snowmman 3
377 22
Quotepage 64 says
14000 feet
ground speed 180 knots
tailwind of 50mph
they say it was barely staying airborne, travelling at 180 groundspeed knots.
Captain Hearn said "Maintaining an altitude of fourteen thousand feet for a plane the size of a Boeing 727 would have been near impossible without that tailwind"
From an experienced pilot who doesn't care to get into the fray here:
See this page for conversions in either direction:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/velocity-units-converter-d_1035.html
Use the info at that site to convert either way.
Airspeed is the aircraft's speed through the air.
Ground speed is speed across the ground considering any wind component. We know the tailwind and ground speed so the Airspeed will be ground speed minus the tailwind component.
In kts: 180-43=137 kts
in mph: 207-50=157 mph
Therefore, the ground speed is 157 mph or 137 kts.
The question becomes "What is the slowest speed at which a 727 will fly?" if we are to evaluate the "correctness" of Capt Hearn.
I found a site which indicates various speeds for the 727-200F which may or not be of some help:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:JiBezeaGCRkJ:www.atlanticsunairways.com/training/checklist_b727f.pdf+727+flaps+down+speed&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a
You can search through that manual for comparative speeds. Notice that landing speed for touch down is 140 KIAS. [knots indicated air speed] Lots of good info for the DBC freaks to drool over.
So...I'd say the 136 airspeed is rather slow but the tailwind business is total nonsense. Who ever wrote that misunderstood something that was said. I can't believe an airline captain would say that.
377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.
snowmman 3
thanks 377. (edit) think you have a typo: your final calc is air speed, you said ground speed. But I got what you mean.
I'm going to read the whole book tonight and I'll see if there's some more details about that.
Obviously I wanted to post it, because I was excited at the "close to first hand, but not quite" nature of the McCoy jump account, and was hoping you real jumpers could sanity check the account.
I thought it felt real, maybe amplified a little by the writer. The writer is not FBI agent. Only one of the two authors was FBI agent. The writer was probation officer, interviewed McCoy..couldn't use the interviews, but then the FBI agent coauthor got transcripts from the McCoy family that was planned for a book project that got canned.
so I THINK the account is relatively firsthand from McCoy.
Will let you know more.
Can you comment on the 20-30 second "blackout" he mentions?
I was wondering if Cooper could have blacked out for the same reasons. Not a real blackout but a mental shutoff as it were?
(read the account back above to see what he actually says)
(edit) Interesting that McCoy had trouble with his rip and had to go to two hands?
I'm going to read the whole book tonight and I'll see if there's some more details about that.
Obviously I wanted to post it, because I was excited at the "close to first hand, but not quite" nature of the McCoy jump account, and was hoping you real jumpers could sanity check the account.
I thought it felt real, maybe amplified a little by the writer. The writer is not FBI agent. Only one of the two authors was FBI agent. The writer was probation officer, interviewed McCoy..couldn't use the interviews, but then the FBI agent coauthor got transcripts from the McCoy family that was planned for a book project that got canned.
so I THINK the account is relatively firsthand from McCoy.
Will let you know more.
Can you comment on the 20-30 second "blackout" he mentions?
I was wondering if Cooper could have blacked out for the same reasons. Not a real blackout but a mental shutoff as it were?
(read the account back above to see what he actually says)
(edit) Interesting that McCoy had trouble with his rip and had to go to two hands?
377 22
Other jumpers should chime in, but the 20-30 second blackout makes no sense to me unless he got into a vicious spin and centrifuged his brain. The spun up suspension lines might be consistent with this.
Also, few planes can launch parachute flares. USAF and USCG HC 130s can.
Magnesium flares aren't red and green, just white.
Few planes have controllable (pan and tilt) searchlights. Navy ASW planes had them (P2V Neptune, S2 Tracker, P3 Orion), SAR helos have them, but that's about it.
377
Also, few planes can launch parachute flares. USAF and USCG HC 130s can.
Magnesium flares aren't red and green, just white.
Few planes have controllable (pan and tilt) searchlights. Navy ASW planes had them (P2V Neptune, S2 Tracker, P3 Orion), SAR helos have them, but that's about it.
377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.
georger 268
Ask your friend if he can shed any light on Bohan, the Continental flight in question, etc...QuoteQuotepage 64 says
14000 feet
ground speed 180 knots
tailwind of 50mph
they say it was barely staying airborne, travelling at 180 groundspeed knots.
Captain Hearn said "Maintaining an altitude of fourteen thousand feet for a plane the size of a Boeing 727 would have been near impossible without that tailwind"
From an experienced pilot who doesn't care to get into the fray here:
See this page for conversions in either direction:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/velocity-units-converter-d_1035.html
Use the info at that site to convert either way.
Airspeed is the aircraft's speed through the air.
Ground speed is speed across the ground considering any wind component. We know the tailwind and ground speed so the Airspeed will be ground speed minus the tailwind component.
In kts: 180-43=137 kts
in mph: 207-50=157 mph
Therefore, the ground speed is 157 mph or 137 kts.
The question becomes "What is the slowest speed at which a 727 will fly?" if we are to evaluate the "correctness" of Capt Hearn.
I found a site which indicates various speeds for the 727-200F which may or not be of some help:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:JiBezeaGCRkJ:www.atlanticsunairways.com/training/checklist_b727f.pdf+727+flaps+down+speed&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a
You can search through that manual for comparative speeds. Notice that landing speed for touch down is 140 KIAS. [knots indicated air speed] Lots of good info for the DBC freaks to drool over.
So...I'd say the 136 airspeed is rather slow but the tailwind business is total nonsense. Who ever wrote that misunderstood something that was said. I can't believe an airline captain would say that.
377
Thanks for the welcome, Georger, Snow, Sluggo, 377, et. al.
As for proving the existence of Capt. Bohan and his Continental flight, and whether his report of winds at 80 knots from 166 degrees is accurate, my focus is on the other side of the coin, namely, are Himmelsbach’s commentaries, in general, reliable?
Along those same lines, are Calame and Rhodes also reporting accurately? Is their description of the Himmelsbach – Capt. Scott chat about Woodburn correct? Ascertaining who is sharing reliable information is my first task. Yes, proving the wind direction and velocity would go a long ways to doing just that, but right now I’m taking a broader approach.
So, do I trust these two retired FBI agents, Himmelsbach and Calame? Yes. I give Himmelsbach, and Calame and Rhodes high marks for accuracy based on what I’ve read. Their work appears substantive, consistent and detailed, and it rings true to me, which is of course absolutely subjective on my part.
However, Calame got his skyjacker, which gives him enormous credibility in my view. Plus, his FBI team in Salt Lake City did a superb job finding McCoy’s whereabouts on Nov. 24, 1971. In addition, Calame’s subsequent efforts to determine the Cooper-McCoy connection are praiseworthy in my judgment.
As for the Ron and Pat Forman story, here’s my account of the central themes of their book: “The Legend of DB Cooper – Death by Natural Causes.”
In 1977, they met and befriended a woman named Barb Dayton, a fellow Cessna 140 pilot at Thun Field, just outside of Tacoma. After a year or so of flying together every weekend, Barb told them that she used to be Bobby Dayton, having received the first sex-change operation in Washington state in 1969.
Once the Formans recovered from that shock, Barb then told them that she was Dan Cooper, and began sharing the nitty-gritty of why and how she did the skyjacking.
Obviously, Barb reverted to her old persona of Bobby to do the job.
She survived the jump because she dove nine minutes after the pressure bump, landing in a hazelnut grove in Woodburn, Oregon. Barb says she triggered the pressure bump by descending to the bottom step to ascertain where Portland was by judging the glare of city lights in the clouds. Once she did that, she climbed back up, waited the nine minutes, confirmed her position by seeing the strobes of Aurora State Airport, and then jumped from near the top step. She knew the Mexico City destination would put her on Victor 23 and over Woodburn.
On the ground, she stashed the loot in an irrigation cistern that she knew about from having worked there as a young man. She donned her wig, put on woman’s clothing and returned to her life as a gal.
The Formans says that Barb did the skyjacking for therapeutic reasons, not the money. The sex-change operation hadn’t gone well. It had been very painful physically, and psychologically it had been a bust. As a result, she was suicidal, depressed, and broke; so she did the skyjacking as a way to re-build self-worth.
As therapy, the heist worked, because Barb was hired as a research librarian at the UW in Seattle one month after the hijacking.
In 1980, Barb said she had a dream in which the ink from the twenties was “floating away” so she retrieved the money and buried $5,800 at Tena’s Bar to “keep the story going.” Other than that, she never spent a dime of the ransom.
Barb’s profile fits many of the primary DB Cooper characteristics. Loner, desperate, knowledgeable pilot and parachutist. Rugged outdoorsman, and many years in and around the PNW. Bourbon, Raleigh’s, wore only loafers. Plus, she had been an explosive expert for logging and mining companies. She had a stint in the Army, many years in the Merchant Marine on ammunition ships, and she even fought for a time with the Moro tribesmen against the Japanese in the Philippines during WWII. During a gold prospecting trip, she spent eight days without food in the Yukon being chased by a grizzly.
As a pilot, she was fearless to the point of reckless. She had no real friends or family outside of her flying community. She spent Christmas Day sitting in her car next to her Cessna at Thun Field, refusing any and all invitations. Ron used to bring her a plate from his family’s table.
She gave her Cooper confession to a number of Thun pilots when she thought the statute of limitations had expired, but when she found they hadn’t, she recanted her story. Polaroids of her dressed as DB were so uncannily matched to the FBI composite sketch that one of her fellow pilots freaked out when he saw one, and tore it up so the feds wouldn’t think he was an accomplish by not turning her in.
Barb took her secrets and the whereabouts of the money to her grave in 2002 when she died of natural causes – pulmonary and cardiac – out in the deserts of Nevada.
Since then, the Formans have been on an epic quest to prove their friend was telling them the truth. All the wild stories of her life check out except for Cooper, and for that they need the FBI to match Barb’s DNA to the Cooper samples.
As far as I know, the feds haven’t done that, and it’s at this point that I entered the game.
I’ll ask Ron and Pat to join this conversation. I’m sure they’ll have a lot more to add about Barb Dayton.
As for proving the existence of Capt. Bohan and his Continental flight, and whether his report of winds at 80 knots from 166 degrees is accurate, my focus is on the other side of the coin, namely, are Himmelsbach’s commentaries, in general, reliable?
Along those same lines, are Calame and Rhodes also reporting accurately? Is their description of the Himmelsbach – Capt. Scott chat about Woodburn correct? Ascertaining who is sharing reliable information is my first task. Yes, proving the wind direction and velocity would go a long ways to doing just that, but right now I’m taking a broader approach.
So, do I trust these two retired FBI agents, Himmelsbach and Calame? Yes. I give Himmelsbach, and Calame and Rhodes high marks for accuracy based on what I’ve read. Their work appears substantive, consistent and detailed, and it rings true to me, which is of course absolutely subjective on my part.
However, Calame got his skyjacker, which gives him enormous credibility in my view. Plus, his FBI team in Salt Lake City did a superb job finding McCoy’s whereabouts on Nov. 24, 1971. In addition, Calame’s subsequent efforts to determine the Cooper-McCoy connection are praiseworthy in my judgment.
As for the Ron and Pat Forman story, here’s my account of the central themes of their book: “The Legend of DB Cooper – Death by Natural Causes.”
In 1977, they met and befriended a woman named Barb Dayton, a fellow Cessna 140 pilot at Thun Field, just outside of Tacoma. After a year or so of flying together every weekend, Barb told them that she used to be Bobby Dayton, having received the first sex-change operation in Washington state in 1969.
Once the Formans recovered from that shock, Barb then told them that she was Dan Cooper, and began sharing the nitty-gritty of why and how she did the skyjacking.
Obviously, Barb reverted to her old persona of Bobby to do the job.
She survived the jump because she dove nine minutes after the pressure bump, landing in a hazelnut grove in Woodburn, Oregon. Barb says she triggered the pressure bump by descending to the bottom step to ascertain where Portland was by judging the glare of city lights in the clouds. Once she did that, she climbed back up, waited the nine minutes, confirmed her position by seeing the strobes of Aurora State Airport, and then jumped from near the top step. She knew the Mexico City destination would put her on Victor 23 and over Woodburn.
On the ground, she stashed the loot in an irrigation cistern that she knew about from having worked there as a young man. She donned her wig, put on woman’s clothing and returned to her life as a gal.
The Formans says that Barb did the skyjacking for therapeutic reasons, not the money. The sex-change operation hadn’t gone well. It had been very painful physically, and psychologically it had been a bust. As a result, she was suicidal, depressed, and broke; so she did the skyjacking as a way to re-build self-worth.
As therapy, the heist worked, because Barb was hired as a research librarian at the UW in Seattle one month after the hijacking.
In 1980, Barb said she had a dream in which the ink from the twenties was “floating away” so she retrieved the money and buried $5,800 at Tena’s Bar to “keep the story going.” Other than that, she never spent a dime of the ransom.
Barb’s profile fits many of the primary DB Cooper characteristics. Loner, desperate, knowledgeable pilot and parachutist. Rugged outdoorsman, and many years in and around the PNW. Bourbon, Raleigh’s, wore only loafers. Plus, she had been an explosive expert for logging and mining companies. She had a stint in the Army, many years in the Merchant Marine on ammunition ships, and she even fought for a time with the Moro tribesmen against the Japanese in the Philippines during WWII. During a gold prospecting trip, she spent eight days without food in the Yukon being chased by a grizzly.
As a pilot, she was fearless to the point of reckless. She had no real friends or family outside of her flying community. She spent Christmas Day sitting in her car next to her Cessna at Thun Field, refusing any and all invitations. Ron used to bring her a plate from his family’s table.
She gave her Cooper confession to a number of Thun pilots when she thought the statute of limitations had expired, but when she found they hadn’t, she recanted her story. Polaroids of her dressed as DB were so uncannily matched to the FBI composite sketch that one of her fellow pilots freaked out when he saw one, and tore it up so the feds wouldn’t think he was an accomplish by not turning her in.
Barb took her secrets and the whereabouts of the money to her grave in 2002 when she died of natural causes – pulmonary and cardiac – out in the deserts of Nevada.
Since then, the Formans have been on an epic quest to prove their friend was telling them the truth. All the wild stories of her life check out except for Cooper, and for that they need the FBI to match Barb’s DNA to the Cooper samples.
As far as I know, the feds haven’t done that, and it’s at this point that I entered the game.
I’ll ask Ron and Pat to join this conversation. I’m sure they’ll have a lot more to add about Barb Dayton.
snowmman 3
My speculation is that it's going to be some pollutant that shows up in dredging spoils in the Columbia. Not implicating the dredge, but the dredging spoils leach pollutants
Which is why they restrict where you can dump them along the Columba (along with the salmon spawning issues)
Tom should get an assay from dredging spoils, all the way down to PDX (remember I noted long term pollution from what was it, the Alcoa plan on the Vancouver side if I remember right?)
But that'll be it. Some kind of pollutant.
(edit) I'm still betting it'll relate to the purple coloration and maybe bleaching on the backs, but who knows. I don't think the purple is mildew or biological? Just guessing.
Which is why they restrict where you can dump them along the Columba (along with the salmon spawning issues)
Tom should get an assay from dredging spoils, all the way down to PDX (remember I noted long term pollution from what was it, the Alcoa plan on the Vancouver side if I remember right?)
But that'll be it. Some kind of pollutant.
(edit) I'm still betting it'll relate to the purple coloration and maybe bleaching on the backs, but who knows. I don't think the purple is mildew or biological? Just guessing.
377 22
QuoteInteresting that McCoy had trouble with his rip and had to go to two hands?
I noticed that too. Maybe the FBI has secret packing instructions for skyjack chutes. Cossey is just covering up when he says he wasn't there at the loft. They can't pack a bent pin impossible pull, too much like an execution... but a hard hard pull? No problem.
Having experienced a hard hard pull on a surplus rig, I can tell you it gets your adrenaline going BIG TIME. At night, tumbling out of a fast jet? Terrifying.
377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.
snowmman 3
Thanks Bruce.
Your summary actually makes her a good match for all the people who claim to be DB Cooper! So the profile fits in that regard.
"As therapy, the heist worked, because Barb was hired as a research librarian at the UW in Seattle one month after the hijacking."
People never highlight the things that don't make sense in their suspects. I do though.
At least she wasn't an insurance agent, but close!
So: what happened to the rest of the money?
Your summary actually makes her a good match for all the people who claim to be DB Cooper! So the profile fits in that regard.
"As therapy, the heist worked, because Barb was hired as a research librarian at the UW in Seattle one month after the hijacking."
People never highlight the things that don't make sense in their suspects. I do though.
At least she wasn't an insurance agent, but close!
So: what happened to the rest of the money?
snowmman 3
QuoteQuoteInteresting that McCoy had trouble with his rip and had to go to two hands?
I noticed that too. Maybe the FBI has secret packing instructions for skyjack chutes. Cossey is just covering up when he says he wasn't there at the loft. They can't pack a bent pin impossible pull, too much like an execution... but a hard hard pull? No problem.
Having experienced a hard hard pull on a surplus rig, I can tell you it gets your adrenaline going BIG TIME. At night, tumbling out of a fast jet? Terrifying.
377
Yeah, that's why the account felt real, based on the things you guys have described. It was like all these little details were burnt into McCoy's brain.
I liked the detail about the little penlight he remembered to bring. But that could have been a problem. Probably lucky for him the cord deattached, and he had to search for the penlight.
he sure thought about the hijack a lot. Kind of obsessive. The wife-Richard relationship was very strange. They planned it together. She actually harassed him about the hijack saying he wouldn't go thru with it, on the way to the airport to drop him off, talking about divorce and the kids and how he wasted her money on tickets, gun etc.
Fuck. It's reading like he did the damn hijack because of the screaming bitch. She never got charged as accessory? Surprising from this account.
There were some serious family background issues for Richard. Like his father was off in Belgium for two years when he was born. (another guy was his dad).
snowmman 3
more video of Tom Kaye here! when can we see him naked! Porn stars would out Cooper..
He's in the Seattle FBI room! They've tricked him and now he's locked up! Need jumpers to land on the roof and get thru the vents to bust him out...
Plus: is it metal on the bills? Alan Stone, metallurgist, comments
They found the manufacturer of the rubber bands.
http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/washington/stories/NW_030509WAB-db-cooper-tale-KC.9602434.html
the large video is here:
http://www.nwcn.com/video/index.html?nvid=338993
1:03 PM PST on Thursday, March 5, 2009
By JIM FORMAN / KING 5 News
Huddled around rarely seen evidence spread out across the briefing room of the Seattle F.B.I. office, researchers say a new theory is emerging in the D.B. Cooper case.
"Well in D.B. Cooper, there was a fairly recent surprise," said Chicago metallurgist Alan Stone. Stone is referring to bits of metal found on some of the physical evidence from the 1971 hijacking, the only unsolved crime of its kind in U.S. history.
...
Enter the rubber bands. "We were able to find the original manufacturer of the rubber bands," explains Tom Kaye of Seattle’s Burke Museum. A paleontologist by trade, Kaye says there is no way the rubber bands, which held the money together, could have been in the water long enough to wind downstream.
"They told us that rubber bands only last in the wild 3 or 4 months at the most," Burke adds. "So this is in conflict with the idea that they would be rolling down the river for seven years," begging the question was the money there all along? Burke’s answer a simple, "maybe."
(edit) notice the typo in the article Burke=Kaye
He's in the Seattle FBI room! They've tricked him and now he's locked up! Need jumpers to land on the roof and get thru the vents to bust him out...
Plus: is it metal on the bills? Alan Stone, metallurgist, comments
They found the manufacturer of the rubber bands.
http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/washington/stories/NW_030509WAB-db-cooper-tale-KC.9602434.html
the large video is here:
http://www.nwcn.com/video/index.html?nvid=338993
1:03 PM PST on Thursday, March 5, 2009
By JIM FORMAN / KING 5 News
Huddled around rarely seen evidence spread out across the briefing room of the Seattle F.B.I. office, researchers say a new theory is emerging in the D.B. Cooper case.
"Well in D.B. Cooper, there was a fairly recent surprise," said Chicago metallurgist Alan Stone. Stone is referring to bits of metal found on some of the physical evidence from the 1971 hijacking, the only unsolved crime of its kind in U.S. history.
...
Enter the rubber bands. "We were able to find the original manufacturer of the rubber bands," explains Tom Kaye of Seattle’s Burke Museum. A paleontologist by trade, Kaye says there is no way the rubber bands, which held the money together, could have been in the water long enough to wind downstream.
"They told us that rubber bands only last in the wild 3 or 4 months at the most," Burke adds. "So this is in conflict with the idea that they would be rolling down the river for seven years," begging the question was the money there all along? Burke’s answer a simple, "maybe."
(edit) notice the typo in the article Burke=Kaye
snowmman 3
I like getting snaps because you can stare at it and see if there's any background info or detail that's new.
There are a number of things that are interesting in these snaps, but only for minor reasons.
I won't comment but will just post them here for the sake of reference. Just from the King5 vid link I posted.
There are a number of things that are interesting in these snaps, but only for minor reasons.
I won't comment but will just post them here for the sake of reference. Just from the King5 vid link I posted.
snowmman 3
more
snowmman 3
I always wondered if the tractor/backhoe used at the money dig was Fazio's.
There are color photos here, which are great.
See, I knew Ckret always had to have more data he wasn't showing us!
The green/yellow is strong indicator it was a John Deere.
Plus I like that you can see more of the trenches. This trench on the left spans the beach in the long direction from treeline to water, but I think there was another trench also.
(edit) blew up one of the new money snaps. This is a new photo we've not seen before. It sure looks like it's from 1980? They are bundles? and you can see bill crumbs and the layout is similar ot the green table shots from 1980 we've seen before?
(edit) added another awesome money shot
There are color photos here, which are great.
See, I knew Ckret always had to have more data he wasn't showing us!
The green/yellow is strong indicator it was a John Deere.
Plus I like that you can see more of the trenches. This trench on the left spans the beach in the long direction from treeline to water, but I think there was another trench also.
(edit) blew up one of the new money snaps. This is a new photo we've not seen before. It sure looks like it's from 1980? They are bundles? and you can see bill crumbs and the layout is similar ot the green table shots from 1980 we've seen before?
(edit) added another awesome money shot
georger 268
QuoteThanks for the welcome, Georger, Snow, Sluggo, 377, et. al.
As for proving the existence of Capt. Bohan and his Continental flight, and whether his report of winds at 80 knots from 166 degrees is accurate, my focus is on the other side of the coin, namely, are Himmelsbach’s commentaries, in general, reliable?
Along those same lines, are Calame and Rhodes also reporting accurately? Is their description of the Himmelsbach – Capt. Scott chat about Woodburn correct? Ascertaining who is sharing reliable information is my first task. Yes, proving the wind direction and velocity would go a long ways to doing just that, but right now I’m taking a broader approach.
So, do I trust these two retired FBI agents, Himmelsbach and Calame? Yes. I give Himmelsbach, and Calame and Rhodes high marks for accuracy based on what I’ve read. Their work appears substantive, consistent and detailed, and it rings true to me, which is of course absolutely subjective on my part.
However, Calame got his skyjacker, which gives him enormous credibility in my view. Plus, his FBI team in Salt Lake City did a superb job finding McCoy’s whereabouts on Nov. 24, 1971. In addition, Calame’s subsequent efforts to determine the Cooper-McCoy connection are praiseworthy in my judgment.
As for the Ron and Pat Forman story, here’s my account of the central themes of their book: “The Legend of DB Cooper – Death by Natural Causes.”
In 1977, they met and befriended a woman named Barb Dayton, a fellow Cessna 140 pilot at Thun Field, just outside of Tacoma. After a year or so of flying together every weekend, Barb told them that she used to be Bobby Dayton, having received the first sex-change operation in Washington state in 1969.
Once the Formans recovered from that shock, Barb then told them that she was Dan Cooper, and began sharing the nitty-gritty of why and how she did the skyjacking.
Obviously, Barb reverted to her old persona of Bobby to do the job.
She survived the jump because she dove nine minutes after the pressure bump, landing in a hazelnut grove in Woodburn, Oregon. Barb says she triggered the pressure bump by descending to the bottom step to ascertain where Portland was by judging the glare of city lights in the clouds. Once she did that, she climbed back up, waited the nine minutes, confirmed her position by seeing the strobes of Aurora State Airport, and then jumped from near the top step. She knew the Mexico City destination would put her on Victor 23 and over Woodburn.
On the ground, she stashed the loot in an irrigation cistern that she knew about from having worked there as a young man. She donned her wig, put on woman’s clothing and returned to her life as a gal.
The Formans says that Barb did the skyjacking for therapeutic reasons, not the money. The sex-change operation hadn’t gone well. It had been very painful physically, and psychologically it had been a bust. As a result, she was suicidal, depressed, and broke; so she did the skyjacking as a way to re-build self-worth.
As therapy, the heist worked, because Barb was hired as a research librarian at the UW in Seattle one month after the hijacking.
In 1980, Barb said she had a dream in which the ink from the twenties was “floating away” so she retrieved the money and buried $5,800 at Tena’s Bar to “keep the story going.” Other than that, she never spent a dime of the ransom.
Barb’s profile fits many of the primary DB Cooper characteristics. Loner, desperate, knowledgeable pilot and parachutist. Rugged outdoorsman, and many years in and around the PNW. Bourbon, Raleigh’s, wore only loafers. Plus, she had been an explosive expert for logging and mining companies. She had a stint in the Army, many years in the Merchant Marine on ammunition ships, and she even fought for a time with the Moro tribesmen against the Japanese in the Philippines during WWII. During a gold prospecting trip, she spent eight days without food in the Yukon being chased by a grizzly.
As a pilot, she was fearless to the point of reckless. She had no real friends or family outside of her flying community. She spent Christmas Day sitting in her car next to her Cessna at Thun Field, refusing any and all invitations. Ron used to bring her a plate from his family’s table.
She gave her Cooper confession to a number of Thun pilots when she thought the statute of limitations had expired, but when she found they hadn’t, she recanted her story. Polaroids of her dressed as DB were so uncannily matched to the FBI composite sketch that one of her fellow pilots freaked out when he saw one, and tore it up so the feds wouldn’t think he was an accomplish by not turning her in.
Barb took her secrets and the whereabouts of the money to her grave in 2002 when she died of natural causes – pulmonary and cardiac – out in the deserts of Nevada.
Since then, the Formans have been on an epic quest to prove their friend was telling them the truth. All the wild stories of her life check out except for Cooper, and for that they need the FBI to match Barb’s DNA to the Cooper samples.
As far as I know, the feds haven’t done that, and it’s at this point that I entered the game.
I’ll ask Ron and Pat to join this conversation. I’m sure they’ll have a lot more to add about Barb Dayton.
so many confessors - so little time!
snowmman 3
"During a gold prospecting trip, she spent eight days without food in the Yukon being chased by a grizzly. "
Griz don't chase you for eight days. If they're chasing you, they get you.
Hey I knew my talking about gold was relevant.
How can a journalist post something like the sentence above and expect people to believe it.
My newspaper subscription stays cancelled. 377: you were wrong.
Griz don't chase you for eight days. If they're chasing you, they get you.
Hey I knew my talking about gold was relevant.
How can a journalist post something like the sentence above and expect people to believe it.
My newspaper subscription stays cancelled. 377: you were wrong.
snowmman 3
I'm reading the Dayton book.
I've read a lot of these Cooper books.
I don't have any sympathy for these people who wrote this book. I think they took advantage of this person while dead.
In short, it's the classic example of relatively trivial events, documented by people who are easily impressed.
That's blunt, but it's the truth.
Just because you can fly an airplane, doesn't mean much. Get over it. The authors are good examples of this. Honestly, if the authors are entrusted with making decisions about flying pieces of metal over my head, I'm afraid.
There are many little trival stories about Barb. Some percentage of them are probably true.
It's sad that people do this kind of thing to dead people.
Barb also claimed the dynamite was real. Two five pound charges and a six volt battery. Detonator in her pocket. Switch was a staple remover with wires soldered to it.
These guys are trying to make money off another person's life story. Which has nothing to do with Cooper.
Sadder than Jo.
I can't even take reading it.
I've read a lot of these Cooper books.
I don't have any sympathy for these people who wrote this book. I think they took advantage of this person while dead.
In short, it's the classic example of relatively trivial events, documented by people who are easily impressed.
That's blunt, but it's the truth.
Just because you can fly an airplane, doesn't mean much. Get over it. The authors are good examples of this. Honestly, if the authors are entrusted with making decisions about flying pieces of metal over my head, I'm afraid.
There are many little trival stories about Barb. Some percentage of them are probably true.
It's sad that people do this kind of thing to dead people.
Barb also claimed the dynamite was real. Two five pound charges and a six volt battery. Detonator in her pocket. Switch was a staple remover with wires soldered to it.
These guys are trying to make money off another person's life story. Which has nothing to do with Cooper.
Sadder than Jo.
I can't even take reading it.
snowmman 3
Okay it's complicated but I'll summarize.
His note asked for "FOUR COMMANDER PARCHUTES WITH STOP WATCH AND WRIST ALTIMETER-GET THEM FROM PERRY STEVENS EQUIPMENT COMPANY IN OAKLAND"
The rigger, Perry Stevens, knew from the detail that the hijacker must be a jumper. Used two sports packs with orange and white panels. With sleeves. Two white reserves. Two Northstar altimeters on black velcro wristbands.
FBI gave him transmitters for all 4, he sealed up each chute and recorded serial numbers.
McCoy brought two parachutes on board with him.
His own, with which he had made maybe thirty or forty jumps. Got it from luggage in San Francisco. Intended to use as main.
The other was borrowed from Larry Patterson. Small sport chute. It had an altimeter on it (I think this was a deployment device?).
Two weeks earlier, "I took it and the alitmeter up in a National Guard plane and preset it at thirty-five hundred feet, just in case I bumped my head on the tail section, blacked out, or just flat fell apart at the last minute."
"But like I said, a lot of things went wrong that day that I didn't expect. During our climb out of San Francisco, the empty plane lifted up with such ease and pitch - and I still don't understand it now- but somehow it must have triggered the preset altimeter and Patterson's chute suddenly pops open in the plane. Maybe at thirty-five hundred feet. I don't know. It almost knocked one of the stewardesses out of her seat. Anway, I tried to repack it by stuffing it back in the sleeve, but I was ripping my fingernails until they cracked and bled, and by that time it was getting too late anyway. I had no choice. I had to use of the Perry Stevens chutes as a backup because of the load I had to jump with. It didn't look as though the seal had been broken, so I grabbed one and thought, 'What the heck. Maybe the FBI hadn't had time to bug all four of them. Maybe none of them' The chute Richard McCoy was about to jump with was number 171, and it was bugged just like the others.
...
"About fifteen minutes east of Wilson Creek, Nevada, he uncranked the rear stairs and booted it (ed. a large duffel containing everything he didn't want any more) out along with one of Perry Steven's chutes."
So that's how the story of him kicking out the bugged chutes (actually just one?) happened. And how he happened to end up jumping with a bugged chute.
The note about how many jumps he had on his own gear (30-40) seems to coincide with the time period he had started freefalling.
Like I said, it sure seems like you guys would call him "novice".
His note asked for "FOUR COMMANDER PARCHUTES WITH STOP WATCH AND WRIST ALTIMETER-GET THEM FROM PERRY STEVENS EQUIPMENT COMPANY IN OAKLAND"
The rigger, Perry Stevens, knew from the detail that the hijacker must be a jumper. Used two sports packs with orange and white panels. With sleeves. Two white reserves. Two Northstar altimeters on black velcro wristbands.
FBI gave him transmitters for all 4, he sealed up each chute and recorded serial numbers.
McCoy brought two parachutes on board with him.
His own, with which he had made maybe thirty or forty jumps. Got it from luggage in San Francisco. Intended to use as main.
The other was borrowed from Larry Patterson. Small sport chute. It had an altimeter on it (I think this was a deployment device?).
Two weeks earlier, "I took it and the alitmeter up in a National Guard plane and preset it at thirty-five hundred feet, just in case I bumped my head on the tail section, blacked out, or just flat fell apart at the last minute."
"But like I said, a lot of things went wrong that day that I didn't expect. During our climb out of San Francisco, the empty plane lifted up with such ease and pitch - and I still don't understand it now- but somehow it must have triggered the preset altimeter and Patterson's chute suddenly pops open in the plane. Maybe at thirty-five hundred feet. I don't know. It almost knocked one of the stewardesses out of her seat. Anway, I tried to repack it by stuffing it back in the sleeve, but I was ripping my fingernails until they cracked and bled, and by that time it was getting too late anyway. I had no choice. I had to use of the Perry Stevens chutes as a backup because of the load I had to jump with. It didn't look as though the seal had been broken, so I grabbed one and thought, 'What the heck. Maybe the FBI hadn't had time to bug all four of them. Maybe none of them' The chute Richard McCoy was about to jump with was number 171, and it was bugged just like the others.
...
"About fifteen minutes east of Wilson Creek, Nevada, he uncranked the rear stairs and booted it (ed. a large duffel containing everything he didn't want any more) out along with one of Perry Steven's chutes."
So that's how the story of him kicking out the bugged chutes (actually just one?) happened. And how he happened to end up jumping with a bugged chute.
The note about how many jumps he had on his own gear (30-40) seems to coincide with the time period he had started freefalling.
Like I said, it sure seems like you guys would call him "novice".
snowmman 3
page 119
Van Ieperen was the buddy that suspected McCoy (basically tipped on him)
From FBI interview by Jim Thiesen of Robert Van Ieperen:
"Van Ieperen stated McCoy made his first free-fall parachute jump in October, 1971, while on a flight with Van Ieperen. He stated McCoy has made numerous military-type jumps and immediately following his first free-fall jump he began practicing jumps with the Alta Parachute Club in Salt Lake City, Utah"
Van Ieperen was a jumper. I didn't know that. Must have been tough. Jumper turning in his buddy a jumper.
Van Ieperen worked dispatch for Highway Patrol
Vietnam vet. Good friend of Richard.
Flew helicopters with Richard for Utah National Guard.
Weekends, when they had the money they both parachuted together at the Alta Parachute Club.
Van Ieperen was the buddy that suspected McCoy (basically tipped on him)
From FBI interview by Jim Thiesen of Robert Van Ieperen:
"Van Ieperen stated McCoy made his first free-fall parachute jump in October, 1971, while on a flight with Van Ieperen. He stated McCoy has made numerous military-type jumps and immediately following his first free-fall jump he began practicing jumps with the Alta Parachute Club in Salt Lake City, Utah"
Van Ieperen was a jumper. I didn't know that. Must have been tough. Jumper turning in his buddy a jumper.
Van Ieperen worked dispatch for Highway Patrol
Vietnam vet. Good friend of Richard.
Flew helicopters with Richard for Utah National Guard.
Weekends, when they had the money they both parachuted together at the Alta Parachute Club.
Orange1 0
QuoteMcCoy had static-lined as a paratrooper.
(edit) So to be fair, he had jumped before Oct. 1971, just not freefall (evidently). I'm still digesting the book.
I have to read to see if maybe some of the night jumps were from static line?
If he was military good chance they were. Most likely at ridiculously low altitudes and laden down with equipment, too. give me a freefall from 10K rather than a SL at 800' any day (or night
)
to add to a couple more things re 377 said:
- agree re blackout
- and re hard pull, heck i've had one in the middle of the day and it's still pretty frightening... even knowing that you have a reserve if you need it.
and to Sluggo - thanks for the agent H feedback. Weather reports interesting, it had almost become accepted in this forum i think that the weather was actually not too bad?
sorry for bunching all in one post
Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.
377 22
QuoteOkay it's complicated but I'll summarize.
His note asked for "FOUR COMMANDER PARCHUTES WITH STOP WATCH AND WRIST ALTIMETER-GET THEM FROM PERRY STEVENS EQUIPMENT COMPANY IN OAKLAND"
The rigger, Perry Stevens, knew from the detail that the hijacker must be a jumper. Used two sports packs with orange and white panels. With sleeves. Two white reserves. Two Northstar altimeters on black velcro wristbands.
FBI gave him transmitters for all 4, he sealed up each chute and recorded serial numbers.
McCoy brought two parachutes on board with him.
His own, with which he had made maybe thirty or forty jumps. Got it from luggage in San Francisco. Intended to use as main.
The other was borrowed from Larry Patterson. Small sport chute. It had an altimeter on it (I think this was a deployment device?).
Two weeks earlier, "I took it and the alitmeter up in a National Guard plane and preset it at thirty-five hundred feet, just in case I bumped my head on the tail section, blacked out, or just flat fell apart at the last minute."
"But like I said, a lot of things went wrong that day that I didn't expect. During our climb out of San Francisco, the empty plane lifted up with such ease and pitch - and I still don't understand it now- but somehow it must have triggered the preset altimeter and Patterson's chute suddenly pops open in the plane. Maybe at thirty-five hundred feet. I don't know. It almost knocked one of the stewardesses out of her seat. Anway, I tried to repack it by stuffing it back in the sleeve, but I was ripping my fingernails until they cracked and bled, and by that time it was getting too late anyway. I had no choice. I had to use of the Perry Stevens chutes as a backup because of the load I had to jump with. It didn't look as though the seal had been broken, so I grabbed one and thought, 'What the heck. Maybe the FBI hadn't had time to bug all four of them. Maybe none of them' The chute Richard McCoy was about to jump with was number 171, and it was bugged just like the others.
...
"About fifteen minutes east of Wilson Creek, Nevada, he uncranked the rear stairs and booted it (ed. a large duffel containing everything he didn't want any more) out along with one of Perry Steven's chutes."
So that's how the story of him kicking out the bugged chutes (actually just one?) happened. And how he happened to end up jumping with a bugged chute.
The note about how many jumps he had on his own gear (30-40) seems to coincide with the time period he had started freefalling.
Like I said, it sure seems like you guys would call him "novice".
WOW! Perry Stevens taught me how to skydive.
Starting around age 11, I began taking public transit to the Oakland Airport North Field which still had a bunch of semi derelict propliners sitting on the tarmac well into the 1960s. I just liked looking at the old planes and hanging out. There was lots to see back then before 9-11 security concerns made hanging out at airports nearly impossible. The unfenced fire dump had a Lockheed Connie carcass and you could walk around inside it. Radial engines were often tested on an outside test stand with earsplitting noise and flaming exhausts. A contractor was overhauling T 33 jets for the USAF and the work was done right next to the fence. Once a guard let me inside the fence to peek inside an old Transocean Stratocruiser (my favorite derelict) that had been sitting unused for years. The seats had been removed but otherwise it appeared complete and almost ready to fly. It appeared that the old Strat was getting some mechanical attention that day. Perhaps my optimistic outlook was skewing the picture and I was really just witnessing a pre-scrapping inspection. The plane seemed like a living thing to me and I dearly hoped that it would not be slaughtered. I always wondered what happened to that beautiful plane. Not even one Stratocruiser survives today so it was either scrapped or perhaps converted into a Guppy (oversized cargo plane based on a Strat airframe) giving it a few more years of flight.
I was born to jump. I started making parachutes out of my Mom's scarves and launching my toy soldiers at age 4. By age 7, I was making chutes out of bedsheets and clothesline and jumping off our garage. At age 12 my family stopped at a DZ in Calistoga CA. I had never seen skydiving before. I was HOOKED! The jumpers were nice to me and tolerated endless "kid" questions about their gear, training and freefall. After about 30 minutes my parents and three brothers grew tired of the DZ and wanted to leave. I BEGGED them to stay and got another hour of hanging out with real skydivers. One of them told me that I should be patient, wait until I was 18 and then come back and jump with them.
As soon as I turned 18 I set out to be a real skydive. I started my skydiving ground school classes at the Oakland airport at Stevens Paraloft in 1968. Perry Stevens was a great teacher who emphasized safety and cautioned against taking unnecessary risks. He gave our class case studies of skydiving fatalities and drilled into us how each could have been prevented. He suspended us in a harness and projected slides on the ceiling showing various canopy problems. He would spin us, shake us and yell at us calling out descending altitude numbers and telling us that we'd be dead in ten seconds unless we made the right decisions and acted on them immediately. We cutaway and fell onto a pile of foam sheets and were critiqued. He would try to trick us into hesitating, into cutting away from good canopies and correct us until we all did it right every time. He actually kicked one girl out because she could not do it right. She would cutaway OK and then forget to pull the reserve time after time. He said if you can't be certain you can handle a malfunction on your very first jump, you don't jump. Some instructors today might not be so harsh.
When I faced my first canopy malfunction, Perry's training paid off. Everything he taught popped back into my head fueled by massive adrenaline flow and fear. It is scary looking up, expecting to see an open canopy and seeing a mess. You know that in ten seconds you will be dead unless you intervene and do what was back then a fairly complex sequence of hardware activations (Capewell cutaway). You had to do each step correctly and do them in the right sequence. Even under extreme stress I thankfully made all the right decisions and made them quickly. I survived my first skydiving emergency because of Perry's excellent training. Nobody trains newbies for emergencies like he did and I bet some fatalities could have been prevented had his training been the norm.
Perry's training saved my life. I am forever indebted to him.
377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.
Yes. I think it was worth posting. Is this a trick
question?
It isnt so much that the FBI is holding back or that
Ckret was holding back so much as, nobody knows -
that is the central truth in the Cooper saga.
The missing link is the gap in basic facts that
simply were not obtainable to failed to be collected
at the time, for a million different reasons.
Cooper literally hijacked this aircraft at a very
bad time when people and systems were down
and the weather favoured Cooper. It is as simple
as that. Otherwise it would have turned out
differently and we wouldnt even be discussing it.
Agree.
If Tom Kaye is reading this: when you go into the vault, try to see if there's anything describing the note. We have no idea of what's correct there.
Imagine if it was a greeting card envelope. My mind reels. People buy greeting cards when they have friends!
I know, cause I never buy any!