Robert99

Is the picture in the upper right hand corner of your latest "Swith Lights and Knobs" for a four engine or eight engine 727? I must have forgotten some of the 727 versions.

She has been digging there during summers since 1972. She hasn't found anything yet. Maybe a metal detector could help her find a more favorable area for digging. You can never tell what kind of "clams" she might find.

Farflung, Congratulations on your still excellent eyesight.

Pek771, Excellent observations. Perhaps the money never made it into the Columbia in the first place, except when the Columbia reached flood stage. Maybe old DBC got covered by some sand, say in the winter and spring of 71/72, and then only reappeared periodically. Who knows, he might still be there today buried under sand with the roots of some bushes holding him and the equipment in place. "There" is defined as being very close to where the money was found. Would the lady in your attached picture be interested in doing some digging near Tina Bar?

Jo, You should have paid more attention to what, other than Duane, has been discussed on this thread for the past couple of years at least. Most of the issues you mention have already been covered to one degree or another.

Farflung is correct. It basically comes down to your "faith system".

Sailshaw, Thanks for the information. You are suggesting that the pressure hull door was closed during the takeoff from Seattle. Pek771 was also asking if the pressure hull door had a warning light on the Flight Engineer's panel to indicate when it is open. Do you have an answer for him?

If Cooper had trouble opening these stairs after receiving instructions from Tina and reading the placard (which didn't blow away until after the stairs were open), then Cooper's mechanical hands-on experience with a 727 may have been ZERO prior to the hijack flight. Presumably, he could have gotten the other information from "beer talk" with a knowledgeable individual. Maybe we have over-estimated Cooper's skills and background.

Farflung, Thanks.

Pek771, My guess is that there would be such a light for the pressure hull door. But I don't have any information on it.

377, Does one of your 727 manuals give the location of the controls for the aft stairs?

PEK771, The aft stairs were down, or at least unlocked, for almost the entire distance from Seattle to Reno. Those stairs did drag the runway or taxi strip, but were only slightly damaged, during the landing at Reno. The status of the pressure hull door during the flight from Seattle to Reno is not clearly documented. But in view of the fact that Cooper wanted the stairs to be lowered slightly before the takeoff from Seattle, it is very likely that he also wanted the pressure hull door also open. Cooper would not have any reason to close the pressure hull door prior to jumping. And after jumping, it is unlikely that the door would close itself. The wind situation in the rear of the passenger area was definitely not as bad as Gray's book claims. So for all practical purposes, the pressure hull door was probably open for about the same amount of time as the stairs were unlocked. One question, does anyone know the physical location of the controls for the aft stairs? Are they outside the pressure hull? Also, the pressure bump is the only one mentioned in connection with the flight, so it is the logical point to consider to be the jump location.

Really? Tom Kaye says otherwise. Did you see his quote from Gray's book, page 255? You should be taking this up with him. Here it is again: I sent this quote to Tom Kaye this morning and asked him to confirm or deny on it. I'm not his favorite person, so I asked him to maybe do a DZ post on it. That little bit from the book says a lot, and Kaye goes out on a limb there. Or (I just love quoting from famous films) as Robert Duvall said in True Grit: Well, that's not really accurate of course. I'm sure Kaye isn't fat and has TWO eyes. Blevins, Are you claiming that the money had to float down the river (presumably for 10 or more miles) or that the only other choice was to plant it with it with human hands? Surely, with all of your creative writing experience, you could come up with a third (and maybe fourth) possibility. The fact that some of the money was still bundled means that it didn't move very far and had not been exposed to any particular amount of violence during that move.

Blevins writes: The ransom money didn't float down from anywhere, it was probably planted by human hands. R99 replies: Blevins, A better and more believable scientific case can be made for the tooth fairey than that the money "was probably planted by human hands".

Don't forget what I posted about jumping the DC 9 out of the ventral door. Each exiting jumper created a very noticeable pressure bump. You could hear it and feel it even in the front of the plane. It was a "thunk" sound. Some have postulated that it was a reflected pressure wave from the jumper hitting the slipstream. I am not an aero engineer so i dont have a tight explanation, but I guarantee you I could have accurately counted every jumper who exited before me even if I had been blindfolded. 377 377, Thanks for the information. If I remember correctly, the aft stairs from the DC-9 had been completely removed from the aircraft for your jump. Right off, I don't have an idea as to exactly how the exiting jumper could have caused a pressure bump such as you describe. But I still feel that the pressure bump in the hijacked 727 was caused by the aft stairs events described by the flight crew as well as the sled drops in the FBI tests. 377, Let me reply to this message again since you have a more detailed description of your DC-9 jump here. First, I'm not sure what you mean by "reflected pressure wave". But here is my suggestion of the aerodynamic oddity that you describe above. And please note that I have spent at least 10 minutes researching the above matter. In my opinion, this effect is something akin to the making and breaking of the Coanda effect at the rear of the DC-9 fuselage. Except in this instance the Coanda effect is first broken and then re-established. As the air passes around the fuselage of the DC-9, starting at the nose, it first has to move outward laterally to get around the increasing diameter of the fuselage. The force necessary to push the air aside comes from the engines, and their energy generation comes from the fuel. Then as the air gets to the rear of the fuselage, the air has to move inward laterally due to the decreasing diameter of the fuselage (nature abhors a vacuum!). This inward movement is, or at least is analogous to, the Coanda effect. It is induced by the shape of the rear fuselage. The end result of the above is that, in addition to the normal fuselage boundary layer, there is an area of relatively "dead" air at the aft end of the fuselage, and then we have the free stream airflow rejoining just aft (or downstream) of that. Think of this dead air as being something like you find behind a blunt body such as an automobile. So here is my suggestion as to what you were hearing and feeling on that DC-9. As a jumper went through the bottom of the aft fuselage (with the aft stairs no longer there), within a few feet he/she would hit the free stream air and break the Coanda effect. In a few more feet, he/she would be clear of the flow field affecting the aircraft and the Coanda effect would then re-establish the original flow field. The "thunk" would be the Coanda effect re-establishing itself and resulting in the airflow hitting the rear fuselage or tail cone in a rather violent manner before settling down. And it so happened that you were able to hear that initial impact as the airflow was trying to re-establish itself. The pressure bump would probably be caused by the initial breakup of the Coanda effect as the jumper moved through it. So if my guesses are correct, in real time the pressure bump would occur first and then the "thunk". If you were in the rear of the aircraft, you might hear the "thunk" before feeling the bump. [NOTE: Actually, I got that reversed, you might feel the bump before hearing the "thunk".] If you were more forward in the fuselage, you might feel and hear them at the same time or even in reverse order. It depends on how fast the pressure is increased throughout the fuselage and the speed of sound of the "thunk". Does any of the above make sense to you?

Don't forget what I posted about jumping the DC 9 out of the ventral door. Each exiting jumper created a very noticeable pressure bump. You could hear it and feel it even in the front of the plane. It was a "thunk" sound. Some have postulated that it was a reflected pressure wave from the jumper hitting the slipstream. I am not an aero engineer so i dont have a tight explanation, but I guarantee you I could have accurately counted every jumper who exited before me even if I had been blindfolded. 377 377, Thanks for the information. If I remember correctly, the aft stairs from the DC-9 had been completely removed from the aircraft for your jump. Right off, I don't have an idea as to exactly how the exiting jumper could have caused a pressure bump such as you describe. But I still feel that the pressure bump in the hijacked 727 was caused by the aft stairs events described by the flight crew as well as the sled drops in the FBI tests.

Jo writes: I am the only person who has ever put the money in that river in 1979. Jo, You have NEVER put the money in the river. In your own previous posts on this thread, you have stated that you did NOT know what was in the paper sack (or sacks) that Duane threw into the river. You are apparently trying to make a federal case out of Duane just throwing trash into the Columbia.

For the record, I also believe that the money was moved by water to where it was found. But I do not believe that it was moved any great distance. Certainly not 10 or more miles. Also, I am not a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon either.

And how did it get there by natural means again? Tom Kaye's tests say otherwise. This only means that if Cooper was at Paradise Point he didn't toss the money into the river there. I speculated on a river toss, sure, but I've discounted that theory. Unless three of the bundles had little strings connecting them together, it doesn't make sense that three would mysteriously end up in the same exact spot after floating down the river. You are assuming that the money was planted or placed or ended up there RIGHT AFTER the hijacking. You don't know that. Neither do I. And why doesn't a plant meet your 'smell test'? You didn't say why. And if Cooper planted the money later, say a few years later...then it worked quite well. What did the FBI start saying after they found it? That he probably died. We agree on this one. The fact that Tom Kaye was able to determine that bundles of money sink rather quickly also proves this. You are REALLY reaching here by saying Cooper landed near Tina Bar on solid ground. And if he did, where's the body, the parachutes, the rest of the money? Okay...you are saying he lived and that he planted the money by saying this, you know. Or that he dropped it or something. Also, Tina Bar is on the west side of Interstate 5, and miles from where both NWA and the FBI figures he jumped. Proof from you that negates those estimates? Blevins, The only thing we agree on is that Tina Bar is on the west side of Interstate 5. Where is YOUR proof that NWA and the FBI know where Cooper jumped? You need to do some checking into your sources rather than just parroting the claims of others. Also, you might ask NWA and the FBI "where's the body, the parachutes, the rest of the money", etc. Your idea that Cooper would plant the money several years after the hijacking is just plain laughable! He was home free at that point. The FBI didn't have a clue and you yourself have stated that no banks were even looking for the money after about three months. Cooper didn't have anything to worry about at that time. While I understand your need for Cooper to survive the jump and plant the money at some date, otherwise KC will be eliminated as a suspect, not a single thing suggests that Cooper was alive on November 25, 1971. You cannot prove that Cooper survived the jump by circular reasoning. While that may be satisfactory for writers of fiction, Mother Nature does not work that way.

I go with Tom Kaye's assessment. The money did not end up on Tina Bar by floating there. But you were right, Farflung, to bring up those points. Paradise Point State Park was a guess. No one of course, knows for sure where an accomplice would have waited. I don't think the money would have been planted there at the time of the hijacking, anyway, although I'll admit it has crossed my mind. It was probably done later on a second trip. It's a guess, but one motivation might be if after a few years the hijacker realized the hunt for him had not ceased, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. And if that WAS his motivation, it worked very well, because after the FBI announced the money find, they also started saying they thought Cooper was dead. If the hijacker were alive at that time, he probably laughed his ass off on that one. In the book, we speculated that maybe it was done before the hijacker and his alleged accomplice returned home, but there's no way to know for sure. I tossed this point back and forth with Skipp Porteous a few times. Was it done right after the hijacking, or later? We went with 'right after'. Looking back now, I probably should have said it may have happened a few years later. If we do a third edition of the book, I will change that for sure. One thing is certain: The money got there somehow, and probably not by natural means. I've always said the money at Tina Bar raises more questions than it answers. In reality, the money at Tina Bar answers more questions than it raises. And the money probably did get there by natural means. As has been pointed out by Farflung and others on this thread, water runs down hill and Paradise Point State Park is down stream from Tina Bar. The idea of Cooper planting the money to mislead the investigators doesn't meet the smell test. And if that was Cooper's plan, it failed since the money wasn't found for more than eight years. The fact that three bundles of money were still intact with rubber bands around them means that they didn't travel very far, certainly not 25 miles. A rational look at the money find leads to only one conclusion. And that is that Cooper landed near Tina Bar and on solid ground.

While sports parachuting was still relatively new in 1971, there was no problem with the lingo. Cooper wanted front parachutes that could be attached to the back parachute harness. According to Tosaw's book, when Cooper saw that the front chutes could not be used with the back chutes, he told Tina that "they" should have known what he meant. And that was two functional sets of chutes each consisting of a front and back chute.

If Cooper pulled the packing card (no proof that he did) he'd know what canopy was in the rig. If he was an experienced jumper he'd know that a military bailout rig like that, in 1971, with no D rings for a reserve VERY likely had a 28 foot C9 or 26 foot Navy Conical round canopy in it. Those miltary canopies were built like tanks, but the sport ones were not. They didnt need to be rated for high speed deployments (above 150 mph) and the designers strove for minimizing pack volume. 377 377, In several decades of checking an emergency chute's packing card before each flight, I don't remember a single one that listed the type of canopy or its speed rating. That includes civilian chutes as well as "composite" military chutes. The FAA "low speed" emergency parachutes are rated to 150 MPH and their "high speed" emergency parachutes are only rated to 160 MPH. I have owned both types of FAA chutes. In the case of the military chutes, I never knew what it was actually rated for speedwise. However, I have seen test data for some military chutes that indicated they were good to 225 MPH depending on the weight of the jumper and load being supported. For high speed aircraft, as well as zero-zero ejection seats, the speed rating is way up there.

We only assume it was a hard pull because Cossey said so. Cossey seems to enjoy spoofing and playing with people who inquire about the Norjack gear. We have a few examples of that. A C9 canopy in an NB6 rig doesnt have to be a hard pull, even if the handle has been moved to right outboard. Cossey allegedly has told some people it was an NB8 not an NB6. An NB8 has a larger container volume. Even an NB6 container can be extended giving more volume inside the closed rig. It's an easy job for a rigger and many surplus rigs had this mod done. The bailout rig that Cooper jumped was originally configured as someone's last chance to survive. It was probably made for a jumpship pilot. Does it make sense that you'd set it up to be nearly impossible or highly difficult to open? Some jumpship pilots have bailed out VERY low as most wait for all the paseengers to get out first if there is a fire or structural failue. A hard pull adds deadly seconds to deploying a chute. Does that make sense for an emergency rig? Think about it. 377 377, There is no evidence that Cooper knew that a C9 canopy was (supposedly) in that container or that it would be a (supposedly) hard pull. But Cooper definitely knew the 727 could be jumped.

Taco and Marla, Can you name a single thing that your candidate, LD Cooper, knew about aviation that would be applicable to this hijacking? You two, along with Blevins and his confederates, seem to be getting desperate in the extreme. Jo, of course, will still believe it was Duane even after DB Cooper's body is found.