/Vancouver "metropolitian" area. That is, the built up area that had houses, other buildings, and lights in those two cities.
The quote in Nuttall's book only addresses the fact that there was a dense cloud cover and overcast that prevented the airliner, flying at about 10,000 feet, from even seeing a "cloud glow" from those two cities.
The ground conditions are meaningless in this case. However, the cloud layers, or sky cover, reported in Ckret's information and elsewhere are meaningful.
As recently discussed in other posts, Ckret is saying that there was an overcast at 5000 feet and a broken cloud layer (which in this case qualifies as a "ceiling") at 3500 feet above sea level.
As Georger also states, there is apparently no information in circulation at this point that discusses the cloud information between 5000 and 10,000 feet.
I think I have seen some winds aloft for the lower altitudes that was put out by Ckret. However, at 10,000 feet the wind was about 25-30 knots from the southwest (or 225 degrees true).
If you can obtain better winds aloft information, please post it.
Robert Nicholson
Robert99 50
First of all let me say, I don’t know, I have no pet candidate for the crime.
Secondly, Cooper asked for 10,000 feet pronto (according to the transcripts) after takeoff. Based on that I don’t think visibility or getting his bearings would be a consideration since he could have asked for XXXX feet per minute climb initially.
The attribute that did not match his ‘plan’ was having the stairs down for takeoff. That became priority ONE because all the other demands were satiated. Again, I am guessing here with as little weirdness as possible.
Now he has ‘target fixation’ on those stairs. Tina may have explained or showed him how to use them but it didn’t work. That placard getting torn from four rivets has more male frustration than windblast from my assumption (I’m assuming here).
Next assumptions (assumptions that is) are that the aircraft’s ascent will cause a pressure differential which will impede the stairs opening. This is true for the over wing hatches that use the pressure differential as a sealing device; not so a cargo door or aft stairs. The pressure differential (assuming the Co-pilot was trying to pressurize) would have aided in blowing OPEN the stairs since they are neither pressurized or a ‘plug’ type of aircraft closure. All that aside, what is the delta between 7,000 feet and 10,000 feet in force?
At this point I want to know why an aircraft savvy Cooper would need to be shown how to open the stairs. Why isn’t this second nature for ‘Mr. Boeing/Northwest employee/CIA Special Ops flying expert’ guy? And why did he want an intermediate level off at 7,000 feet since that would not help lowering the stairs? All this occurred in the first eight minutes of flight.
All my ASSUMPTIONS (I’m assuming here by the way) point to a person who did not know how to operate the stairs on a 727. He did not understand the dynamic of pressurization or how a higher altitude could have been a problem solver (again assuming the pressurization system was operating). Those stairs not being lowered before takeoff betrayed a great deal about DB Cooper and the depth of his knowledge from my viewpoint, yet made him more invincible in others. Oh well.
Add to this Cooper answered the pilot on the PA feature versus the cockpit isolate or alert/call button is a second strike against the experienced hijacker school of assumption.
Farflung, the book by Tosaw discusses the interaction between Cooper and Tina in the most detail.
Cooper specified that the airplane was not to be pressurized, he gave a specific flap setting and airspeed, and climb to altitude. He also said to open the stairs (to some extent) before take off.
Rataczak argued with Cooper that the airplane could not taken off with the stairs even partially down. Finally, Cooper agreed to have the stairs locked up before take off. But he immediately told Tina that he knew the airliner could take off with the stairs down.
When Cooper had trouble getting the stairs down, either he or the flight crew suggested leveling off at 7000 feet and slowing the airplane down. If I remember correctly, Rataczak slowed the aircraft to about 140 knots indicated airspeed.
Why would Cooper have trouble lowering the stairs? The stair control panel on this specific airliner may have been different from any that Cooper had encountered before, such as in special operations. So this may have been a new panel for him and he even had trouble following Tina's instructions.
Robert Nicholson
Ralph and the helo were all ocver the place, flrew
north 20 miles or more... so Ralph's report applies
to where? I dunno.
His report cannot apply to PDX. Attached is the
hourly record for PDX on 24 Nov 71.
Ckret's report conflicts with Ralph's report? Maybe
not. Who knows "where" Ralph is talking about. He
may be speaking about what it was like 20 miles
north of PDX-VCR ?
And no report to date specifies what conditions were
like above 5000 feet. It is those conditions which
bear directly on what Cooper could see or not see
from Malay south. (*I know where the winds aloft
records are but I have never been able to pry them
lose from the beaurocrats who have them ... )
There is one interesting aspect of the hourly records
below, however. That is the shifts in wind direction
which were happening that day almost hourly ...
from SE to SSW to SW and back again.
These are surface wind records. We still have no
data whatver about winds aloft above 5000 feet.
That data is crucial to this case. Who cxares what
the surface winds were doing! It is the winds aloft
which have always been crucial to this case and for
that we have nothing.
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