Orange1

Good luck with the move. And I for one hope to see you back more regularly once you are online again. I thought pirates wore eyepatches because they were prone to losing eyes. Edit - add - to confirm, the transcript I have (fron the FBI website) says the hijacker's instructions are "After underway all lights to be turned out in aircraft". And just to add again though it has been posted before a while ago - the original message Flight 305 got from MSP flight ops was that ability to jump out with a parachute "is nil". It was later they were told it could be done. This seems to confirm Cooper knew more than they did. I guess it could be winging it, but I don't think so. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Stagecoaches??! No, you got yourself. The London Underground has been around a long time. Construction began in 1860 and the first lines were opened in 1863. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#The_first_underground_railways Although this beat the New York Subway by around half a century, even that was open by the time of The Secret Agent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Subway#History Snow... tut tut. Edited to tut tut at myself. I completely forgot that there is a "proper" railway station at Charing Cross as well, which has been there since the 1860s. The tube station opened there in 1906, still in time for Conrad. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

To my way of thinking that is completely consistent with ignorance. "Ok, wierd stairs in the back of the airplane. I better get them down before we take off so I know it can be done". If he was really knowledgeable about it he would have known you can't take off with the stairs down (if I remember right he requested that before takeoff right?) Tom Hi Tom. Have you read the second set of transcripts that Ckret provided? Ckret provided an interpretation of those transcripts, but they could be interpreted differently. I'm just wondering about where you got your opinion on just what was said, and by whom, with respect to the stairs. We already showed you can take off with the stairs down. (the Da Nang video...which also has a poor guy hanging on them!) I don't think the stairs issue proves anything either way. Why do you think it proves anything? Nothing you've said is black and white...it's a lot of speculation. Remember it was Cooper who wanted to take off with the door open and Boeing/NWA who said no. So maybe Cooper actually knew more ... although anyway it looks like the only reason they didn't want to was to avoid damage to the aircraft. The transcript actually says Cooper wanted to take off with the aft door open and the stairs lowered after takeoff... not that he wanted to take off with the stairs down. It is after that, that the pilots are reassured they can fly with the aft stairs extended etc. I don't know how to do a Snow and copy the bit of the PDF to attach here , but this is pages 10-12 of the PDF file (numbered 98-100 on the original). I've looked at the transcript again. It seems pretty clear to the way I read it, especially his insistence, that Cooper knew the stairs could be lowered and kept open in flight. Oh btw 377, looking at the transcripts again I am reminded that when the pilots are told they can indeed fly like that, they are also told "Plane has been flown this way have large boxes 2-3hnd lbs thru the door in this config" also the guy says "I have a deal from Boeing on how to jump out of that thing if you have to get out, if somebody wants to get out" (don't understand why the word "deal" is used but it doesn't alter what is said!) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I think anyone liking aviation in the 1060s would have been a major visionary. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

OK. Now hands up - how many of you would describe the average Norwegian or Finn as "olive"??!!!! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I didn't want to stir up that hornets' nest. I have no idea which is the better sketch, but my gut feel would be that the sketch done immediately after the hijacking would be more reliable than one done a decade later. We know what time does to memory, and evidence has been posted about people who think (& really believe) they saw something because they subsequently read about it. Still, if a colour sketch from 81 is the only one we have, I guess it is the best we can use... though I would take it with a pinch of salt because of the time lag. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Oh, plenty has..it's one of the reasons we are still in touch. I was his star pupil and I love literature. I can still recite the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy from Macbeth, among others...! But back to Cooper, all this discussion about skintone just reinforces my belief that it is subjective. Ideally I would still like to see a colour version of the sketch. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I've sent the bit on Ted and The Secret Agent to my English teacher from high school, with whom I am still in touch. (He did his PhD on Conrad.) (I generally loved the works he chose for us but I found the 2 Conrads he made us do just... boring. I still went out and bought myself a copy of Heart of Darkness because it is such a classic, but 20-odd years later it still sits unread on my bookshelf...) btw, I realise the difference in our cultural influences when I see you feel a need to explain to people what Charing Cross Station is... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

But how do you reconcile that with the transcript showing Cooper asked early on for the airstairs to be lowered, and 377's point that so few people knew about this that not even the pilots did - they had to go back to Boeing to see if it could be done? Even if the 727 was chance, his knowledge of it surely wasn't. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Mr. Genetics is the Decider! Right? Do Canadians never go anywhere with sun..? Just another thought on this: there are a lot of mines in Canada. There are a lot of mines in Africa. People with the right experience travel for money. Africa has been full of expats working on mines, geology etc for decades. (Some of these were called "colonialists". ) Sure someone who is say a natural Irish-type redhead may never get a proper tan, but your average dark-haired person of Anglo-Saxon or French descent will. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I had this as a setwork at school. I hated it. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Believe it or not, that information actually is available on the web. But you have to be living in our suburb to register on the relevant website. If you're that determined to hack in, well... by the way, we don't have yards here, we have metres, so you would have to convert Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

At this point maybe some definitions would be useful. It's harder than you might think to find the definitions. 1. olive-colored - the dull, yellowish-green color of the unripe olive fruit - having a dark complexion tinged with this color 2. ruddy adj 1: inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life; "a ruddy complexion"; 3. Latin was hard to find in terms of complexion (because of the google search term coming up with other meanings) but the top skincare site that came up seems to think it is interchangeable with olive: If you are Latino, you have the firmest skin of any other ethnicity. Your olive pigmentation, which is generally oily with firm skin, can protect you from deep scarring. It may also cause many problems for your complexion. [Incidentally: historically - as in Ancient Rome - "Latin skin" was referred to as "white" skin in direct contrast to the darker skin of the Greeks...] 4. Golden ash- this confuses me. I couldn't find a definition of it. Golden implies tanned to me, ash implies white. There is a tree called a Golden Ash. Its leaves change colour during the year and its bark is golden. http://www.maryrobertson.co.nz/golden-ash.html Does this mean golden then and if so, why say "golden ash" and not just "golden"? The only reason I list all the above is that I'm inclined to think that different people may have different ideas which may have coloured (pun not intended) the descriptions they give. Most people I know, for example, would indeed use Latin and olive interchangeably. But this is interesting to me, because I get different ideas from the different descriptions. Specifically, a Latin or olive complexion to me would imply a particular ethnicity background. Ruddy to golden sounds more like a tan. So I feel like I am running in circles here and the easiest would be to see a colour sketch by the artist. Jo, you have posted various sketches before, do you happen to have a copy of the one you refer to to post here? You have obviously at least seen it as you say it is not the same as your complexion. (I'm a little confused by the journalist who cannot share his findings with the public. Isn't that what journalists do?) Edited to add: just to clarify - Jo, when you say "Indian" you mean Native American, not Indian as in India? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

lol. every skydiver has rubber bands- you ever seen a D-bag? i thought i had kept my paper bags well hidden though Oh, and my neighbour 3 doors down on the other side of the road is a Mr Cooper... not Dan or Sam but still; do you think I should put him under surveillance? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Uh oh... busted! yes, i started jumping and created a DZ.com profile a couple of years before Jo even posted her first post.. how's that for deep cover! (It was my deep connections to The Conspiracy that told me someone would start a DB Cooper thread 2 years down the line.) Hey - I just checked my first jump certificate, and the date of Jo's 1st post. Her 1st post was 2 years to the day after my first jump! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

By the way, while I may be spending a fair amount of time in the DB Cooper thread my primary motivation for being on the site is because it is a skydiving website, and there is no reason to mislead other skydivers about who I am ... and I do happen to know a number of posters (jumpers of course) personally. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Hmmm.. just thinking, traffic is relatively frequent now but may not have been back then: the oil-rich countries of west Africa may well fit this bill. I'm told flights from Angola to Texas are more frequent than to anywhere in Africa! but I doubt this would have been the case in 71. Other resources too - like the link I posted about the Air America vet who had worked for Alcoa in Portugese Guinea. (not sure what this is now, presumably Equatorial Guinea or possibly Guinea-Bissau) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I thought I had answered re the rigger.. yes indeed, and I think most everyone in Cape Town uses him. I know exactly what you can find using my licence number, and i know if you really care about doing so you can look for stuff on me on the web. Most of it though will probably bore you to tears Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Thanks... that is the kind of feedback on accents I was looking for. And that sounds like a good point about the cash. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

YAAH! 4 or 5 times

When I said "English speakers" I did mean home-language English speakers, not Afrikaners who speak English as a second language. There is a clear difference between the accents. (Of course, we also have some different regional accents - English is often differently accented by first language speakers from various parts of the country as well as local favourite terms; Afrikaans-accented English differs in how "heavy" the accent is, partly depending on where the speaker is from and how early they were taught English. But I'm not sure these distinctions would necessarily be obvious to an outsider, and they are certainly not as clearcut as for example it is in the different regions of the UK. For example, all the graduates of a partciular exclusive boys' boarding school speak with the same accent regardless of where they were from.) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Ja! - as per my profile data in the left hand column. That was a lot of detail.. thanks! I did assume Cooper would have been native English not French if he was Canadian .. adults can't lose their accents that well. Or maybe they can (Charlize Theron being a good example). I have a good friend who's Canadian (Vancouver) and he tells me it is really only the "out" (which would include "about") that is different from Americans. I'll take your point because Americans should be able to tell. However, I'm more convinced of that argument from say Tina, who spoke to him a fair amount, than the ticket clerk (not convinced "one way ticket to Seattle, Dan Cooper" is enough to pick up the differences.) Re airline personnel...maybe. I'm not convinced. I have spent a fair amount of time flying in the US and have been asked by airline personnel on a number of occasions where I am from when they hear my accent, with most initially assuming I am from the UK. And an American might not be sensitive to the differences between Australian and Kiwi, for example. I've learnt what to listen for, because Kiwis get bloody upset if you think they are from Australia. There is just about no identifiable difference between an English speaker from Zimbabwe or Swaziland and one from South Africa. But all that is asides. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Oh, and on the comic books. I'm not entirely convinced of this angle, but if it is the case - the original Dan Cooper strip was in the Tintin comics and was in French. All Canadians are bilingual in English and French, no? And Dan Cooper was, of course, Canadian... http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/dancooper.htm Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Ah, the accent. Questions for you: I'm not American, but I can tell certain of the regional accents. To me, a Canadian accent sounds like a generic American accent (or, I guess, what an American would describe as without an accent, as Cooper was described) - but I'm not sure if it would sound like this to an American? I know there are some particular differences in the accents, like the pronunciation of "out", but would a Canadian accent generally pass for American in the US? Canadians hate being mistaken for Americans because of their accent, but in this case it may have served someone well... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I have gone along with the novice view simply because it seems the FBI did a lot of work on the DZs looking at experienced jumpers. A novice to me would be someone with no or very few jumps, few being relative depending which skydiver you talk to but let's say single digits (some maybe would argue a novice jumper would probably be less than A license requirement of 25 minimum). I know there is an argument that it could have been someone who had done a few jumps at a DZ, but in that case I struggle to reconcile the choice of military rig & no workable reserve for the jump. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.