Hominid

Sorry, Georger. No I didn't realize pressure issues remained. I thought you just accepted me saying that the pressure inside the plane was essentially just the outside air pressure. That is, "static" or still-air pressure. You mentioned ram pressure and airstream flow at the rear, so I'll address them. First, if the plane had a big hole in the nose as it flew along, this would be a path for air to be rammed into the plane as a result of the plane flying through the air. Assuming the rest of the plane was closed off, this would raise the pressure inside the plane. The whole plane would be acting like a big pitot tube facing into the airflow. That does not apply to the hijack situation because there wasn't that big hole up front. So, neither does ram air pressure. The airstair hanging down in back would be the main cause of pressure drop when the stairs dropped. If it were just the open hole back at the airstairs the air flow would be almost parallel to the hole opening. At the speed of the plane (well subsonic), and because of the streamlining of the aft end of the plane, the pressure drop produced would be very small compared to the static pressure. The aft end of the plane is sort of a flattened cone. The airflow would very closely follow the contour of the fuselage. The pressure drop would be most like the pressure drop caused by air passing by the static pressure pitots on the plane. Essentially zero drop. When you drop the stairs, the stairs project out into the airflow. A vacuum is created on the downstream side. It's like, when driving a station wagon with the near-vertical rear end, a vacuum is created behind the car. And a semi rig going down the hiway makes a big vacuum behind the trailer. Still the vacuum caused by dropping the stairs is not very large, for two reasons: the stairs are sloped (not perpendicular to the air flow); and the frontal surface of the stair is rounded. And the vacuum immediately aft of the stairs does not just travel up to the cockpit. In the flight test, dropping the stair produced a little drop seen on instrumentation but not big enough that occupants noticed it. Speak up if you need more. I know R99 can answer such questions if he wants to.

Dry helps in that stayin warm part. Good night, Robert. Good night, Georger.

So Tina has given the simple instructions and request about leaving the normal handle in the UP position to Dan, and has gone forward. She may have opened the panel and shown Dan the lawn-mower-starting-ripcord-like thing there. The air pressure is the same as in the aircraft cabin, including the cockpit, and both of these are essentially the same as the pressure outside the aircraft at the aft airstair. There's quite a bit of noise because the intake duct for the center engine runs just a few feet over Dan's head. The amber AFT ENTRY light at the top of the first column of lights on the flight engineer's annunciator panel has been lit since the door was opened at SEATAC The crew never mentions it because having the door open had already been established at SEATAC. Dan stands in, or just outside, the aft entry/exit door. Looking down into the stairwell, past the four fixed steps built into the fuselage, he sees something like the attached pic depending upon how much light he has. He turns to his left and stands with his left foot on the tiny "landing" aft of the door and with his right foot a step or two down the fixed part of the stairway, so that he is facing the panel where the aft airstair (normal) control handle is. The door enclosing the emergency extension control was probably already opened when Tina was explaining the stair stuff to him, but it's simple to open if not. It's likely it was the same door as for the normal control handle, in which case Dan may have found it hard to read the normal handle position markings, and the big arching arrow marked DOWN, which are almost the total extent of the normal handle instruction markings (and all anyone would need). The normal control station is close up against the aft side of the pressure bulkhead, which may have blocked his available light. It won't be visible in a photo taken from within the cabin unless the camera is held right at the door frame on the opposite side of the door. It is also likely that it would be hard to read the little emergency exit (emergency extension) instruction placard later to be found near Toutle. If Dan sees the normal control handle, he can see that it is at UP (as he has been told). He leaves it there. He has no burning desire to hurt the crew. He turns to the emergency extension control. It is likely behind the same door as the normal control, based on the likely "right" ("RI___") on the Toutle placard and the fact that the Toutle placard says "ACCESS DOOR" rather than referring to the little pull-out panels like on the TWA and World Airways cargo-version -100 series 727s of the same time period. If not, it would be a door just aft of the door for the normal controls just where the controls were for the TWA and WA convertible (cargo) 727s. Dan could not have had difficulty understanding the instructions on how to drop the stair. They would have been quite simple. If he had to resort to reading the Toutle placard, he may have had difficulty doing that because of dim light. It's very likely that something just didn't work like it was supposed to. It may well have been that the lockwire was actually quite hard to break. There is a very good chance that NWA flight ops gave him defective instructions. The possibility arises because the instructions on the NWA Toutle placard were defective. My '68 TWA manual and 377's WA manual both say the handle has to be pulled to the full extent of the cable. The Transport Canada's instuctions for emergency extension on -100 series 727s say to "pull sharply." None of this is on the Toutle placard, so it was likely not in NWA documentation and their flight ops likely just didn't consider it. If Dan did not pull the cable out hard enough and all the way to the end of the cable, the valve would not have been actuated. If this happened, he would have had to gradually allow the cable take-up to reel the cable back in all the way so as not to jam, then "let 'er rip" again. (No, No Dan. Don't just let go of it!) Did his instructions from Tina say to let the cable rewind gradually? If not, there's a likely problem for him. If he didn't allow the cable to rewind gradually, it likely would jam and that could give him some more grief. He would likely not have been instructed on how to deal with such a thing that wasn't supposed to happen. It could burn some time until the cable got wound back all the way and he then pulled it all the way back out, sharply. When the emergency extension system finally popped, it is possible that the stairs would still be hung up because of mangled uplatches and mangled uplock roller mounting brackets. The brackets need to pull out of the pockets in the side channels of the stairs in order for the stairs to be set free because the latches would still be hanging onto the uplock rollers (if the normal control had been left at UP). It could have taken some vibration or shaking or shoving to free the stair. When the stairs dropped, even a bit, the amber AFT AIRSTAIR light immediately below the AFT ENTRY light (lit all along) on the FE annunciator panel came on. It would stay on until the stair rebound and "pressure bump" to come later when Dan finally jumps. This AFT AIRSTAIR light is the second from the top of the first column of lights on the panel. The light comes on because of the proximity sensor out near the end of the stairs. TO BE CONTINUED

Thanks. I'll check him out.

I don't care particularly for the cultural aspect. Occasionally watch something about that kind of thing on TV. I'm more interested in the technical parts. Like having the people show in detail how they get about the business of living/surviving. Most of that is about like what you learn about native americans but you occasionally learn about something a bit different. Often about the difference in the environment. You also come across some things these days that have been found in modern times but are the same kind of stuff the primitives used. I noticed the other day about a primitive means of reverse osmosis to get fresh water from sea water.

Interesting little story. Robert. Glad you lived thru it.

Goes without saying. So was my little comment about it. I see it pretty well most of the time. You won't need to worry about me taking offence. But thanks for your concern.

Jerry, I can narrow it down just a little. Never got into anything Facebook. I have a page and I know I should take some pics and put them on there to share with the huge family I sprang from. Haven't gotten around to the pix though. Other than that sharing thing I just don't get facebook. I had to block some stuff from "friends" cause they wanted to poke every "Like This" they come across on the internet. It makes the in box like a dropzone cooper thread! I hope it all passes like CB radio;-) Unfortunately, about those other two possibilities, I enjoy Cooper research about like I do maintenance work around the house. I don't really like it. It's interesting and I just can't help myself. I've gotten involved in other things the same way. One thing I have enjoyed is studying primitive living, native plant uses, etc. I've done that as part of wandering in the wilderness and hunting with a bow. If you have any interest in that kind of stuff, how about dropping names of a few plants you figure are more common up there where there is actually rain. I can look 'em up and start getting prepared for NW wilderness stompin.

I don't think it could unless access at the lower end was outside and above the center engine and its intake duct. The duct opening looks to be as wide as the stabilizer. Pics showing that duct coming through over the stairs seem to practically fill the horizontal space available inside.

Thanks, Jerry. I'll try to do so. I never got to Forks or Baker City. Went up the coast only I think to Coos Bay or so. Probably on my way to Eugene. My sweetie has a nephew and his family that live near Othello. When you're headin to or from, most of the time someone wants to hurry. You know. The destination was the whole thing. I've long wanted to get over near Baker City because I've had a strong interest in the Nez Perce. I'm hopin I can get my butt in gear and move up to central Oregon. The problem I have is that I have this stubborn thing about wanting to fix the place myself to sell it. I was makin progress until I got interested in D.B. Sick, huh?

Jerry, That's in southern California. I entered it when I did my profile, but somehow it didn't take. The area is OK if you like sun and surfing, but the wilderness around here is almost desert. Go out thru the hills or mtns and ya have to bust thru brush or stuff they call chaparal that is all thorn and is just a big tangle. Lower elevation the dust just flies, so you choke awful goin thru it. Jan & Feb is best cause stuff is clean and green. I found dropzone by searchin for stuff using yahoo. Read both threads looking for info.

Naturally, but it ain't likely I'd just run across it. I think it would be a real stroke of luck if a handful of manuals slipped out of NWA. Best chance might be to have someone go around garage sales, etc. around Minneapolis. 377 told me his mom found his World Airways manual like that in the bay area and I really think that kind of thing would be the most likely way.

Sorry I skipped right over your post Smokin. It is nice. The pic was posted here a while back. I can't remember how many centuries it was. My recollection is that it was done during production of some TV show on the hijack. I posted it to show a couple of the parts relevant to stair operaion. Of course, you'd have to add dark, rain, a raincoat under the pack (and the straps under the loafers to hold them on).

I've mentioned I got a TransWorld Airline (TWA) manual that has pages dated up to Aug 68. I haven't searched all through it to see if there was any later 'cause it's hard going through all that .pdf. Anyway, it's the closest thing I've found to reflecting how -100 series 727s were around the time of the hijacking. I've found a list of Boeing service bulletins about the airstairs, but haven't been able to get any copies of them. Nothing but much later vintage airworthiness directives. It's available to anyone with interest, $20 and ability to deal with a 106-ish megabyte pdf. It's sold as a download from http://www.flight-manuals.com. For this site I think you actually have to include the "www." It is sold by "Mach One Manuals" but I don't think they have a web site. The flight-manuals.com might be their site. I found it by yahooing. If you do so I suggest +"Boeing 727" +manual +"Mach One". I realize you'll probably use Google, but I feel sorry for Yahoo! that they didn't pick a name that would trip off the tongue with "it." Forgot to mention that you'll find 3 other 727 manuals there. One other kind, two other airlines. I don't remember if any of the ones other than the TWA said anything about the applicability timeframe.

Do you have any thoughts as to the reason for the difference? Maybe 70 isn't old enough?

Vicki, Still enthralled with someone who insults so much? Does it to really old people? I haven't mentioned it before, but I'm also very sick. All kinds of meds. (cough, cough). I can't lie. I only have a cold right now, and I don't have a lot of meds except for the usual for an old person

One thing that gets a little lost in the poll instrument is that I didn't mean "you know" as in the mindless usage we sometimes see where someone says it when they really can't explain. The thing kids started saying a few years ago. I used the term as a way to actually refer to something as was done only a while back right here in River City.

You really are one mean simeon (or however it's spelled).

I agree with you. I don't really think I was pickin on him. I appreciate reasoned critique of my ideas. To do that a person would really have to actually read them and try to understand them. I don't consider myths to be information. If one is dropped, I'd rather see someone point it out rather just have others accept it as fact. Anyway, I don't like being mean. I'm not mean. I'm just..... (you know)

Would anyone of the forum who isn't a techy calculatin kinda person be up to doing a little calculatin and sharin the results with the forum as you go. It wouldn't be just an exercise to learn that you can calculate or show others that you can. I think, at the end, you'd actually learn something of a small significance to the hijacking case--and others who just watch maybe would as well. If more than one cared to participate we could involve more than one. Would only involve multiplying and adding. Stuff easy to do with just a cheapy hand calculator, and it really won't take much time. Any interest?

Whew! And I was feelin bad about pickin on ya.

I can suggest one thing to consider. When law enforcement of any kind make public statements, it is not because they want the public to know the facts. They have things they want to accomplish. Say you have nothing: Lulls the perp into sense of security so he/she makes some kind of mistake. Insult the perp: Make the perp mad so it comes out to fight about the insult.

I thought that was probably the case. Thanks

I think so. I wondered if both Scott & Rataczak were at that party since you said both had said they were off to the E. I would wonder why they thought so. And I have a hard time with the airforce tracking being so far off. Part of why I would like to see the data that track plot came from.

So it was remembering about jumping and how nice it would be to get back out there?