FLYJACK 776 #65851 14 hours ago (edited) 9 hours ago, dudeman17 said: What is the timeline on this? When (what year) was Gunther contacted by 'Cooper'? According to Clara, when did Cooper die? Have you read the book? Gunther was initially contacted by somebody claiming to be Cooper in February 1972. He suddenly disappeared a few months later. 10 years later Gunther is contacted by a woman "Clara"... She claimed Cooper died early 1982.. Gunther wrote a letter to the FBI in 1982 about a contact "Clara" and asked if they were interested.. Edited 13 hours ago by FLYJACK Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robert99 62 #65852 13 hours ago (edited) 10 hours ago, olemisscub said: good info. Then I wonder why they decided to level off at 7000 once he called to the cockpit. Maybe to give him more stable footing or something? They were probably already in the neighborhood of 7000 feet when they decided to level off. There is nothing magic about the altitude here. They may have wanted to slow down a bit or whatever. But it was probably mainly just to show Cooper that they were trying to help him with the stairs. Edited 12 hours ago by Robert99 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CooperNWO305 159 #65853 13 hours ago 10 hours ago, olemisscub said: Max or someone associated with his book efforts. It would be a crime to pull a hoax on the FBI, but to send something that isn’t true to a retired FBI agent is another story. Sending a letter to Himmelsbach that you ALSO conveniently happen to publish in your book is likely another example of doing things to establish faux-credibility, same as finding something from 10 years ago and using it to your advantage. C’mon, there’s a lot of kabuki theater going on with Gunther. A metric ton of it. Or Ralph sent a copy to Max or Clara sent a copy. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
olemisscub 552 #65854 12 hours ago 10 minutes ago, CooperNWO305 said: Or Ralph sent a copy to Max or Clara sent a copy. If I was arguing your side of it, I guess the most realistic argument would be that the Himmelsbach letter says "cc: Max Gunther" at the bottom, and since this was the era of actual carbon copies, so presumably that is how he received it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
olemisscub 552 #65855 12 hours ago 21 minutes ago, Robert99 said: They were probably already in the neighborhood of 7000 feet when they decided to level off. There is nothing magic about the altitude here. They may have wanted to slow down a bit or whatever. But it was probably mainly just to show Cooper that they were trying to help him with the stairs. Well they definitely slowed down when they leveled off because they lowered the flaps to 30 and went down to 160KIAS. When Cooper actually jumped they had increased a smidge to 170KIAS. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FLYJACK 776 #65856 12 hours ago 20 minutes ago, olemisscub said: Well they definitely slowed down when they leveled off because they lowered the flaps to 30 and went down to 160KIAS. When Cooper actually jumped they had increased a smidge to 170KIAS. Wasn't that slowdown due to Cooper's problem with the stairs.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
olemisscub 552 #65857 12 hours ago 2 hours ago, FLYJACK said: It is highly probable that he was contacted by somebody claiming to be Cooper.. He mentioned others who were also contacted. That supports a real contact. I think it is almost a certainty that he WAS indeed contacted by someone claiming to be Cooper's widow. We have the 302 for that now (yet he interestingly leaves out a contact with "Cooper" in 1972). But I think the rest of it is made up. I think he found inspiration from this contact. As for the others contacted, he names two individuals: Ed Kuhn, an editor at Playboy, and Mark Penzer, his own editor at True Magazine. He admits that Kuhn died in 1980. So we're left with his buddy from True Magazine. Again, very convenient. Look at the items that people who believe in the veracity of his interaction with Cooper/Clara are STILL using today to give it credibility: the two others contacted, the Himmelsbach letter, and the Happy Birthday ad. The cynic in me sees this as all very clever. If you were creating some sort of performance art fictional story, this is precisely what you would do to establish credibility and give it a basis for believability. All of these items to establish credibility are things that Max could have easily controlled himself: The others contacted are friends/dead people, he conveniently has a copy of the Himmelsbach letter of good enough quality to put in the book, and the birthday ad could have easily been something entirely unrelated that he was aware of. Maybe he himself had a girlfriend at the time named Clara or something. Who knows. I just don't trust it. You're more open minded about it than I am. That's fine. These are just opinions. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
olemisscub 552 #65858 12 hours ago (edited) 5 minutes ago, FLYJACK said: Wasn't that slowdown due to Cooper's problem with the stairs.. Of course it was. Cooper calls to the cockpit, they report this to Soderlind and he tells them to level off and slow down to their marked bug for approach. You know this. Why are you asking? Edited 12 hours ago by olemisscub Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robert99 62 #65859 11 hours ago 12 hours ago, FLYJACK said: Robert,, I am still convinced that the airstairs dropping with Cooper at the end would slow the plane at least some.. acting as a 10ft x 3ft flap... The stair did drop enough for a man to stand at the end.. according to the test. Wouldn't that cause the plane to slow some... that is a lot of added drag during flaps down. It wasn't this far open/down... As pointed out previously, the original 727s would probably have at least 10,000 pounds of drag with the landing gear down and the flaps slightly down at 15 degrees under the flight conditions that existed during the hijacking. Even if the aft stairs were down enough for a 225-pound man to stand on the bottom step, the increase in the drag component would be less than his weight. The increase in drag under these circumstances would be insignificant. The change in airspeed would be hardly noticeable, if at all, to the flight crew even if the airliner was being hand flown. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robert99 62 #65860 11 hours ago (edited) 50 minutes ago, olemisscub said: Well they definitely slowed down when they leveled off because they lowered the flaps to 30 and went down to 160KIAS. When Cooper actually jumped they had increased a smidge to 170KIAS. The performance engineers in Minneapolis told the flight crew to fly at an Indicated Air Speed of 170 Knots to achieve the best range (most miles per gallon in automobile terminology) with the aircraft configuration that Cooper specified. Information is not available about the climb airspeed but when they slowed down to about 135 KIAS to help Cooper get the stairs down, they would need to lower the flaps more than 15 degrees. But at some point they climbed on up to 10,000 feet and with the flaps down to 15 degrees were doing 170 to 180 KIAS when Cooper jumped. Edited 11 hours ago by Robert99 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FLYJACK 776 #65861 11 hours ago (edited) 56 minutes ago, Robert99 said: As pointed out previously, the original 727s would probably have at least 10,000 pounds of drag with the landing gear down and the flaps slightly down at 15 degrees under the flight conditions that existed during the hijacking. Even if the aft stairs were down enough for a 225-pound man to stand on the bottom step, the increase in the drag component would be less than his weight. The increase in drag under these circumstances would be insignificant. The change in airspeed would be hardly noticeable, if at all, to the flight crew even if the airliner was being hand flown. The drag from the wheels down, flaps down condition was already built in when Cooper went down the stairs.. I find it hard to believe the lowering the stairs with Cooper on them would not add to the existing drag and slow the plane some amount... maybe 10-20 knots? Those stairs are acting like a big flap,, 30 sq ft... it had to have some effect.. I got 3200 lbs of drag.. probably have something wrong here what is wrong?? the angle? https://www.symbolab.com/calculator/physics/drag-equation?calculator=drag-equation&density=1.204&density-units=kg/m^3&velocity=195&velocity-units=mi/h&drag_coefficient=1.12&area=30&area-units=ft^2&drag_force=3210.3&drag_force-units=lbf If the drag coefficient is adjusted for angle you get 2100 lbs.. Edited 11 hours ago by FLYJACK Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dudeman17 356 #65862 2 hours ago 11 hours ago, FLYJACK said: It supports Cooper being military checking the cards,, and (likely) not knowing they were bailout rigs.. Not necessarily. Again, did he check the cards knowingly, or did he just come across them as he looked over what they gave him? If he did know gear, there are other differences. Mains use bigger canopies than bailout rigs, so they are thicker, bulkier, and heavier. Other than the D-rings, there is other hardware on mains that are not on bailouts. That picture you posted, either the picture or the rig in it is upside down, but that hardware seen on the lower right is a capewell, the method to release the canopy from the harness, there would be one of those on each shoulder. Yes on mains, not on bailouts. I think those came into use in the early 60's, so if his experience is earlier than that, maybe or maybe not he is familiar with them. If he is of military experience, he should know that most military mains would be set up for static line, he did not specify between that or freefall in his request. On freefall mains, the ripcord is usually on the right, on bailouts the left. I don't think it can be definitively determined what his experience was. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FLYJACK 776 #65863 1 hour ago (edited) 1 hour ago, dudeman17 said: Not necessarily. Again, did he check the cards knowingly, or did he just come across them as he looked over what they gave him? If he did know gear, there are other differences. Mains use bigger canopies than bailout rigs, so they are thicker, bulkier, and heavier. Other than the D-rings, there is other hardware on mains that are not on bailouts. That picture you posted, either the picture or the rig in it is upside down, but that hardware seen on the lower right is a capewell, the method to release the canopy from the harness, there would be one of those on each shoulder. Yes on mains, not on bailouts. I think those came into use in the early 60's, so if his experience is earlier than that, maybe or maybe not he is familiar with them. If he is of military experience, he should know that most military mains would be set up for static line, he did not specify between that or freefall in his request. On freefall mains, the ripcord is usually on the right, on bailouts the left. I don't think it can be definitively determined what his experience was. My statement is correct,,, I said supports not proves. Looking at the card does not indicate he thought they were bailouts if mains also had cards. As previously assumed. Asking for front and back indicates mains and complaining about no D rings suggests he expected mains.. and thought they were. Put it all together and it suggests he did not recognize them as bailout rigs.. and that supports Cooper was not a very experienced jumper. Evidence also suggests he has some knowledge so he most likely had some experience but not much. IMO, he had a few jumps in the military,,, definitely not a Braden type and not a total wuffo. It is interesting that Cossey said the rig used had a 28ft but the packing card said 24ft... more consistent with a cheap bailout rig bought to meet regs.. Edited 1 hour ago by FLYJACK Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites