dudeman17

If he's over farmland, as Kamkisky suggests, with a lot of open flat area, that bodes in his favor. I can't see much scenario where the money gets badly damaged on landing, unless he full terminal impacts right on top of it on rocks. And it wasn't soaked with body fluids? I had to laugh for poor Mac the other day. He says he's never jumped before, and he exits at over 300 mph. You can tell me if I'm right, but I'm guessing that exit threw him ass over teakettle several times. (And he managed to pull and get open.)

Of course this has been considered, and discussed. Did he know? Hard to say. He seemed to know something about them, but how much? He looked at the packing cards. Did he know to look at them, or did he just come across them as he was checking out the rigs? If he knew much at all about rigs he would know they were bailout rigs and not mains. He probably wouldn't know whether they were steerable or not before using one. Some reserves were, some not. What do you think would change if he knew? At that point he was pretty much committed, and just had to make do with what they gave him. Whether they were steerable or not, in one sense wouldn't make a whole lot of difference, in another way it makes all the difference. Where it doesn't make a difference - There is no way he jumped into a specific predetermined spot. That would require cooperation with the pilot to determine a precise exit point. But, consistent with Kamkisky's theory, if he knew what direction he was headed, knew what areas he was going over, and could recognize light cues from the air, he could reasonably put himself into a general area. No round canopies of that era, even sport mains, had very much flight performance or forward speed, so he wasn't going to turn 'general area' into a specific predetermined field. Where it makes all the difference - As I've said before, my bet is that he all but assuredly ended up under an open canopy. The question is whether he is injured on landing. And his ability to steer away from obstacles such as trees, boulders, a house, a fence..., and into an open area, would make a whole lot of difference for that.

I'm trying to define this. Is this a photograph that someone took in the airplane or the terminal? Did a witness have their own sketch done? ??

Are you saying that you have a photograph of Cooper?

I was thinking more like Cooper's grudge was that he was up for the part of the bad guy but lost out. "I'll show them", he thought, and as was the character's wont of taunting the cops, he purloined the detective's shades. ----------------- Autocorrect is persistent but not consistent.

Interesting side note... Cant Eastwood wore Baloramas in Dirty Harry. Cooper's hijacking was November '71. Dirty Harry came out in December of '71, but was filmed earlier, April - June of '71. Coincidence? Hmmm...

They do shipping on that river, right? Some time ago someone posted a video of a large ship passing by, I think it was on that river but I could be misremembering. Anyway, the ship displaced quite a lot of water sideways, even affected the water level on the shoreline by a number of feet. So it's conceivable that if the bundle was at the bottom near the center but still somewhat buoyant, that a passing ship might push it aside towards the shore?

Again I would suggest contacting the office at Perris. They might be willing to forward a message and your contact info to him. I think I suggested that a while ago when you were looking for Jim Wallace, I don't know whether you tried that or if it worked.

The last thing I want is to be in an argument with you. I have nothing but respect for you, and consider you the most thorough of researchers. And you usually are objective, but sometimes you get a bit stubborn. You say the original point is whether a parachutist would have a problem going over the coast or ocean. This parachutist absolutely would. We don't know whether Cooper was an experienced jumper or not, but as Kamkisky demonstrates, it doesn't take a lot of logic and reason to deduce that a night jump into the ocean would be death. And I wouldn't put it past a criminal to be less than forthright about his motives. Which cities are farther east or west is irrelevant because the west coast is not a straight north/south line. The facts are that SF and LA are essentially right on the coast, whereas Reno is inland by the entire width of California. ----------------- And my comment about the guitars is sincere. It's a fascinating subject, and I am impressed by your efforts. I googled it the other day, and while I didn't find anything recent enough, I was kind of surprised by the number of 'lost' guitars out there.

By rejecting SF and LA and choosing Reno, he may have been doing precisely that. Even if they started out over the ocean, they have to go considerably inland to get to Reno. ----------------- On another note, how many more guitars before you're inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

You people are far better equipped to theorize about Cooper and his actions than I am. I was just speaking specifically to his point about jumping over the ocean being a bad idea. However, to, oh what's that word... uh... speculate ... If Cooper has done his homework and is familiar with aviation, it is not unreasonable that he might know expected flight routes for various destinations. He may well have rejected San Francisco and Los Angeles and agreed to Reno not because of their size, but because of their proximity to the coast. Just a thought...

Your instincts are correct. An unplanned ocean landing at night, you could pretty much write yourself off. Any unintended water landing is a serious threat, jumpers are trained how to best deal with it. Intentional water jumps are made, but generally into calm lakes in broad daylight with crews in boats ready to pounce and assist immediately after landing.

?? Are you going to leave us hanging again? ----------------- Don't see Winston either.

So if I go back and watch the last part of that show, should I believe anything he has to say about James Dean's car?

Actually on second glance that might be my mistake. If that's a sideways look at a pilot rig then it's ok. The pin spacing looks a little close for that, but what do I know. At first glance it looked like the upper half of an old sport rig, like an old Wonderhog type reserve container, where that setup would be horizontal.