Robert99

Mr. NexusOfCivility, You should visit the FBI's government site and note the information about their asking for public assistance and their discussion of the Cooper hijacking. FBI names are mentioned. A visit to Sluggo's web site would provide you with access to just about all information on the Cooper hijacking that is in the public domain. What is it in your background that makes you feel qualified to disparage Jo Weber and Robert Blevins? Jo Weber, Robert Blevins, and others have fully disclosed their backgrounds. What is yours? Be strong, Mr. NexusOfCivility. Robert Nicholson

Thanks for the links. I have visited both and it looks like at least one of them may get the job done. I'll do an indepth checkout of both sites. It is that horizontal component of motion and the atmospheric density that makes the problem complicated and requires an iterative approach. In case anyone is interested, early last year I calculated the Portland atomspheric density that existed at the time of Cooper's jump. Corrections were made for the below standard temperature, above standard pressure, and for the high humidity. The end result was that the Portland atmospheric DENSITY at the time of the jump was slightly above the standard given in the 1962 U.S. Standard Atmosphere. In addition, I have estimated the drag coefficient times reference area (CD x A) values for two jumper positions that should represent the slowest and fastest free fall conditions. Robert

Does anyone know of information existing in the skydiving community for predicting the forward travel of a jumper after exiting the aircraft and before deploying (or not deploying) his canopy? Assuming Cooper did not deploy a canopy, his landing location would be several miles from his point of seperation from the aircraft. Or does anyone, presumably academics, have access to computer software and hardware that is capable of computing this information? The computation requires an iterative type program and is rather complex. Robert

Hi, right back. Please elaborate. Robert

Robert, We actually agree on something I think. Despite the statements in Himmelsbach's book, there is no actual evidence to support the idea that weather was a major factor in this hijacking. Indeed there were clouds and some rain and icing at altitude, but that was just another day at the office. Robert

Robert, You have it backwards. A REAL investigation determines the data points and then plots the curve. Otherwise, you have the curve (or theory) determining which data points are accepted or rejected and thus driving the investigation. Admittedly, there are instances when some data points must be rejected for one reason or another but that is the exception rather than the rule. But valid data points must be the driving force in any meaningful investigation. Robert

This is a perfectly valid point. Blevin's hypothesis - that it was meant to be found earlier - is also a reasonable one (in my opinion). If you want it to be found, you do not throw something as small as a hand full of money in the Columbia River, much less bury it somewhere. Within a couple of days of the hijacking, Cooper would have known that his FBI estimated landing area was wrong and that he didn't have much to fear from them. So he would plant any clues in an area where he didn't land such as the place where the FBI was looking. But I am one of those who subscribes to the theory that Cooper died within one minute of separating from the aircraft. That is, before 8:20 PM PST on November 24, 1971 Cooper had Met His Maker. Robert

Jo, After getting away with the money for 7+ years, why would Cooper or anyone else throw money in the river in 1979? If Cooper was alive in 1979 then he was basically home free. And why would he throw it in a location where it would end up at Tina Bar since that is not where he was thought to have landed and the find would only reactivate the invetigation. Robert

The claim that Cooper threw money in the river or buried some at Tina Bar just doesn't pass the smell test. And since it took 8+ years to find it, it didn't fool anyone initially. There is credible evidence that fragments of some bills were found a couple of feet under the sand. To me, this suggests that the money deposition at Tina Bar was a repeatable event and that, if true, means that Cooper probably landed on solid ground near Tina Bar and stayed in that location for a period of years. Robert

TDG, Welcome and you have your work cut out for you. "Facts" are hard to come by in this matter and there are about 20+ versions of the facts for every item that is discussed. May I suggest that you visit Sluggo's web page and, for instance, compare the Air Traffic Control transcripts from the Seattle ATC Center with those from the Oakland ATC Center. You will rapidly come to the conclusion that the Seattle ATC transcripts have been "sanitized" after the 1971 hijacking, and probably after the money was found at Tina Bar in 1980. Apparently after the money was found, some of the facts were changed, or deleted, so as to not contradict someone's theory and the flight path was the main item changed. Consequently, there is no agreement as to the actual flight path in the Portland area. And careful checking into radar data will eliminate it as a meaningful tool for determining the flight path. Having said that, there is no reason whatsoever at this time for dismissing the possibility that the airliner actually flew directly over Tina Bar. Some people disagree with this possibility rather strongly. So please act as a defense attorney in this matter and don't accept any alleged "fact" at its face value. If you want to act as a prosecutor, Jo Weber would probably be delighted to have you assist in proving that her late husband, Duane Weber, was D. B. Cooper (although he wasn't). Again, welcome. Robert Nicholson

If KC made off with the entire $200,000, which he didn't, and ran it into about $800,000 in 22 years, he had finally found his calling. He should have been a financial consultant and he could have given lectures on the side to teach other people how to rip off the IRS. He also apparently didn't like to spend money either and decided to just leave all of it to other people. Robert

Thanks Sluggo. In her original message, Jo was apparently referring to streets in the Vancouver area and I thought she was referring to towns east of the Cascades. In any event, the baloon bomb I saw was near Wenatchee and it was shot down by P-38s that were based somewhere southeast of there, probably in the Yakima and Hanford area. It should be remembered that in early 1945, Hanford was not a familiar name. That would change with the events that following August. Robert

Jo, I cannot locate Hockinson on a map either. But you had mentioned the balloon bombs and Cold Creek may have been the name of the area where the P-38 fighters were based that shot down the one I saw. I believe this air base was in the Yakima and Hanford area but don't have any better information on it. Robert

I should have said about 5 or 10 thousand feet above ground level. Another good but obscure book all about Japanese attacks on the US West Coast during WW2: Silent Siege, lots of tech detail about the Fouga ballons and also about sub carried seaplane attack aircraft. http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Siege-III-Civilians-Documentary/dp/0936738731 Most balloons were made of doped paper. Some were assembled as class projects by school children. Some "scout" balloons had HF telemetry with a vacuum tube transmitter! The Fougas (incindiary balloons) had an ingenious system for automatically releasing sand ballast to maintain altitude. The balloons were supposed to set the Pacific NW forests ablaze but the only time the trans Pacific winds really favored the operation was winter when the forests were too wet to ignite and support a sustained burn. The program was a huge failure as a weapon. Some UFO debunkers thought the Roswell alien was a mummified Japanese midget found long after the war. Their theory was that the Japanese experimented with manned balloons to insert spies and saboteurs onto the US mainland. Small pilots would be chosen to minimize payload. Roswell crash debris was consistent with a balloon and it turned out it (according to the USAF) was a cold war balloon project carrying an instrument payload to monitor atomic tests, Project Mogul. The alien story appears to be urban myth. So does the Duane as a Ranger trained jumper story. 377 My understanding is that the balloon bomb project itself was a direct result of the insults to the Empire that resulted from the Doolittle raid in April 1942. The Japanese responded in kind as best they could but it took them about two years to get the balloons developed and most of them were launched in 1944 and 1945. Robert

I should have said about 5 or 10 thousand feet above ground level.

Jo, There is a book on the balloon bombs that you might be interested in. The title is "Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America", by Robert C. Mikesh, ISBN 0-8168-3950-6. I saw one of these balloon bombs near Wenatchee, WA in 1945. It was at about 5 or 10 feet above the ground level and being circled by a couple of P-38s which shot it down when it drifted to a more unpopulated area. Have you ever heard of Cold Creek, WA in the 1945 period? Robert

What's behind Door Number 2? Come on Monty Monster ... Will someone please get Marilyn von what's her name straightened out on this Monty Hall Problem? She repeated the same mistake on a similiar problem that appeared in her column last Sunday, September 26, in Parade Magazine.

That bag is definitely not a "brief case". I have a couple of brief cases from the early 1970s and the largest one I could find at that time has slightly less than one-half cubic foot volume. What would KC need a nav bag for since he wasn't doing any navigation? The bag looks like the type of thing that the cabin crew members would use on an overnight trip to carry a single change of clothes. The cockpit crew members would usually carry a nav bag plus an overnight type piece of luggage. Robert

I have been involved in some DNA testing for genealogical purposes. The short answer to your question is that DNA can definitely help narrow down the pool of potential suspects. If the most comprehensive type of testing is conducted, it might be able to make a connection with a reasonably close relative of Cooper. Assuming, of course, that the DNA matches someone that is currently in law enforcement data bases or that of someone who volunteers for a DNA test. Robert

I owned an NB-6 parachute until sometime in the fall of 1971. The NB-6 is unusual in several respects. The shroud lines stopped at the hem of the canopy and tapes were used over the canopy instead of shroud lines. This resulted in a smaller container being necessary and thus the parachute was more adaptable to being used in cramped cockpits (such as the sailplane I used it in). Being a conical canopy, the canopy could not be stretched out flat on a hangar floor or instance. Further, the pilot chute was unusual in that the bottom of the pilot chute assembly had a "stud" which stuck out the top of the pilot chute when it was compressed. This stud fit into either the second or third stud holes from the top of the container and went through both the underlying and overlying container flaps. The other three studs fit into only the top container flap and the rip cord pins fit into them in the normal manner. For the stud attached to the pilot chute, the rip cord pin was inserted in the normal manner and that meant that the pilot chute was attached to the container and could not be released from the container until that rip cord pin had been pulled out. If the pilot chute rip cord pin was not pulled, the parachute could not open. In my opinion, the NB-6 was not suited for skydiving in the first place. A modification to that canopy would be more difficult and the harness was an "X" type, rather than the usual "H" type, which would complicate attaching a reserve chute. In addition, the NB-6 had a price tag of about twice the standard 28 foot chute due to its being desirable for use as an emergency chute. So if Cossy managed to put a 28 foot flat canopy into th NB-6 container, he must have been a glutton for punishment. Why bother messing up a good NB-6 when there were plenty of other $40 28 foot flat canopies that did not exceed the performance of the 26 foot conical canopy? Robert

Since they were very near the equator, and since it was only about 10 days since the first day of summer, when the sun popped over the horizon it would be directly into their eyes. If all else failed, a last resort could be to fly a heading toward the point where the sun came over the horizon. There is nothing to suggest that Amelia had any experience with sextants, octants, or anything else related to celestial navigation. Also, they had apparently not used radio navigation on the flight and Amelia did not appear to know how to use it on the approach to Howland. Several different people made a study of the flight and they all concluded it was poorly planned and executed.

Robert99 What of the report Earhart was arguing with Noonan during one transmission? .................................................................. Noonan's navigation station was at the very rear of the aircraft cabin which he entered through the rear door. Earhart had to enter the cockpit by climbing onto the wing. There was a huge fuel tank between them in the aircraft. Noonan did not have access to the radio and their only means of communicating with each other was by passing notes on a clothes pin along a clothes line type arrangement. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca had a state of the art radio room with experienced operators. They stated that at one point the aircraft seemed to be so close that they expected to see it when some of them stepped outside the radio room. In celestial navigation problems such as this flight from Lae to Howland, it was standard procedure to deliberately navigate to a point either north or south of Howland and then turn in the appropriate direction to Howland. Otherwise, if you calculate that you are at Howland's location and cannot see anything, which direction do you turn? In this case, Noonan apparently elected to head to a point north of Howland and then to turn south toward the island. However, they apparently encountered the low clouds that Amelia mention in a radio transmission and were probably west of their intended longitude line which could have been caused by a very slight and undetected headwind. Also, they may have had problems with overcast cloud layers that interferred with celestial sights. But at about the half-way point, they were sighted passing an inhabited island and may have made radio contact with it. Prior to that point, they had made several position reports. It just seems that everything went down hill starting shortly before dawn. Finally, I don't think Amelia knew Morse code. At least not well enough to decipher a message that was being sent to her. Robert99

Finding the crash site is a long shot indeed, but you are underestimating how far side scan sonar has advanced. Digital signal processing, multifrequency transmitting and image enhancement has done wonders. Even consumer grade side scan sonar these days has incredible resolution. The high end commercial and military stuff is beyond awesome. They can use accelerometers and computers to take out all motion artifacts too. The US Navy in the early 1990s found and recovered a single pax door that blew out of a UAL 747 (unfortunately a few pax were also ejected by the explosive decompression) about 100 miles out of Honolulu. It was in very deep water, and was a tiny target with only a rough idea of location from radar tracking. Now deciding where to look for Amelia's Lockheed, thats the hard part. 377 I believe it was the forward (just in front of the wing) cargo door that came open and took off a part of the passenger cabin wall with it. The end result was that several passengers were ejected from the aircraft and some reportedly went through the engines resulting in the failure of both engines on the right side. If my memory is correct, the aircraft was 500+ miles southwest of Honolulu but the Navy found and recovered the door at the request of Boeing. In Amelia's case, she reported being in clouds and the only clouds the people at Howland Island could see were northwest of there. It is questionable if Amelia could make a successful ditching. She was not an overable capable pilot in the first place and she had already exposed her lack of knowledge when she asked the Coast Guard ship at Howland to give her a DF steer and then didn't give the "long count" that was necessary for that steer. In the planning for the Howland landing, Amelia did not attend the meetings in Washington with the Coast Guard. Instead, George Putnam, her husband and without any aeronautical qualifications, attended and he was specifically informed of the radio frequencies that the Coast Guard ship would have for communications. Nevertheless, Amelia asked the Coast Guard ship to transmitt on a frequency that she should have known the Coast Guard didn't have. Perhaps the metal in the engines would be more detectable than the aluminum airframe. But the general consensus of opinion, excluding the group that is looking several hundred miles south of Howland, is that Amelia went into the water probably not more than about 50 miles northwest of Howland. But the flight was very poorly planned, since as has already been pointed out, trying to locate Howland Island, a very small island, at sunrise with the sun in your eyes and having been awake about 24 hours and flying about 20 of those hours, is really pushing your luck. Robert99

. If this assumption is correct, then Cooper probably was quite near Tena Bar when he jumped. *** Robert, ===================== What evidence to you have to support that statement - have you talked to the Co-Pilot? He has been reported to have said they were EAST of Portland/Vancouver and so has the Pilot prior to his death. Remember that some of us are NOT pilots and need answers simplified. There was never any indications the plane flew to the West of PDX - (I am speaking of the airport itself). I have witness account that put the plane over Heisson and then Brush Prairie and then West of Cames. The papers where full of the claims East of Vancouver and West of Cames. Perhaps you have been led to make this supposition because of the location some of the money was found...7yrs later. Also the money had been stored in a proctected area for a period of that time. This has been stated in the Palmer Report of 1980 and again recently by a party who conducted test there within the last 2 yrs. How could the route and sitings have been so mis-led in 1971? This maybe just another qlich probagated by the authorities who want to bury Cooper in the Columbia once and for all. After 38 yrs one would have thought had the plane been West of Portland this would have come up way before 2009 when the flight became controversial in this forum Jo, thanks for the cut and paste. I hope to have answers to some of the above questions within the next week. Why would there be controversy about the route 38 yrs later? This is the unanswerable question. With radar, ATC communications logs, ARINC communications logs, phone cross-talk logs between the ATC controllers (which were available even if they weren't obtained from the Seattle Center), and airplane flight recorder records, it is amazing that the question has never been resolved based on actual data. So your question cannot be answered. Sorry. Robert

I need to explain how this ended up on a separate thread. My intentions were to post to the D. B. Cooper thread but ended up creating a new thread. I confessed to Quade and he locked the new thread. There are a number of posts prior to and related to my last post on the now locked thread. And further related posts will be forthcoming. Sluggo is now on the case and things should start being clarified shortly, maybe today. So stay tuned. Robert Nicholson