Kamkisky

Sounds to me like somebody who has stolen money in Canada and the U.S., perhaps other countries as well. He is being specific. He is in it for the money.

I've also realized something about the money ask. He asked for negotiable or circulated, U.S. or American currency. When he makes that request he has not told the crew where the plane will be going next. They are heading north to Seattle, bordering on Canada. It could make sense to clarify. If a skyjacker was flying from the western part of the UK towards mainland Europe and was going to stop in eastern UK to get the money (and hasn't told the crew the next location), wouldn't it make sense to clarify he wants Pounds and not Euros?

The stairs thing comes back to expectations to me. Why wouldn't Cooper expect the stairs to fully deploy down? He had just walked up them. It's perfectly reasonable to assume the stairs are completely hydraulic. (Boeing basically cheaped-out on the design) Sequence of events....Cooper uses the lever (it's a basic lever), the stairs don't go all the way down. He goes...WTF? He messes with the lever and calls the pilots (in some order?). They slow down the plane, level off and increase the flaps. Cooper meanwhile likely figures out the stairs are flapping in the breeze and are not hydraulic. How many steps down the stairs would he have to take to figure out his weight will lower the stairs against the airflow? Once Cooper has adjusted his expectations, and realized he can still get out by using his weight...everything is good. I'm missing the mystery here. Someone tell me what I have wrong.

This is signed in crayon. A professional writer, or just a grown up in general, signs a formal letter to a former FBI agent in crayon? WTF?

What denominations did he ask for? H had a political motive. Would you agree?

The photos and sketches on record would very very difficult to get around. Besides those, the behavioral differences. I’ll take one…the denominations. Cooper had just jumped with 200k in twenties. He knows the size and weight of a large money ask for jumping out of a plane. I don’t see how he gets that mixed up for a second jump. He’d have been very clear from the start and would have recognized any variation immediately, not after take off. There are several other behavioral incongruities.

It’s a spectrum. I would eliminate at 6’6’’ suspect definitively. So there is a category of suspect that’s just flat out, not Cooper. Based on the evidence on the record about H I would say he isn’t Cooper but with a caveat, show me new evidence and I’ll reconsider. I’m not reconsidering a 6’6’’ suspect. H did do a similar crime and is the right age, etc. And getting from 5’8’’-5’9’’ to 5’10’’-5’11’’ is conceivable. So I don’t see him as Cooper but would not definitively rule him out. Where I fully agree is that there’s something off. That’s why it hasn’t been solved. It’s been said that Cooper will be 15% different than one of the things considered fact/canonical. That’s something I believe to be the case.

Fair. He doesn’t have to care what others think. He can sit on evidence he found. But that comes with an understanding that others are inherently going to be highly skeptical and critical and they are justified in being so. Also, I agree that DNA, clear video, a hundred eyewitnesses, fingerprints and a full confession wouldn’t convince 100% of people. That’s not really my point. I’m just noting that until evidence is available on the record -that is available for public scrutiny- it’s easily discountable. It doesn’t count. Show it or be ready to be discounted. That’s how it works, right?

That’s good but it doesn’t overcome the obstacle. It’s like any unknown suspect, the goods might be there but until submitted it’s not viable. Otherwise anyone could claim they found Cooper without showing key evidence. If someone wants to build up their evidence base in private..cool. But it doesn’t prove anything in anyone else’s eyes. It might be the real McCoy (so sorry, had to) or it might be hype. The vortex has seen its share of hype. I’m not saying Fly doesn’t have more, I’m saying no one will believe it until they can inspect it and that’s the appropriate response.

I can only evaluate the evidence on record. The evidence on record show the sketch made of H looks like the photos of him immediately after his skyjacking. The sketch’s of Cooper don’t look like him IMO. But beyond just my opinion, a poll of his photo post skyjacking and both H/C sketches wouldn’t be close, at all. Is any of that definitive, nahh. But it’s big problem. One that is not overcome-able without new evidence. And until that evidence is submitted for scrutiny by the larger community it can’t counted because it can’t be falsified or contextualized. It might exist, but it doesn’t count. Once it’s available, different story. But until then…

I think it presents an obstacle to the case it’s him. If a H photo from when he was caught was juxtaposed to the H sketch and any Cooper sketch you want the results would be overwhelming. Massively disproportionate. You say you have photos of H that look like the Cooper sketches and a sketch of Cooper that looks more like H. But those aren’t in the record so they can’t be evaluated by the broader community. Therefore, people can discount it. There’s no evidence that’s been submitted. Barring a submission you have to expect people to poo-poo it. That’s the appropriate response.

Of the photos I’ve seen of him the sketch of H is a really good likeness. Maybe there are other photos of H around 1971 that like look the Cooper sketches, but until those are seen by the public that’s not part of the record. So on the record there are the Cooper sketches that don’t look as close to H as his sketch. That’s a problem for H as Cooper. Two skyjackings. One sketch looks just like H. The other skyjacking sketches don’t as much. Until there’s more evidence presented that’s what’s on the record. I think you can see how it’s fair for people to come to that determination.

That sketch looks like him more than any Cooper sketch.

Fly - out of curiosity, how do you explain the Hahneman sketch?

Cooper had some parachute experience but being in his 40s he had long since stopped being a military paratrooper, if he ever was one. And since Cooper shows no signs of being a regular recreational skydiver how does he prepare? He checked cards, popped reserves, picked the newer chute, put on his chute easy and jumps from jet. This guy prepared some, he wasn’t just going on 25 year old memories from his military days (if he ever had those). All of this reads to me like a guy who was either familiar with military jumping OR hung around people familiar with military jumping, and who went to a jump center to brush up before the skyjacking. The brush up would help him with putting on the chute and his jump but it wouldn’t change his baked-in vocabulary. Can I prove any of that…hell no. But it makes sense with the evidence at hand.

Do I have it correct that mains don’t have a packing card because packing cards are for reserves? Cooper asked for fronts and backs and checked the backs for packing cards. Isn’t the logical conclusion he either knew the backs he got were bailout rigs (reserves) and therefore would have packing cards or he thought the backs he got were mains and didn’t know mains don’t have packing cards but he just thought some chutes have cards from his limited experience?

Are you sure it goes back/back/fronts? I feel like I’ve seen back/fronts/back before. The singular and plural are interesting here, last “chute.” As is the tense “when she returned” then “she saw he had.”

This quote always gets to me. Cooper complains about no D-rings on the first back chute. Yet, he doesn’t wait for the second back chute before popping open his only working reserve. So much for bitching about d-rings. He didn’t even know if he’d be given d-rings before he destroys his only real reserve.

After watching this video clip to many times, three thoughts come to mind: 1) Didn’t he cut several cords? He didn’t have a single piece that’s 80 feet, right? If he had multiple sections I’d want more than one end tied to me. I’d want two ends from the bag tied to my body. I’m an old farm kid, you tie something down in back of the truck with two points of failure (minimum), not one. 2) I would not tie it the way you have. The bag is tied east to west. I’d want some wraps going north to south too. I’d be worried about racking. Which is what it sounds like happened with McCoy. 3) Maybe it’s the angle of the video and/or my total lack of parachuting knowledge but I’d be tempted to sit on the block and tie it to myself through the straps at your waist (both sides) and around my upper thighs like the harness. A butt bag if you will. Of course I’d be one of the skyjackers drinking heavily.

I’ve wondered why he didn’t take the other back chute and convert it into a larger version of the knapsack worn backwards. I’m guessing it’s too big. We do know he had two + other options. He had the dummy chute container and the contents. And he had the briefcase. Perhaps he split the money up. I know the dummy could not attach to D-rings but he has plenty of cordage and knows that bag is designed to jump. A briefcase is also a better shape to wrap in cordage than the money bag. The money bag could be argued as the thinnest and worst shape bag option he had.

AI says the average length of the cord from the drop bag to the harness was 15-20ft. How many rows is that in a 727? 4-5? There’s no evidence Cooper was ever even that far forward in the plane. The math just doesn’t math. The military expert scoffs at the idea. I think I’m close to done on this one…there was a money bag that was dragging, there was not a drag bag. If I’m Cooper and I’m going to be opening the stairs and operating in a plane under those conditions tying the bag to myself in some way first makes sense. Tina was scared of being sucked out and the pilots agreed and offered for Anderson to come back and tie her to a base, if Cooper wasn’t thinking the money and he could be sucked out the back before he surely had the thought crossed his mind after that episode. Tie the bag to himself and get the stairs open. The two steps he needed before being able to escape. It makes sense he prioritized those immediately after take off.

I was being a tad flippant. The point I was trying to make is, if we knew Cooper created an impromptu drag bag with missing/mismatched parts and it worked…that rules out all but a small group of bad ass parachutists and cargo riggers. The average Joe suspect is out. Basically, if we knew he created a drag bag the pool of suspects goes from millions to a few dozen to a few hundred. If Cooper bet his money and life on an improvised drag bag, he’s clearly an expert at the top of his game not just a guy who was a paratrooper 20 years earlier.

These are two opposite ends. If he didn’t realize those were bailout rigs he isn’t going to be confident enough in his ability to slap together a drag bag from mismatch/missing parts. He can’t know little about skydiving and be a genius at it. I think this is one of those myths that has been spun from a nugget of truth. Tina likely did say it was dragging behind him. That’s doesn’t mean he created a drag bag in the parachuting sense. If you risked your life for this pile of cash why would you do anything but strap it to your body as tight as possible? If he was worried about weight he could have asked for larger denominations. There are no style points here, you pick the option that is the most straightforward and has the best chance for success. Zero percent chance an impromptu drag bag is better odds of success than strapping to your waist. Imagine being under canopy (if the bag was still there) and then pulling the knots to drop it and hoping you rig works? He’d have to trust his money and his life to the knots he almost certainly had never used for this purpose…unless the theory is impromptu drag bags are something this guy has done many times before. If Cooper made a drag bag then Cooper and Braden likely knew each other.

This is where I’m at. Darren had a parachuting military guy on, Mike I think, who scoffed at the idea of a drag bag. They didn’t much go into it unfortunately but I think his point was a drag bag and a free fall don’t mix like a drag bag and a static line jump. I don’t see how Cooper makes one that’s even functional given the shape of the bags he had and the lack of release buckles. He’d have to tie knots that could work as a release and trust his life on those knots. If he could make one that functioned, he’s a cargo rigger and/or elite military parachutist damn near guaranteed.

Drag bag. Here are my issues with this idea (based on my very limited knowledge of WW2 drag bags): 1) 20 something years later Cooper remembers enough about one to jimmy rig it with his life on the line? 2) The military bags were supplied equipment. Guys didn’t jimmy rig them even back even then. 3) The military one were attached to the leg via quick release buckles behind the knee and by the ankle. Cooper didn’t have quick release buckles. 4) The length of cord is problematic. Tina says she could see the bag moving behind him, in a small plane. The military bags have cords much longer than that. 5) The military bags attach to the harness (D-rings?). Tina says it was tied to his waist. 6) The military bags were canvas and designed to fit the leg. Cooper didn’t have that shaped bag. 7) The military bags didn’t even work well. D-day had a lot of guys lose the bag when their chute opened. 8) Cooper’s bag would have required a lot of loose cord be accessible to deploy somehow, the tangle with the chute factor goes up. 9) Did any of the copycats use a drag bag? Im not a parachute expert but it seems far simpler and more reliable to tie the money to his waist and take the extra weight on landing. Crafting a homemade drag bag seems like a bad idea.