Orange1

Ooh, very defensive there Jo. It's not like Snow is a tabloid reporter wanting to splash intimate details in the national press, and in fact I thought his questions were very interesting. How DOES a 27-year old night clerk become qualified enough to get a teaching position in a foreign country? "All goes to the credibility of the witness, your honor." (is that also the correct term for addressing a US judge?!) From Snow: Well said. (And Jo has the temerity to complain about being made "sick to the stomach"...) Jo, just because you want it to be the end of the night clerk subject, doesn't mean it is. Sorry. If you are going to present dodgy witnesses, well, don't be surprised when people become cynical about their "evidence". You may be prepared to overlook things that don't add up because he's told you what he wants to hear, don't expect others to do the same. I can understand exactly wht the FBI is not exactly falling over itself to track this guy down, why can't you?? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Other than the chance of the reserve fouling the main, as I understand landing 2 rounds was not an issue and I have read descriptions of how to do a canopy transfer i.e. to first deploy the reserve and THEN cut away the main. I've seen video of doing this with a square main and round reserve as well. Maybe some of the oldtimers can comment and give us an anecdote or two. I'm not sure how bad the issues of fouling would have been given the placement of the canopies(front and back vs one above the other in today's containers). Landing a 2-out with squares is different because of the possibility of a downplane which you wouldn't get with rounds, but we are all trained to assess and deal with the situation (whether or not to cut the main away - bearing in mind it could foul the reserve as it goes - and how to land with 2 canopies if you don't). Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

? rendezvous? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Yeah, but... I dunno, Georger. Ask anyone who's seen someone come off second best to the ground, and see if they are prepared to take a risk like that? Remember skydiving is about minimizing risks, it's not a death wish like many seem to think... But Cooper probably was NOT a sky diver! errr... yes, that was the point i was trying to make... in response to (did i misread?) your comment that a skydiver would be best able to handle a problem with the gear... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

In 1971, I'd think lots of paratrooper vets around, and in much higher proportion to sport skydivers than today. Anyone know where/if we can get stats on USPA (or whatever it was then) membership in 1971 as an idea? Does the army release data on the numbers of jumpers it has trained? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I know where you can hear that expression lots and so do you. Prisons and ex-cons talking about "getting the job done" "do the job" "No, funny stuff". Also old movies. Not having been around many cons, I'll take your word for it. Of course as you inadvertantly point out - it may have been someone taking his cue from the movies. So now all we need to do is narrow down the search to the population of ex-prisoners in 1971 as well as people who watched crime caper movies and... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Well, where I come from, I don't think my usage of that term would be described as "unusual"... Linguistic use would also have to take the period context into account. Some of you were around then. It was a time when words like "groovy" were in common use, people were "cats" etc (some old Bowie songs for example date themselves by their lyrics). I don't know if this is relevant to a term like "do the job". Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

IIRC Ckret has said there are a pile of prints from various items that they simply haven't been able to match to anyone - not sure if any of those come from the ticket. (But obviously none of them match Duane's, and for those of us who don't buy conspiracy theories about changing prints, especially when one of the bases of that theory has been shown to be false, this also reduces the likelihood of Duane being Cooper.) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Yeah, but... I dunno, Georger. Ask anyone who's seen someone come off second best to the ground, and see if they are prepared to take a risk like that? Remember skydiving is about minimizing risks, it's not a death wish like many seem to think... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Some of us learnt the Queen's English

re whuffo choices, directly in response to 377's observations: re the hard pull rig + dummy reserve. An experienced jumper may have gone for the first, possibly accidentally (I am not sure we have established whether there was any way to know it was a 28" and not a 26" canopy in the rig) but to take a dummy reserve? That is just plain dumb for an experienced jumper. 377 explained well the thought process that sometimes goes to pieces - a jumper expecting a normal pull and being confronted with a hard pull does not always do what he should, even with experience. I've had one hard pull and it wasn't fun . As for the shootout analogy, I dunno - maybe the thinking there is, they have guns, we have guns, chances are even. The chances between you and the ground without a working parachute are very much anything but even. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[reply I understand the attacks are not necessarily at you personally, most of the time; however, over the past year it has appeared to have become attacks aimed personally against you. Its saddening, since you were not only handed this case, but have to delve into the trenches of conspiracy theory (mental health) warfare! To top it off, it appears you handle these conditions with grace and civility, which I tip my hat, you're obviously good at conducting yourself well in those regards. Yeah, those of us who do not have an agenda here think "FBI guy" has acquitted himself with grace under fire here. I have to believe that if Jo wasn't Jo (poor me, sick, old, blonde roots, take your pick) she would have been banned more than once here for PAs against Ckret. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Would you deliberately make a whuffo-like choice to hide the fact that you are a jumper, to the extent that it endangers your life on a skydive ? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Why do you keep saying this? Is The Conspiracy going to ensure that every other composite mysteriously vanishes, including all those available on the internet? Do you not think Cooper novices who find his arguments interesting are going to start searching the net to see what else they can find? I am more convinced than ever that you should start a blog. Other than the teenagers you deride and the serious blogs associated with reputable sites, another favorite blogger is the conspiracy theorist. It's perfect for you. Back to the ticket. The coupon is pulled off for each flight leg as the boarding pass. Most people would check that their ticket was correct in the days when they were handwritten. Especially if Cooper had a one-leg ticket, there is a good chance there would have been fingerprints on it as it would have been the top coupon. The only reason I am banging on about this is YOUR insistence that there would not be any prints on it, for reasons that seem ... flimsy at best. I find it curious that you claim to be so sure of this fact while admitting to being unsure about exactly how the tickets, I can recall clearly how that ticket system worked. There were folios for I think 5 legs of flights, the top was handwritten, the rest were carbons, and right at the end was a carbon that was VOID - NOT GOOD FOR PASSAGE (which was basically what you got to keep as your souvenir/record of the flight). Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

After a while surfing Google... In 1930, the IATA Traffic Committee developed the first standard hand-written ticket for multiple trips. These same standards served the industry into the early 1970s. Taking the lead in 1971, IATA significantly updated the hand-written paper ticket with the Transitional Automated Ticket (TAT). This greatly simplified billing and settlement between airlines and travel agents, as all parties had an identical, clearly legible copy of the ticket. So, the Transitional automated ticket (TAT) came into being in ….1971! (obviously not everywhere at that time yet; as late as last year I had the …um, interesting... experience of travelling on Air Zimbabwe, and found myself confronted with the first handwritten ticket I have seen in many years!) Some samples of both the handwritten and the TAT can be found here: http://sky.geocities.jp/kkhoashi/Passenger_Ticket/Passenger_Ticket_en.html (if you scroll over the images it enlarges it). Note in particular that the ATB – the one that includes both ticket and boarding pass – only came into use from 1983 (ref: IATA website), so it could NOT have been the system in use when Cooper took his flight - irrespective of whether he had a handwritten or TAT ticket. More details from IATA: Key Dates: • IATA interline manual ticket established: circa 1930 • Transitional automated ticket (TAT) established: 1971 • IATA creates standard for Neutral Paper Ticket: 1972 • IATA launches BSP Japan and Neutral Paper Ticket: 1972 • Automated Ticket & Boarding Pass (ATB) established: 1983 • Electronic Ticket (ET) established: 1994 • IATA global standard for electronic tickets: 1997 • IATA Board of Governors pass resolution for 100% ET: 2004 • 100% ET: June 1, 2008 Paper Ticket Types • Paper interline ticket – manual, multi-coupon, carbonised ticket • Transitional automated ticket – computer printed, multi-coupon, carbonised ticket • Automated Ticket & Boarding pass (ATB) – ticket and boarding pass, data encoded on a magnetic stripe Some other arbitrary/fun stuff from internet searches: http://www.seattleairlineshow.com/paper.htm - looks like fun stuff to collect for those interested. The collection includes a Northwest Orient (not “Northwest Airlines”) timetable from 1971. “In the 1960s we had a little booklet containing flimsy coupons for each leg of the trip. This continued until the 1970s when the use of computers gave us the dot matrix printed tickets.” “You went in, bought a ticket, sat in the little lobby waiting for your plane. As long as you had a ticket – which was also a boarding pass – you got on your plane.” Salon.com's "aviation expert" mentions that tickets were paper coupons in booklets and you got a cardboard stub to keep for your boarding pass. The conclusion from all of these (and you are all welcome to do your own searches) is that there is no way that the boarding pass was printed separately and included in the ticket book; the ticket coupon for each leg, whether handwritten or TAT, was used as part of the boarding pass. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Well Jo, as I recall the boarding pass was actually one of the ticket leaflets (terminology?) that got pulled out the ticket and placed in a boarding pass folder. Can you prove for sure your version is right? Can you prove for sure that even if your version is right, that Cooper did not do what many passengers did and leaf through all the pages in his folder to check it was all correct (remember things were handwritten in those days and people could and did get incorrectly filled out coupons)? You have absolutely no way of saying for sure there were no fingerprints on it and surely even the small chance of it is worth investigating? (Unless of course you have a vested interest in NOT wanting the fingerprints checked... in case it's yet another non-match for Duane?) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

OK, now I understand why this case has never been solved. It's the Curse of Cooper - any FBI agent who starts analyzing it apparently goes mad. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Doesn't take a jumper - just common sense. OK, point taken. Common sense also implies Cooper surely would have had a plan that didn't involve leaving the bulk of his takings behind in a bucket for years? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

That is a good one. This is the first election I felt there were no real options - I thought about doing a write-in, but I didn't. Economics and politics need to be required classes and not electives. Considering that most individuals after deductions do NOT make over 50K (depending on their location) just where does our president elect think the money comes from to run this USA? Elk club I agree economics should be required. Maybe the president-elect thinks if he can do something to reverse the Bush policies that turned the US's fiscal balance from a nice surplus to a large deficit (the war a biggie here obviously but also the various tax breaks), there would again be plenty of money to run the USA. This seems to be pretty common sense to me (and most economists judging by what I have read, and believe me, I get a lot of good economic research). By the way, in most countries with a progressive tax system (that is where you pay a higher % of your income as tax, the more you earn), the bulk of tax revenue actually comes from a relatively small % of taxpayers at the top of the tree. I don't know exactly what the US tax rates are, but the following example should illustrate the point: Say you are taxed at 10% of income up to $50K, 15% at $51K-$999K, and 20% of income after $1m. You have 100 people earning $50K paying 10% tax each, the govt gets $500K tax. You have 1 person earning $5m, taxed at 20%, the govt gets $1m tax from him - in other words twice as much from this one individual as the next 100 put together. If you really want me to dig I am quite sure I can get hold of the tax incidence data for the US to get the exact proportions. But in simple terms, this is why taxing the rich works (just don't tax them so much that they move elsewhere ) Should we get back to DB Cooper now? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Unhinged as you may be that is an interesting observation... in light of the previous discussion about whether Cooper wanted to see the lights of Portland when he jumped. May swing us back again towards looking for an experienced jumper? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Great... would you please do us (me) the favor of posting the link, at least, when you are done with that? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Dear me Jo... the bloggers associated with such eminent sites as the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times would surely be seriously offended by your statement on blogs. And just by the way all these conspiracy theories are starting to irritate the **** out of me. You live in one of the most free - if not THE most free - country in the world and yet you have no idea how lucky you are. Yes I know the US govt is not squeaky clean but honestly... in the extremely unlikely event that Duane was Cooper AND that the US govt for some reason wants to cover it up - well it all seems rather petty to someone who has lived through an undemocratic regime with censorship of the media and the existence of government hit squads responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people (and even that pales into insignificance vs some other countries). Maybe if you really had something to worry about people wouldn't have to manufacture things to worry about. [end of rant] Really? This is now, what, the 4th time you have threatened to stop posting? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Is it in the cupboard? yay! we have a winner! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me it is because sometimes you suddenly look at the same thing in a different way. As you well know this is often a good way of discovering information, so don't knock it. In that rambling post where you seem to try divert attention to other things, you didn't answer my main question. I do not doubt that someone "real" contacted you, but do you have ANY proof at all that is he who he claims to be? You have confirmed he contacted you, rather than you tracking him down. Tell us, did the story about the FBI supposedly taking the register come from him AFTER you posted what you said H told you they "would have done"? The only verification you seem to offer is that he knew Duane because of 'something' he told you. If that is the case (and think carefully if that 'something' may have been something you inadvertantly posted or hinted at before) - it still doesn't prove he was a night clerk at the hotel he claimed to be from. He may have known Duane from anywhere (Miami in the bay of pigs era maybe, for example...?) Maybe this is the reason the FBI doesn't have any record of the register: it never existed. Never mind Jesus in the toaster, or even delusions, this is just looking more & more like a story built on a house of cards. Believing stuff because you want to believe it without bothering to verify it, simultaneously ignoring what you don't want to hear. As for the fish... thanks guys..but are you sure that it is the same one? My fishy fishy fish, that went wherever I did go? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.