Orange1

I don't have an agenda, Jo. I will follow stuff I find interesting or useful. Equally, I will discard arguments that don't make sense. Selection bias. If you are looking for stuff connecting smokejumpers and SE Asia, or smokejumpers and Air America, or whatever, that is always gonna be the connecting link. And there seems to be a huge amount of info that seems to be out there on the web about this. The Triple Nickles - I posted a link about them previously - were based in a town in OR that was home to the Pendleton Rodeo. I didn't attach those links here because Cooper clearly wasn't a Triple Nickle. But there doesn't seem to be any Marana connection there! It seems that a lot more smokejumpers were involved in rodeo than those that went to SE Asia, but I can only assume their lives were less interesting because there doesn't seem to be much or anything about them on the internet. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

and on Jerry Daniels: http://www.smokejumpers.com/smokejumper_magazine/item.php?articles_id=299&magazine_editions_id=19 Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

hmmm... coincidence or...? (everyone seems interested in smokejumpers suddenly..) Anyway, here goes from a web search, which almost immediately showed a connection between smokejumpers, SE Asia/Air America and rodeo. This was the first site I opened so there are bound to be many more

For Georger I Am Sorry, I thought the email was directed at me - with all of the quotes and copies of replies we use it is hard to tell - I used to not do " reply" and it saved space. Then later because others might not know what post I was referring to - I started doing "quotes" from the post I was answering. Now I am doing what you guys do - it causes so many posts to show - I get lost, but what do you expect from someone "Most Likely to Get Lost in a Crowd." P.S. Georger - I didn't give the FBI a hard time UNTIL AFTER March of 2000 when Agent Hope told me that "Duane had never been in the Army nor at McNeil" and I had proof to the contrary, Yet the FBI propagated and still do a statement dated 1998 that Duane had been investigated thoroughly and ruled out as a suspect. For ORANGE: If you were smart enough to figure out I was responding to a post not meant for me - couldn't you just politely have stated "Jo, that post was not directed at you." As for Outbursts, at least I only expressed an emotion. No Jo, I wasn't that smart, I assumed it was meant for Georger. Read back at what you wrote and tell me honestly it "only expressed an emotion"?? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[observation] "Be nice to Jo month" might be easier without outbursts like this. And does Georger really know when Jo accesses her internet?[/observation] Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

No, you misread, by "suspect" I was just agreeing with Snow saying Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

The soggy separation question i agree sounds suspect. But maybe you are becoming like... er, someone else who reads too much into some stuff. The find was a good number of years after Cooper, no reason they would have immediately thought of him. They may well have been mulling over what to do with it - realizing there was a good chance it was illegally obtained, because huge sums of money don't normally get deposited in a riverbank rather than a real bank, but they might have thought it could have been a bank robbery, or drug money, or or or. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Gotta love NickDG. Has everyone run off to their kitchen to suck on plastic bags yet? Wolfriverjoe, thanks for finding that post. I must admit 7000-odd posts later in this thread alone I have kind of lost track of where to find stuff, and sometimes of how much detail we have actually had... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

{ding ding ding} for those who like building theories on coincidences and yada yada yada...one of the air america guys whose link i posted a while ago as working in africa (as a possible place to get a tan before the hijack and disappear into after)? he was working for Alcoa IIRC... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

So this means it happens but do people get hurt doing it? Is jumping out of a plane at 200 and deploying head down at 200 similar? TK Even a hard opening at a normal opening speed can rupture an aorta. This is skydiving, anything can happen. I have heard of people being knocked unconscious on a head down opening, and i have also heard of both people and their canopies being fine at those opening speeds. There is no way to tell for certain what would have happened had he opened straight out the plane. some example: unconscious after almost head down deployment: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=386600;search_string=%26quot%3Bhead%20down%26quot%3B%20deployment;#386600 fine (other than whiplash) after 195 mph deployment: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1296437;search_string=%26quot%3Bhead%20down%26quot%3B%20deployment;#1296437 Femur broken after hard opening in normal position: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2550874;search_string=%26quot%3Bhead%20down%26quot%3B%20deployment;#2550874 Discussion includes other people breaking things on opening. Not in the incidents reports but a guy at my DZ broke his femur on a hard opening a couple of years ago as well. I seem to recall an incident where someone's reserve got shredded due to opening at too high a speed but can't find it now. IIRC the reserve was very highly loaded as well but that probably wouldn't have been an issue for Cooper. But as I said in my original answer and happy, nigel have added to: rounds opened differently and we need someone from those days to help answer this. We also have no idea what speed Cooper deployed at - or even if he deployed at all. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Parachutes have certain parameters within which they operate to work properly, including opening speeds. I don't have my rig with me at the moment to check what the max deployment speed on it is. but i do know that head down openings can (don't always) result in canopies losing lines or tearing fabric. Definitely not a situation you would want to find yourself without a reserve in. The real question is what the canopy that Cooper jumped would have done and for that we would need an old timer to chip in. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Jo, honest question. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe he was telling the truth when he said they didn't mean anything? That you are adding 2 + 2 and arriving at 7? Every so often I find old ticket foils or boarding pass stubs from flights. To someone else they may look as if I have kept them purposefully, when in actual fact they just got put somewhere accidentally and never got chucked out. Edited to add: then when I find them, I do chuck them out. To someone with a different frame of mind it might look like they were being got rid of for sinister reasons, when they were intended for the trash all along. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Jo, That would be because we are investigating DB Cooper, not Duane Weber. so no-one, except maybe Sluggo, is or was actively looking at piecing the Duane pieces together. There are explanations for the stuff, but none you want to believe. Duane was not the only person who confessed to being Cooper. Gossett's son is convinced his dad was Cooper, too. (I hope that was "nice enough" for 377 and Snow.) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Then again, steerable canopy + some ability to see hazards + stress could well = object fixation... particularly if not that experienced. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

That's gorgeous

Remember that info I found for 377, about USD use abroad...came from a doc that references both use and counterfeiting of USD abroad (joint effort by Fed, Treasury and Secret Service). among other things: - the report estimates that of U.S. notes in circulation abroad and at home, only about one note in 10,000 is counterfeit. - The average incidence of counterfeit U.S. currency passing is generally low both inside and outside the United States, notwithstanding occasional large seizures of uncirculated counterfeits. - A lack of legal authority for banks and cash handlers to confiscate suspected or actual counterfeit U.S. currency increases concern about counterfeiting and hampers enforcement. - The Secret Service U.S. Dollars Counterfeit Note Search website established in 1999, www.usdollars.usss.gov, has been extremely effective in aiding banks and cash handlers, their customers, and law enforcement in tracking and identifying counterfeit notes. http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/rptcongress/counterfeit/counterfeit2006.pdf Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I haven't read the whole thing - don't think anything is directly relevant to this case, but just because some of the other posters/lurkers might find it interesting. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/pdf/70787main_FR2R.pdf Introduction Advances in aviation have rapidly evolved since the Wright brothers performed the first successful piloted, controlled, and sustained powered flight on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. However, at every step forward for this remarkable development of flying machines came major bar-riers and continuous encounters with the complex technical phenomena surround-ing the science of flight. In 1917, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronau-tics (NACA) established Langley as its laboratory for identifying and finding solutions to the many challenges of aviation. Langley pioneered new technologies and concepts that have helped to transform the United States into a world leader in aviation. In 1958, Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-tration (NASA) and the NACA laboratory became the Langley Research Center. The scope of research performed at this “center of aeronautical excellence” is unique. While literally tens of thousands of highly successful research projects conducted by Langley could have been mentioned, this book is intended to dis-cuss, in the author’s opinion, the research center’s most significant achievements in aviation over the past 85 years. The selected contributions are vivid examples of the value of national investments in research and development, and the transition from research to relevance. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Interesting discovery, Snow. The bills being exposed to UV (for some length of time presumably - do you know how long to initiate reaction?) perhaps points more in the direction of them being lost? Assuming Cooper didn't deliberately leave his booty out in the open for all and sundry to find. Wonder if Tom can give us any idea if he will be looking at this aspect? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Yes, Jo, I'm sure they were. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

(Has this been posted before? not sure) Another incident involving a 727, row 18, and the aft stairs: ... the accident to the United Airlines Boeing 727 which landed short of runway 34L at Salt Lake City Airport on 11 November 1965, initiating a localised fuel-fed fire within the aft/underside of the fuselage as the aircraft slid down the runway after both main undercarriage legs had sheared:- …The aft stewardess on the aircraft in the Salt Lake City accident had been seated at her station in the aft 'jump-seat', 3 seat-rows aft of the area where the fire suddenly penetrated the cabin –ie under seat 18E, as the aircraft slid down the runway. She stated:- "When the plane came to a stop all lights went out. The back of the plane was filled with smoke and fire. I got out of my seat. It took a few extra seconds to get my shoulder straps off. I opened the aft pressure door. Immediately two men ran through the door onto the stairs. At this time my hair caught fire. I put it out with my hand and my hat fell off." This stewardess and the two men sheltered in the ventral area of the tail section until rescued 25 minutes later by firemen. During this time the stewardess breathed through her jacket. They were assisted by some air entering the partially open stairwell external door. http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/dft_avsafety_pdf_502609.pdf Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I posted some time ago that link showing that the 727 was the most hijacked plane in the world... this is probably why: (the "today" was June 2006) http://www.unjlc.org/airoperations/fleet/boeing727 Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Are you talking about this guy maybe? From the link Snow posted on Dec 26. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/D.B+COOPER%27S+LEAP+INTO+INFAMY+:+DARING+HIJACKER+ESCAPED+BY+JUMPING...-a084004103 Like I've said before if it was in a newspaper in 1996 it hardly counts as a secret... I wonder how many federal employees there were in the US in 1971. I wonder how many of them would have been on planes to or from major cities at any given time. I daresay the odds were pretty high? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

The conspiracy got me again. I found a site that summarized Snow's, but... in an hour, the info is gone...anyway they also mentioned initial design began in 1956, for a while looked as it might not happen because of financial problems at Boeing; they then sold enough 707s to make it look feasible again and designs began in earnest in 1959. (SNow, I haven't read your full article - yet.) Now, someone help me out here, because I do not know what to look for in aeroplane plans and I can't see much in these ones anyway. At this site, http://rbogash.com/727history.html, take a look at the 3rd & 4th pics down, under the heading "Centerline Drawing for E1 - 727 Prototype Airplane. Part of "Top" Drawing Set released 14 Feb 1961". I don't know how to enlarge the pic on my screen - are the airstairs marked on these plans? I'd love to know how wide the audience was that these diagrams were "released" to in 1961. For you history buffs, also some pics of the first plane being put together and its roll-out from the Boeing plant, tests, first flight etc. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Well Jo, maybe you can square that with the following that you said but I can't. (the quote is verbatim, nothing left out of that paragraph, but I have bolded a phrase), The reason I bolded the phrase is obvious. I can't really see how access to other planes' "schematics" would have helped Duane know about the airstairs...? That was why you claimed his knowledge was so important, after all. No doubt you will accuse me of over-analyzing again. That seems to happen every time I expose a contradiction. Don't worry, I am not interested in the tedium of doing this on a post-by-post basis. I find research on 727s far more rewarding! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Just like in Point Break? Did he hear you? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.