Nicholas Broughton

Spot on…. I completely agree.

Thanks G! You have forgotten more about this case then most will ever learn. I feel like people point to this when dismissing the grudge as just part of the conversation and mistakenly attribute Tina to bringing the word up when it was in fact Cooper. Whoever this guy was he had an ax to grind. Maybe nothing specific as his comment suggests but just in general. The system? Society? The current state of affairs in America? Did he want money sure but I think he was striving for something more. There are less bold ways to acquire 200k criminally. He is on the low end dollar wise as far as parajacking ransom requests go. Cooper imo was a peculiar and complex individual. A man with strong opinions and convictions. Like lxchilton said it’s too general to narrow down the suspect pool but I think it should be baked into the psychological profile of Cooper.

Thanks. Well this seems to conflict with Fly’s declaration that Cooper would not have known where he was. Since we don’t know who he was…. he could of been a Boy Scout!

Cliff is actually very well versed on NORJAK. He took part in the Washington State Historical Museum Cooper exhibit and multiple Cooper Cons. I have had the pleasure of speaking with him at both the CC’s he attended. He has discussed the case with Cooperites and industry insiders alike. Even people involved with SAGE asking what radars would of been involved in tracking 305. He has an intellectual curiosity about the case, make no mistake. Another excerpt from his CooperCon 21 panel discussion. Cliff: “I talked to a lady who I work with at the museum of flight who was a northwest orient stewardess and she wasn’t on this flight, didn’t really know the pilot but in her talking to other stewardesses about this, she said the pilot made that kind of maneuver because he didn’t want the airplane blowing up over the city and so that’s why he avoided the airport and avoided the downtown (Portland metro) area as that black line shows (pointing at the FBI/Air Force map on stage behind him).” This sounds like a much more logical option if you wanted to avoid major cities then flying a route you’ve probably never flown before, that’s a 129 statue miles longer, requires more reserve fuel (already flying dirty), loosing a degree of freedom incase of an emergency in a very sketchy and foreign flight config.

Maybe R99 can weigh in here but couldn’t a basic compass tell him if they were taking V23 or not? If he knew that there was only one other option then it shouldn’t be hard to figure. V27 is the left red line at 230 degrees, and the right line is V23 at 178 degrees. When you take off southbound from seatac you're heading is 160 degrees. So 178 is a very slight turn, 230 is sharper.

In the midst of a family emergency no less….

Who are we to argue with the air traffic controller who was on duty that night and handled 305? Other expert opinions hold immense weight when they validate Fly’s confirmation bias, IE Leonard Palmer or the FBI. But when they don’t he just straight up ignores them!

Kaminsky gets it. This was a first of its kind emergency situation here. Of course they are going to do their due diligence by weighing the options to determine the best route to take under the circumstances. Both altitude Victor airway options would be discussed, that’s a given. That doesn’t make V27 any more viable. Cliff Ammerman said almost anybody would take V23 in that situation. If this exact scenario played out 100 times, they are more likely then not selecting V23 100/100.

I was talking to somebody that lives directly under V27. He said that hardly any air traffic ever uses it. It’s a safe bet that given Northwest's routes, none of the flight crew had ever even used V27 but knew V23 very well, so I'd take V23 as the pilot all day if I have something crazy going on in the back. This is a picture of all southbound SEA traffic. It heads down V23 or further east to Klamath Falls. The person I spoke with lives in the blue dot on the left under V27. We have no way of knowing if Cooper knew this or not…. but if he did his homework then he’d understand that them taking V23 was pretty much a forgone conclusion.

You don’t have anything until it’s produced. This applies to anything in the vortex. If you’re that bothered by the stance Ryan continues to express on his lives about the height, then bring the goods NOW and potentially sway his opinion on the matter or don’t. That’s certainly your prerogative. But maybe just put a pin in this until the receipts are on record? Because as it stands now… you two are clearly at loggerheads on the issue and any further debate at this point is just beating a dead horse.

Yeah, they technically could have chosen either, but ALL things considered, there are clear reasons why they chose V-23. It doesn’t come down to a 50/50 coin flip call after flight ops takes everything into account imo. Now would Cooper have known that and about Victor airways…. he may have just thought jets flew around however they wanted so who knows? But if he knew that IFR clearance could be picked up in the air and wasn’t just saying that to hurry things along, then I’d guess he probably did. It comes down to who you see Cooper as and how much credit you want to give the guy at the end of the day. How much luck was dumb vs manufactured by Cooper? He’s either being very strategic if he believes V23 is a sure bet or completely winging it by not requesting V23. I say that because requesting V23 might show his hand a bit and reduce the search area from all the way to Reno, if LE read into that request. I tend to want to believe that the reason he was successful and we are still here almost 54 years later is because he stacked the deck the best he knew how. That entails carrying out a thorough enough plan from start to finish, while leaving as little to chance as he could without compromising his big picture.

Victor 165/27 looks the best with regard to altitude, but there are two problems with it. First, it is 129 statute miles longer (I think over-water flight requires 1 hour reserve fuel rather than the standard 30 min). Also, you lose a “degree of freedom” by flying on the coast. In other words, in an emergency you can only go east to find an emergency landing site (on land) and surely a nut-case with a bomb and flying dirty with the stairs down might precipitate an emergency. That leaves Victor 23 as the only “real choice”. Cliff Ammerman said as much and that’s good enough for me. “Yes certainly, If you’re going to fly south at ten thousand feet, Victor 23 would be the, the option that I think almost anybody would take.”

From the flight path panel discussion at CooperCon 2021 with Cliff Ammerman. I went back and listened to my recording which is up on the Facebook group. Here are the relevant excerpts. Darren: “What do you think about that Cliff, do you think it’s possible that he actually did dictate the flight path based on the conditions he demanded the plane fly.” Cliff: “Yes certainly, If you’re going to fly south at ten thousand feet, Victor 23 would be the, the option that I think almost anybody would take. Just because you could fly at much lower altitude.” Darren: “Do you think he knew the plane would fly Victor 23?” Marty Andrade: “Based on that answer, I would have to say yes.” Marty Andrade: “I’m going to direct this to Cliff. Below 10,000 feet how many airways could they have picked, Victory 23 but there should be another one right?” Cliff: “There is another airway to the west called Victor 165 that still would be fairly low. Ugh, this was before the time that they had designed an airway for Portland basically direct to kalamath falls. Now there were high altitude airways but you had to be above 18k feet and obviously DB Cooper didn’t want to do that. So if they would of come back a few years later then this, he probably would of turned at Portland and gone directly to kalamath falls because it’s a more direct route to Reno. But then the min on the route out there is much higher. So my guess would of been then, that if DB Cooper wanted it low, he would of told them to stay on Victor 23 until they can hit further south and that’s just speculation.” Darren: “Well now that you have that information Marty what’s your answer?” Marty: “No I would say that given that, we know from the radio transcript that they were put on Victor 23, um if there really isn’t another option for them at the time then that’s the route they would of been on.” No mention of V27 from Cliff.

Fair enough and I’ll admit that I misspoke when I said nobody in the military ever used the term. I got a bit carried away. Hyperbole on my part. The crux of my argument is against it being common military terminology and or jargon, not that it’s never been used. But I think we’ve beaten that horse to death already and we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that. I also apologize for the canuck remark. Got caught up in the passion of the debate. Not my best form.

The argument is against it being military jargon. It’s the most general description for them, so you’d expect to find an example or two, not enough to qualify it as jargon though. VERDICT: Doesn’t meet the criteria under the definition of the word. Burden of proof for military jargon also not met. Fronts and Backs are not considered military jargon for parachutes. The judge rules in favor of Ryan and Nicky. Court is adjourned.