Farflung

I'm fully aware of that fact 377, thank you very much. Perhaps I was considering a trip south of the border to enjoy some of the simpler things in life. A brisk walk to a remote location, followed by some amateur spelunking and who's to say there wont be the occasional session of avisodomy?

I'm fully accepting of the notion that the identity of DB Cooper will likely never be known. In the unlikely event of a discovery, I'm completely braced for the crushing disappointment that this thread will have helped not. But, I'm the sort of guy that feels a bit of a let down when news breaks about another super model getting engaged as I'm forced to remove her from the selection pool which exists only in my mind. Gosh I wish I could be as centered and grounded as a jumper, rather than viewing myself as such a Herculean figure cursed with endless powers of attraction. In spite of my hulkingly ripped frame and endless wealth, a part of me is weak and poor. That lies in my total misunderstanding of what bothers people about what is scribed in this dainty, 17,000+ post thread. Gaze upon the sixty page selection in the oddly named 'History and Trivia' section. Then kneel and bow to its awesomely wide field of subject matter potential. Bow! and kneel! So what up? DB Cooper seems to throw dozens of otherwise normal jumpers into a frenzy that makes Frankenstein look sedate while he was menaced with flaming clubs, by toothless villagers. Have they reviewed some of the titles? what happened to all the snoots are for toots?, Naked Fatalities, How big were pea pits in the early days?, Skydiving Midgets and Cave of the Swallows. Well it is certainly clear why the Cooper thread has drawn all this attention, it is making a mockery of the sub-category. Now I'm not only willing to let the afore mentioned threads live an unmolested life. I also have no desire what-so-ever to even be bothered to look at any of them. I may violate that pledge in regard to 'Cave of the Swallows', but the other subjects hold no interest for me. I will go on to add, that if 'Cave of the Swallows' turns out half as I imagine, the last thing I would ever do is complain or lobby for its removal.

I'm in complete agreement about the nonsensical nature of this thread and the unfair burden it has placed on the fine mesh filtration that keeps this site a magnet for jump enthusiasts. I will never qualify since I have not jumped and have numerous interests in life. Guess that is one of the attributes of working in aviation. You know - I'm certainly not going to day dream about insurance actuaries or what life is like in a light grey cubicle or the corporate starfish I just gave a catbath in hopes of receiving a raise. Nope. This needs to be a place for total immersion into the obsession that has more than likely given several Walter Mitty's a reason to keep living in spite of their realities. You know the type, 40 sumtin, working at a testicle shrinking Mickey Mouse company and counting down the days till retirement. Upon realization of what a sorry mess they have made out of their lives they journey to some abandoned, weather beaten facility in the lowest rent district known to man and 'end it all'. But hey, it's not abandoned... it is a Drop Zone. What luck, an opportunity to combine their initial task with a sport. What a rush this new experience has delivered to Mr Bland. He rushes home to his beige, stucco suburbia, in his white Camry to begin a new life as Mr Bland 'Not-Obsessed Sport Jumper'. Well, time to subscribe to magazines, get some jump clothing you can 'accidently' wear to work, install that 'I'd rather be jumping' license frame on the Camry and join a forum or two. Then submit thousands and thousands and thousands of comments to other jumpers who have tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of comments, on a forum about jumping. There's never too much to say about sport jumping. While in the middle of one of your thousands of comments (!) you notice a group of four or five wuffos have stained the master sport and need some education along with continued concentration on a single thread. Yes, I say enough is enough; this sport has suffered long enough the treachery of the eternal wuffo and it is long time to exercise the 'final solution'.

A good idea has a thousand fathers, a bad one borne an orphan. No one will admit to holding the patent for the UroClub or Tiddy Bear, but someone filed trademark and intellectual property rights for those brain dead products. Heck, put the Segway on the heap while you are at it. Unless socially unacceptable people needed a form of transport that would lower their chances of procreation to less than zero, I suppose it could be considered a success. Bernie Madoff used his name to run a business for over a quarter century to the point of the largest theft in the history of man. I mean, 50 billion bucks and he did nothing but convince some trust fund babies to invest with him because they were extra special. Amazing what a self absorbed cloister can convince themselves about while completely detaching from all validation, feedback and reality. Hey, Bernie was the president of the NASDAQ and knew rich people and had dimples on his butt. With qualifications like that, he could and did make claims about trading stocks that did not have an aggregate volume of one tenth that Bernie printed on his statements. Audits, oversight and validation are for those who don't know what they are doing. Use your real name and trademark some garbage and claim to be very close to inside information (like Bernie) while lamenting all the crap flying around. Or..... One could post (with attribution) a theory or thought process which stands the test of scrutiny and review by individuals known only for their ability to employ rational logic in the search of truth. Nahhhh, I was just kidding, go back to your normally scheduled self interests, bias and steering.

Jerry Thomas, Like you aren't getting enough input already, I thought I would add some more, way more. That Tomahawk is a fine airframe with tons of support (easy to get parts). Piper very wisely selected premier companies as component suppliers for this purpose built trainer. The prop was manufactured by Sensenich and is still manufactured with the company offering rebuilds for around $1,000. Not bad for such a vital component. Getting a prop AD is bad; getting a prop AD for a defunct product could render the aircraft useless is much worse. Sensenich has a web site worth checking out. The brakes are Parker-Hannifin-Cleveland and readily available from places like Aircraft Spruce and Skygeek on the internet. You will notice plenty of 'conversion kits' being offered so a person can retro fit the Cleveland components ($2,000 plus). Nice to know you already have the system and will probably only need O-rings, hoses, discs (rotors) and pads to keep your plane airworthy. These items range from $6 to $150; close to their automotive counterparts. The Lycoming engine (O-235) has been produced since the Earth cooled. Lycoming is still in business for a very good reason - they are extremely reliable. They also have amassed an impressive database of system reliability from the half century that this power plant has been in use. That is, they can predict with an extremely high degree of accuracy when a component will fail. About TBOs. Time Between Overhaul is the most favored parameter for pilots to misquote (sort of). They aren't trying to do anything wrong, just comparing apples to oranges. There are two times associated with TBOs. Engine operation in hours and time since installation in years. Typically the TBO for an opposed, Lycoming is 2000 hours or 12 years (factory recommendation, Lycoming Service Instruction 1009, page 1, bold face print). So an engine could have 500 hours of operation and have been installed 35 years ago with the owner thinking this is a low time engine. My personal bias would be to budget an overhaul with this type of purchase. The O-235 has an even higher operating TBO of 2400. This was great news for the FBO operating a flight school. He could get another 20% out of the training fleet before having to incur the expense of an overhaul. Here is another counter-intuitive note from the Lycoming Service Instruction 1009, Note 11- If an engine is being used in "frequent" type service and accumulates 40 hours or more per month, and has been so operated consistently since being placed in service, add 200 hours to TBO time. Isn't that strange? Using an engine more adds 200 hours to the service life. There was a saying in the Air Force, "airplanes break on the ground", and that was the truth. Systems that checked good one week were Code 3 the next. That was while sitting quietly in a guarded hangar. Gremlins. This increase in time meant very little to an owner operator doing some VFR, bugsmashing on the way to get a $100 hamburger. Statistics have shown that the average pilot will fly less than 100 hours per year. Take a look at the airframe total times and divide by the number of years since manufacture for validation. So the relevant figure to the owner/pilot may be years since engine overhaul versus the hours. Many will dismiss this as far too conservative and I'm sure they are correct. One could also claim that the rigors of an annual inspection is far too conservative and I'm sure they are correct. As I'm not a mechanical engineer or airframe specialist, I rely on the organizations which are staffed with personnel that hold those qualifications. I've heard too many pilots say "I've been doing (fill in the blank) for years and haven't had a problem yet." Just what sort of problem are they waiting for? Engine failure at night over mountains? By the time these people have a problem they will be in the NTSB files. Check those out for incidents involving Tomahawks. Consider a wholistic view point. If person X was the type to push things when it came to maintenance, was person X also the type to push other things? Flight into IFR, launching without visual check of fuel levels, on and on. These airframes were designed by pretty smart guys. Keep in mind there was a viewpoint that light aircraft would be just like automobiles in terms of utilization. I seriously doubt the average Ercoupe engineer would have imagined that his design would still be in common use in 2010. Consequently, all those plastic and vinyl parts were typically made with an eight to twelve year design life. Here most of these parts are now 30 plus years old and stored under the constant glare of the sun. Nothing wrong with this, in fact I marvel at the longevity of these parts. Just don't be surprised to find these items beginning to fail with some regularity. Have you purchased a POH and shop manual or illustrated parts catalog? A very inexpensive way to familiarize yourself to this airframe and the sub-systems. As you know, the worst place to learn how to fly is in an airplane; same for owning one. Educate yourself on this system as much as you can. I'm assuming you have some affinity for the airframe before the price. These systems were built by the thousands and have a strong representation in General Aviation and therefore the open market. Consider the price of a paint job or top overhaul along with the offering price versus other airframes which may be $10,000 more but have later paint, interiors and 'engine installations'. By now your eyes have glazed and you are praying for the arrival of sweet death versus reading another sentence. I don't blame you. Have fun (I said fun) with this purchase and don't ever feel hurried to make a decision about purchasing something that typically sits on the market for years. Pre-load yourself with knowledge and the most anal retentive, by the book, picky beyond belief SOB A&P that you can find. The rest will fall into place at the right time. You won't need any luck then.

If her claim was that she heard the conversations in Sacramento would that change any assumptions? Spokane, WA? If so why? My initial post and POINT was about the ambiguity in HER own telling that she could not recall if she monitored anything while 305 was on the ground. That is ALL. I offered the MOST (biggest margin) conservative estimates (34 foot tail height) and referenced every friggin step in the analysis. Much, MUCH, MUUUCCCHH more than the average person offers on this forum. I even went so far (foolishly) to offer validation by any un-biased person willing to complete a cross check. Instead of correcting my math or posting a different solution, this entire subject released a frothy stool in the bed with proclamations of reflectivity and scintillation that 377 would verify. He did just that and uses 1.2/square rather than the 1.5, I initially posted. So the initial distance calculated is actually of a greater amount.... NOT lesser. Making the monitoring of ground comms even LESS probable. But I'm open to any NEW (assumes true) information like: they had a 100 foot tower for their UNICOM. But until I have that information, I'm not going to just dismiss the subject and go back to spinning the prop on my beanie. For Pete's sake georger. Why do you have such Diamond Cutting Fanboi Manwood for this subject? It seems out of character for your usual logical analysis. I'm surrendering to the battle of wills, you win. Remember, if it turns out they had a 300 foot mast at Shady Acres it won't matter since you were willing to accept a 6 foot antenna as capable of receiving 34 foot transmissions from SEATAC. I took a nap next to a giant pod and see the wisdom of buried money and flares and felt the need to feed on the sweet, sweet nectar of iridium... I meant brains. Cause Zombies eat brrrraaaaiiinnns.

Yes, she heard the transmissions. Her story is true, a child is pure and Cooper was a witch. He asked for and received $400,000 but some corrupt government agency only reported $200,000 being delivered and threatened any contrarians with stuff I don't think I have to go into. Enough people and information have already gone poof. Just why do you think that is? Government agencies don't make a profit and their budgets are assigned and tracked so how else would they acquire funds for their spook operations? That's right, you got it - skimming hijacking ransoms. It's all so clear if you people would just think instead if stuffing your faces with Cheese Doodles and downing YooHoos. Sure the LOS horizon for a 110 foot tower is 11.5 miles rendering any transmission as masked for Shady Acres, but don't let that hinder analysis. Just declare the intercept as feasible anyway because you said so!! And you want it that way, gosh!! At least there weren't any requests for refined parameters (like antenna height and tower height) which was instantly ignored in favor of some voodoo math that made the intercept feasible. Because that would just be Douchy behavior. What has been done to VHF propagation physics has long passed flogging and now makes Ned Beatty's canoe trip look like he stubbed his toe. It's fun to be emperor, why do you think there have been so many in history? Can't get your head around the Earth being round in spite of the two massive working models in the sky? Do what has served royalty so well the past few thousand years and declare the world as flat and create you own reality. Should any one disagree simply channel your nations R&D efforts on devices like the rack, iron maiden and Guillotine instead of schools. You will maintain your richly deserved fantasy while looking good at the same time. Cooper is a microcosm of the most despotic kingdoms that is governed by a pair of mouse balls. All the ignorance of the dark ages combined with enforcement powers of that mattress tag organization. So there is nothing to be gained by assuming the role of Dictator Conflater with proclamations about the improbable or physically impossible unless you enjoy being the focal point of snickers and rolling eyes. But there is a loose end about the missing $200,000. What did the gubermint do wit it? One word - Iridium.

Pick your favorite frequency (Dealer's Choice) and apply it to that 200 foot antenna with a 15 megawatt amp and publish the results assuming the entire area is coated with aluminized Mylar. How far away from station could one be and still intercept the above transmission? Forget the Cooper stuff, all it does is rot the common sense gland(s) and makes people mistake humiliation for dignity. How many miles will an optimized 2 meter signal propagate? My calculation is 37,343.2 miles. I will back up this claim with a complete lack of attribution and experience or knowledge. I'm totally 'on board' with the $400,000 conversation, the flare obsessed subject (come on folks, how many can there be?) who was spotted by a woman with 20/5 vision that just backed out of a lit garage into the dark embrace of night only to look up and see a person jump. I bought the ticket, now I'm taking the ride. I abandoned the skepticism about DC-7s taking off from Dutch Harbor and now believe any pilot could have participated in such a simple operation. I anxiously await the story about how a flare can be made that magnifies objects and lights the ground through cloud cover but they were never mass produced because they used a great deal of iridium and only used by Air America operatives who jumped 727s. I know I will not be disappointed.

This is what's so great and tragic about the Cooper subject, anyone making an improbable claim is given pass after pass for the possibility of one unlikely event following another. If someone references dry and time tested science this must be ignored while adding to the previous improbability. Sure it works that way in all other situations but this is D B Cooper.... so... (fill in the blanks). If she heard about the hijacking on the bus at 2:30 then she got the news a half hour before 305 released brakes in Portland. I believe Dr Hawkins has published studies about worm holes in time... so Cooper lucked out once again. The communications, four hours, five agencies and simple geometry.... nothing more here. Give Flight 305 50,000 feet and a transmitter power of 15 megawatts. Yes someone can hear what is transmitted from the jet till landing at SEATAC. Once on the ground the antenna height is 34 feet (exaggerated already by using the tip of the tail) and with 15 megawatts power should reach out a total of 7.2 miles (excluding magic). I am not aware of any VHF transceiver capable of consuming 15 megawatts so exaggerating to the level of absurd has not changed the pattern for 305. Get it? I put them at 50,000 feet (way too high for a 727) and gave their comms a power of 15,000,000 watts, therefore assuming she could hear 305 in the air. Just not on the ground since Shady Acres is 23 miles away. But she heard the tower... um.. approach control... not ground or departure.. wait... make that.ops.. no I mean she was monitoring the magic channel which people talked on. OK? Lets not concern our selves with the transceiver being 720 (big bucks) channels or 360 channels which was used by light aircraft in 1971. Forget those little details. The tower was 110 feet high, round up to 200 feet. 200 times 1.5 is 300 with a square root of 17.4 miles line of sight. Almost twice the antenna height, with 15,000,000 watts and a magic receiver that locks on to frequencies that have voice which you want to monitor (is this enough exaggeration yet?) and it still falls short by 5.5 miles. That with the 30 minutes of time travel which makes this teenager the first recipient of the news that 305 WILL be hijacked in a half hour (3:00 PM) when it actually takes off. Good grief. Two hours and 43 minutes from take off to touchdown for 305. That's 3:00 PM to 5:43 PM local time when Shady Acres could have heard transmissions from 305. At 3:59 PM is when the crew squawked 3100 for the first time letting ATC know they were being hijacked. Leaving One hour and 44 minutes from squawk to landing with the FAA getin' clued in about Cooper. School busses now must operate at or later than 3:59 in order to become agents for hijacking information for teenagers. Now there is a magic receiver that can auto tune conversations which are pertinent only to the hijacking. A 727 capable of near space flight and a fifteen million watt transmitter scorching the very earth with its mighty beam pattern. And this story still needs embellishment - for crying out loud.

Reflectivity.... yeah that must have been it... from two different emitters.... ok then. I was also baffled by the four hour window layered across comms with ARTCC, Approach Control, Tower, Ground and Departure Control, but now realize her single frequency monitoring of those agencies, was no doubt accomplished via harmonics which were fortified with VHF reflectivity. Her story makes complete sense now. Sorry to have muddied the research efforts.

SEATAC's tower is presently 269 feet from grade to antenna tops. This is the new tower which replaced the old system which was 107 feet tall. 305's antenna height is unknown, but the tallest part of the airframe is 34 feet. This would be the maximum theoretical emitter height and provide the most optimistic of results. The antenna at shady acres is unknown. One could take the 'best of breed' answers from SEATAC and reverse calculate the minimum antenna height required to complete the circuit for the tower and 305 (these would be two different results obviously). Hope this helps.

Regarding the Marianne Scott Lincoln interview, Shady Acres Airport (3B8) to SEATAC (KSEA) is 23 nautical miles as the crow flies. I'm going to assume the comms were transmitted via VHF frequencies or simply Line-of-sight. The height of a 727 is 34 feet. I will assume (not necessarily true) this to be the location for the VHF antennas (highest point). The VHF range equation is: the square root of 1.5 times antenna height in feet, resulting in transmission distance in miles. 34 (727 antenna height) X 1.5 equals 51 which has a square root of 7.2. If the antenna were mounted on the tail of a 727 the expected line of sight distance would be 7.2 miles. Perhaps a HAM radio guy could check my work for accuracy and supplement the data with antenna height requirements at a home adjacent to Shady Acres runway. Or not.

Please pass the piano. The food at the restaurant was horrible and the portions were too small. "I have a suspect who... was obsessed with road flares" Of the 300,000 words in the English language..... they all fail me now.

Dutch Harbor elevation 22 feet (22 f e e t) with a pattern altitude of 2,100 feet.... think there are obstacles? Or is this profile just for fun? VASI skewed 5 degrees. Just before flare you can turn and take a big bite out of the seat cushion... yeeeee hawwww. How is your snow and ice landing abilities? What runway conditions are used for the flight manuals? Much snow or ice in Alaska? Wind at Dutch Harbor? Now.... what is the problem with landing a fish laden DC-7-C again? The B-36 has a 220 foot wing span and ten (10 manly) engines... that thing would be able to operate out of Dutch Harbor no problem... after all the B-36 flew out of Alaska many times.... right? Apples and nudibranks.

DC-7-C landing and launching from Dutch Harbor Airport???

DC-7-C landing and launching from Dutch Harbor Airport???

Yes the great mystery map, what could it possibly be? FAA, 1:500k, Sectional Chart. Reason: Symbology and relative scale to compass rose depiction and font size. WACs are 1 to a million in scale. WACs don't depict Airway intersection names either. The second baffler lies in the fact that there are two different sectionals named Seattle, with the same scale but one covers a much greater area. Keeping up? I didn't think so. Look at attachment 1. Yep, that is the 'old' index to aeronautical charts in the US of A. Do you see the sectional named Seattle? It is bound to the north by the extinct Bellingham sectional and to the south by the redundant Portland sectional. Look at attachment 2. See where it says 'Joins Bellingham' at the top right margin? That is a clue as to the source, origin and date of said cartographic artifact. Knowing the type of chart will give one a hint at vintage. These would run from post WWII to 1971 give or take a revision cycle. Knowing the symbology will narrow the probability even more. Look at attachment 3. This is the spawn of the Seattle sectional, edge matched and attached to the Portland sectional. Take a look at the index from attachment 1 if you need some perspective. Now zoom into (attachment 3) what looks like the the word NO in felt tip pen (I'll wait). Just to the right of the word NO you will notice the archaic abbreviation for Oregon as OREG and Washington as /ASH. Hey, what happened to the dub-ya? Careless cartographers are not showing proper respect to a higher governmental administrative body or...... is that where the two sectionals are glued together? Can you see the line where the longitudinal index begins to diverge from the projection error? Who ever joined the charts did a pretty good job. Well done Special Agent Bob. Since your already looking in the area, scan a little south and east and you will notice a shield symbol with the number 5 emblazoned in the center. That is representative of Interstate 5. So.... this chart would have been produced after the Federal Highway Act of 1956. Hence the mystery chart is a kludged pair of 'original sectionals' (Seattle and Portland) published some time between 1956 and 1971 when the new sectional standard was adopted. The Seattle sectional depicts NAS Seattle (North of SEATAC) as closed. 1968 had the Navy resurfacing the runway with June 1970 being the official close date. This data point should narrow things a bit. What about the Portland sectional which has been misquoted as the Seattle sectional for all these decades? Take a look at attachment 4, waaaay down on the bottom, right portion is a magenta dashed (aka broken) line. This is the compass correction value called the Isogonic Line (use it in casual conversation today) and it has been normalized to 1965. If the mystery chart matches the 1971 model, we can presume the chart will have a date of 1965 or later. Let's see!! From left to right on the bottom of attachment 3 you will notice that broken magenta line rising diagonally at about 22 degrees. It passes just to the south of Carlton (whew, that was close) and then barely misses the Newberg VORTAC before Passing the southern side of Portland and up the mighty Columbia. Got it? Now look at attachment 5 (the 1971 'Seattle sectional') and see if that dirty, naughty Isogonic Line doesn't match. Wha du yah think? Well OK then, I guess the Portland sectional was published some time after 1965. Could it be narrowed even more? Could be tough and not for those with weak bladders. Check out Portland Sectional July 1969 (attachment) which is a little piece of heaven from the Portland Metro area. On the bottom of this remnant is a magenta (I thought she was hot in Rocky Horror) circle with the name Mulino. Now look at attachment 3 (again) at the bottom center and find Mulino. Find it? I knew you could. Do you see how the mystery Mulino has gone from a circle to a circle with four tabs attached? I'm sure you are already looking at attachment 4 and have discovered the four tabs means this airport has facilities. Usually getting facilities is an improvement or upgrade if you will. Does the Mulino on attachment 5 have a magenta circle with four tabs? Sure it does. So the mystery chart was probably published between early 1970 and the revision before attachment 5 which would have been early 1971. Hope there are enough bread crumbs in this tome to complete some independent research and validation on the subject. There are few things worse than someone spewing basura as if they actually know what they are talking about. Sends people on wild goose romps while the simplest data remains dormant (like this crap). According to attachment last, the 1971 Seattle sectional was effective 22 July replacing the February 1971 chart. If NAS Seattle was closed June 1970 the first chart with this depiction would be the July 1970 revision with the next and only other revision being February 1971. Two logical possibilities for the source of the mystery map - top half. The July 1971, Seattle sectional covers what was the Portland sectional with the same previous publication date of February 1971. Since the last data point I could find for Portland was the July 1969 sectional; this left both revisions for 1970 and the first revision for 1971 as possibilities for the mystery map - lower half. Of interest (only to me I'm sure) on 'attachment last' is a little hint about the position of this new and improved chart. It's the blue text.... 1st edition (that means it is first) so presumably the previous chart held the appearance of the old school pressings. Other indications of age include, the rotating beacon star imbedded within the circle, generic Navaid roundels, obstacle symbology as inverted V's in a 'frame', airport circles with eight tabs, NDBs and Compass Locators have Radio in the name and the letter R was not in restricted airfields. From abject mystery to a field of five possibilities using nothing more than dry, un-emotive, referenced, public data points, two hours of time, four cups of coffee and some ordinary household bleach.

Tell you what Quade, I'm an idiot of the highest degree and beyond. Which is what you want to convey any how. I will defer to your knowledge of the FARs as I'm not about to operate an aircraft in that configuration period. 91.307 (c) Unless each occupant of the aircraft is wearing an approved parachute, no pilot of a civil aircraft carrying any person (other than a crewmember).... what does that mean???? Other than a crewmember..... too mystic for me. Should time or experience enlighten your understanding about the required use of a parachute with a solo pilot performing aerobatic maneuvers at or above 1500 feet AGL, over an unpopulated area in an aircraft certified for such operation, keep it to your self. Might want to check the spin training exclusion for CFIs while your at it. Adios aviation expert, your sandbox is even less crowded now.

377, I think the open belt buckle was largely future myth in the making. I do not think Fossett survived this event. IF his belt was open it may have been from animals getting lucky with the device. The hypoxia theory is a very valid point (never considered it myself, and I'm a modest, hyper - genius) if the Mode C was pinging the guy at 14,900 he should have been sucking O2 for sure. The NTSB report mentions how he was not going to do any aerobatic work since he did not wear a parachute as required by regs. That is a new one to me, solo pilots are not required to wear a chute. That was strange to read in the report. I think you have a good thesis of judgement impaired by hypoxia with an aircraft at the nape of its performance envelope while entering a box canyon. If he had stuck to 395 he could have lived to fly another day. The other goofy thing about the report was the mentioned transponder track. A target was recorded from 9 to 9:30 following 395 then entering the "recip killing fields" of the Ansel Adams Wilderness where the last report put the aircraft within one mile of Fossett's crash site. Why were so many searching around Walker Lake? Even with a good amount of information, it is surprising how a plane crash can go undetected for such a long time.

Definitely a strange case. 12,000 foot plus acro below the ridge line of a box canyon is weird. The planes performance is so marginal at that altitude. The open seat belt is less baffling. Have you ever tried to open a bear proof garbage can? Twist then push while lifting the right side then....you get the idea. Something was able to open that belt after the crash. That hiker blundered upon some mountain money which lead to Fossett's discovery. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing really know how to make money that can take a licking.

377, I believe he knew the plane had to be depressurized to open the stairs. I also think the level off at 7,000 feet betrayed some misunderstanding about the stairs operation. Unless it was in fact the bulkhead door Cooper was having troubles with. Makes for an additional contradiction. Cooper was told the stairs could not be down for take off. The aft (bulkhead) door most certainly could have been open for those operations. What door was Cooper and Boeing and Northwest dithering over? The bulkhead door or the air stairs door or both? From my hazy recall, at 10,000 feet cabin altitude and night operations may have required the crew to mask up. Not sure though.

Sluggo Monster, No too sure what you are talking about, so I will travel the rarefied path of asking some probative questions. The bulkhead door is in fact part of the pressure vessel with a big ass 'refrigerator' handle to open the thing. If Cooper was having problems with this door I am in fact confused. Was it the bulkhead door Cooper could not open? If so let me apologize for assuming he was having troubles with the stair door release. I cant imagine the air stairs not being able to operate under positive pressure, is that a true statement? The second 'hint' about the GPWS is more vexing. First, Bitching Betty went off on every flight I can recall and was a quick button push away from over ride. Second, was there a GPWS on Cooper's plane? That would have been one of the first systems ever produced. If Cooper was some how using the GPWS he most certainly knew more about this flight then I'm giving credit for. Bad Farflung, Bad...Bad. I've simply never seen a reference to it before since they were not required equipment till the mid 70's. Again, my sincerest apologies for making such a claim. So airstairs are inoperative in a positive pressure environment, is that what you are asserting?

377, Damn, You sooo busted me. See you can use simple logic to smoke out information.

WOW, that is a great video about the WWII jumpers. Just cut one of those guys in half and count the rings of awesome. 377, Gear down for reducing airspeed is from Hollywood rather than a Dash 1. No one does that in real life since the gear down speed limit is around 250 knots. The squat switch is well known to flight crews along with the lack of interlocks on doors and hatches. Imagine surviving a crash only to have a faulty solenoid lock you in the fuselage. Plus the aft stairs had an emergency release system. Pressure differential aside, why level off at 7,000 feet to get the door open? Non sequitur all the way round. The pilot already knew to level at 10,000 plus the immediate area had terrain well above 7,000 feet. Even airmen turn hijacker would have some small sense of self preservation. Cooper did in fact leave the building, no doubt. What I'm not willing to do is give him the Junior Birdman Seal of Approval for aerial operations. He demonstrated nothing more than what Walter Mitty was capable of doing.

If Cooper was well versed in aircraft operations he sure kept it a secret. Why demand the stairs be down at take off if he knew it could be jumped? Why require the gear down? Why ask for that configuration with Mexico City as a destination? Why agree to Phoenix then Reno for fuel? Why have the plane level off to get the stairs to deploy? Keep climbing and have the Co-pilot pressurize for 5000 feet; the differential would have helped deploy the stairs. Why use Tina to pass instructions versus using the inter-phone? Why not ask for position reports be announced over the intercom? If Cooper had experience in aircraft operations, he sure made a difficult situation harder on himself.