Orange1

I hope you're joking. Insanely cruel. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Hi Robert, Welcome to the thread. It's always nice to get a fresh perspective on the story. I kind of liked the Christiansen story though Ckret (Larry Carr) dismissed him because of eye colour and height. Though we know eyewitness testimony can be unreliable I agree with nigel99 & hangdiver re: don't get sucked into arguing with Jo. As you've already seen, her stories change etc. Logic doesn't work either. Unless you back up her argument about Duane Weber being Cooper she will just continue arguing. Most of the rest of us just want to dig deeper and even those who disagree with your suspect will, I'm sure, welcome the new angle. Now (I read fast but don't think I missed a mention of this?) did you come across anything linking Christiansen to the 727 test drop flights in Asia? A few of us have been wondering/hypothesising that Cooper may well have known about those. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Ah Jo, here's a very important lesson in life. You may not be able to control what other people do or say, but you CAN control how you respond to it. No-one but yourself is "causing" you to spend time doing anything. You take this decision. You could - perhaps you should - not bother wasting time on things that do not help accomplish what you are trying to do. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I suppose it would be far too cynical to respond that that wouldn't be an excuse for yet another tease ... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

There's been some discussion about eyewitnesses and the unreliability thereof, as 377 and others have pointed out. Just watching a programme about it (on BBC Knowledge, not sure if you get that in the US) which gave me a good search keyword (Devlin) - here are a couple of articles + some extracts from them: and this idea has been mentioned here before: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4177082.stm http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Eyewitness/ http://www.jstor.org/pss/1143520 Search a combination of Devlin and eyewitness and you'll come up with lots similar, including in criminology journals etc. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Anyone who thinks the Internet in the US is free from government monitoring and intervention needs to read this. http://www.google.com/search?q=eff+FBI+social+networks&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari Some folks who need total security in their data comms have used obsolete spread spectrum radio modems originally used for the Ricochet wireless Internet service. They can easily be configured to ping each other and automatically form ad hoc networks. Range between modems can be several miles if you have line of sight. Ever wonder why these modems still sell on eBay even though the Ricochet ISP is defunct? Now you know. Censorship is often exercised in moderation because it indicates that surveillance exists. C4, dirty nuke, secret service radio frequencies, municipal water supply, shaped charge, GPS spoofing, UAV satellite control uplinks, isotope separation, breeder reactor. Test 123. Exercise complete. 377 I think Jerry is confusing South Africa with China. I also think he is simply not understanding what Quade, over the course of a few posts, has been trying to get across. I also think he does not understand that "freedom" includes the freedom to run your business the way you see fit (including having forums on a website you own being moderated) as long as it does not contravene any alws. Finally, I find it strange that he protests "censorship" when he himself has proposed doing exactly that by wanting to prevent some other people posting! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Now, this is the approach I agree with. Something I work with a lot in my daily work as well. Of course, sometimes you spend a lot of time gathering data, testing hypotheses and ... nothing of significance comes up. The theory is not supported by empirical evidence. In economics, in science you have to accept that and let go and look for what does work. Here, on the other hand, there seem to be people who think that because they have spent time gathering data it "has" to mean something. That's when they try force the data to fit the theory. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Disagree. It's a much smaller target than the Titanic. The Titanic's location was known and it left a huge debris field that could be followed back to the main wreckage. The Lockheed Electra could still be all in one piece or it could be in a lot of very small pieces depending on how it impacted the water. My guess is that while they were lost and ran out of fuel, they could still make a reasonable ditching and land in one piece. It would float, but not indefinitely. My guess is it's probably resting on the bottom somewhere, but where that is could be within thousands of square miles. Are there any statistics on "successful" ditches? And any idea how much was known about how to ditch properly in the days she was flying? (i.e. would she have had a reasonable idea of how to do it with least damage or would it have been more luck?) Edited to point out I posted this before I got to Robert99's post where he argues she would not have know how to ditch properly. Still interested in stats if they are out there. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Love it Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

It's a great idea Quade! ...assuming someone will volunteer their time for it... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

heh heh... just got back from a week on the sunny tropical island of mauritius today (remember it's winter in SA) and catching up on what i missed, which is basically: welcome robert99/thanks sluggo for facilitation; congrats sluggo on job, skywhuffo on 4000 jumps, and jerry on daughter's recovery; and thanks 377 on info re radio comms under canopy. As for the World Cup, it's just awesome. Can explain the atmosphere about as well as trying to explain to a whuffo what a skydive feels like

Indeed, Bruce, and if it had come up with a result that slotted with Jo's theory she would be showering you with praise. You need to take the criticism in the context from where it comes. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Hope she makes a full recovery quickly, Jerry. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Finally got round to watching this movie last night, very funny (if you like your humour offbeat) and I did think a bit of Bruce while watching it

It would be interesting to know who 'actually' knew 'what'... keep in mind part of the anti-hijack protocol at the time was to #1 get or keep the aircraft on the ground...then make up reasons to delay everything. How pilots & tower personnel were trained to do that is in part with mis-information... ~We're out of fuel, plane doesn't have the range for Cuba, engine #2 is leaking, flaps are non-op...on & on. I wonder how much of what was being said was a stall tactic? twardo, are you saying the pilots were being fed misinformation to keep them on the ground? this transcript wasn't what cooper was hearing - these were between the plane and NWA, and between the plane and ATC. i can't remember where i've saved the darn things now (possibly not transferred from old PC) but from what i recall they sounded genuinely confused and unsure about the whole thing. guess will have to download from FBI again... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

twardo/georger, if you remember the transcripts, it is patently clear that the NWA personnel did not know the steps could be lowered in flight. i 'll go back and check, but i'm not even sure the initial contacts at boeing knew either - there was a bit of to-and-fro before they were told that yes it could be done. robert, can you give us the url re listing the 727s that were jumped in Asia? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Really? From thousands of miles away with no physical contact? The CIA was wasting their time having men staring at goats. The power they sought to harness was already being put to work by Jerry Thomas. Or ... Jo may be getting a little bit over dramatic Which alternative would Occam choose? 377 I haven't read the original post you replied to, 377, but I imagine Jo is blaming the stress or whatever that Jerry supposedly inflicted on her (as though pre-existing health problems had no bearing on the case). Personally, I find Jo's attempts to put guilt trips on people rather distasteful. Of course, isn't this the way that voodoo, the "evil eye" etc are supposed to work - the "victim" becomes one because they pyschologically convince themselves they have been cursed? There is power in the mind. (Would be nice if some of that got used to solve the case rather than coming up with ways to blame everyone else for one's own misfortunes...) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Agree on both these counts - I doubt she could even have seen the steps during the day. The point you make about the flare trajectory is a good one though. So is it some part truth and some "filling in", or did she see something else entirely? (no idea what though) re G, forgive me if I have forgotten, but - who were these witnesses? Would they reliably be able to gauge the altitude of a plane? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

sorry for the delay... i'm actually on the east coast at the moment :) jerry, the answer is, "it depends"; it depends on a combination of what the current gold price is and the cost structure of the mine. in south africa for example, most of the mines are deep level and are very mature, so you have to go a long way down and the ore that is left is generally quite low grade - so you have to take out a lot of rock for a relatively small amount of gold. cost of labour, electricrty and water are all critical, and all these will differ by country and often even by mine. a mine where gold was nearer the surface and in richer seams would obviously need to mine lessore to break even. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

May I suggest that if you spend an hour composing something, you do so in Word and save it regularly. Then it won't go POOF. Can you not see how crackpot your idea is that things go "poof" because "someone" "didn't want that post made"?! And finally: the FBI did not waste any of your life. You chose to go down this road. It's never a good thing to blame others for choices you have made. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Yeah, gold was fixed at $35/oz during the Bretton Woods system. I need to check my eco history, but the system broke down progressively from when Nixon abandoned the gold standard in late 71 (before Cooper IIRC) until we had properly floating exchange rates in 1973. I can't recall exactly when gold started to float properly, but of course by 1980 or 81 it was at $850/oz, a level it never got back to until recently. Interesting how many people have been down mines, albeit less down working ones

I have no idea what iridium was trading at then but sure i could find out! But would you want that inflation adjusted as well..? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

lol.. "one of the loonies" - do you suppose it's someone who posts here?! re the 2nd one, I must admit we never studied star applications for our metals jewellery, industrial etc yes... we were very excited about autocats... then also looked at war/aerospace (cobalt is also mined as a byproduct). In most of the world, Pt is a by-product of nickel, copper and cobalt mining; in SA the latter are the byproducts. How many other people on the forum have been down a goldmine, by the way? Would be interesting to see! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

If I'd gone online earlier, I could have told you that, 377. We know our PGMs very well down here in SA (Before I moved into finance per se, I worked at a company that at that stage owned the largest platinum mines in the world, as well as some very rich gold mines. I know my precious metals ) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.