Orange1

ckret, forgive me if I am asking you to repeat yourself, but how long has this theory been around (or was it one you came up with?) - what i'm trying to get at is whether anyone who was based at mccord at the time or the few years leading up to the hijacking was interviewed by the FBI? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I jumped a pilot (210, very light WL) at probably around 20 or 25 jumps. Although I had been briefed on the difference in sport vs student canopies, it didn't prepare for me how fast the canopy responded vs the student canopies. Since then I always take things slowly moving to either new size or new make of canopy. To be honest I'm a bit more concerned about a couple of other comments in your post. Well done for pulling the reserve, but why did you wait? Surely your EPs are pull red, pull silver with no "wait for the RSL" inbetween? I'm also a bit concerned about the bit where you say How far in front of you were they? Were they out before or after you? I'm not deducing anything from "in front" as you presumably did not hold one heading all the way through the jump - but does the fact that they helped with you with the spot mean you were out first? Did they know you were opening high? Did they just look close but there was adequate separation, or wasn't there adequate separation? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Jo, was Duane ever one of his suspects? Personally, if he is going through suspects... it tells me that maybe what he is doing is looking for a suspect that fits the crime. He finds a suspect that looks interesting, then finds something that doesn't check out, then looks for someone else. This is kind of the way I guess the cops or FBI would do it, until they find a suspect that fits the crime. This is a very different thing from trying to make the crime fit a particular suspect. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

So who's to say the brother wasn't Cooper...? I also find the idea of schematics lying around in full view at someone's house, especially if they are sensitive and that person is in fact in a high up position, somewhat odd. Question: if the brothers had a falling out, and the brother suspected him (i mean come on... if the sketch was so accurate, surely his brother would have recognized him, then thought about these plans he had left lying around and put 2 + 2 together...) why wouldn't he have tipped off the FBI? I also wouldn't, however, go off track about jumping experience. McNally got lucky - there are people who are trained to jump who still manage to die, in some instances on their first jump, and we know for a fact that rig had a hard pull. I still think the best chance of Cooper surviving the jump is if he was experienced, and better still if he was trained for those conditions e.g. a paratrooper. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Snowmman, I'm confused. What would lead you to think that? I'm inclined, thinking about it further, to say probability implies the opposite. Why? Because with a matchbook, you can see when you're about to run out of matches and would (maybe) buy more. Especially in those days where (I stand corrected here) I don't think semi-transparent lighters where you could see fluid levels were common, a smoker would much more likely be caught out with a lighter suddenly running out than matches. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I think we're in agreement on this point. Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna go on and on about how the tie was handled so much that you refuse to accept DNA evidence off it, it's a bit rich to place so much faith in the way the tie clip is attached. Some people might view that as grasping at straws. I like the hypothesis of a tie as an "in case" suicide note... Now if anyone can tell me why we should get excited about the fact that Tina struck a match for him, other than it indicates he did not have a lighter (or at least a working lighter) with him, I'd be interested!! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

By Agent H you mean Himmelsbach? Over on another forum there is a whole conspiracy theory about how Himmelsbach was in cahoots with Mayfield (suggested Mayfield had something on him... knew him from before... he was the one who effectively gave Mayfield his alibi... etc) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I agree. Goggles are not a big deal at all, but the less experience someone has, the more they might matter. If Cooper had no or few jumps, not having goggles might have contributed to his not being able to find his deployment handle. If he had more experience, he wouldn't be likely to need them. Then again, there is the mysterious paper bag he brought on board, which could easily have contained... say... a pair of goggles and an alti. (Did they have glow in the dark altis in those days? Anyway a previous discussion a while ago concluded he didn't actually expect to be jumping in the dark as I recall) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

This is the bit I find troublesome. We all know that you can be as careful as you can and sometimes, shit happens. Then people call their lawyers...in other words, just because a company is not being negligent, doesn't mean it won't find itself on the receiving end of a negligence lawsuit. And even if it is found not liable at the end of it, the cost of defending that suit could still be enough to put them out of business. Wanting to raise awareness of the potential danger of ATVs, and thinking the company are negligent, is also not the same thing at all. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I seem to recall he was seen smoking. If I am not mistaken ckret has posted that there are a whole bunch of fingerprints they have been not been able to match to anyone. But none of the fingerprints found have matched any of the suspects put forward as I understand (possibly excl Christiansen, he was dismissed on physical appearance & as I recall they never went further on that - ckret is this correct?) Sluggo, thanks for re-posting those terrain pics! Yes it becomes blindingly obvious! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I can't get the WA image to open for some reason. I'm no expert on these types of things at all and I can't compare the two because i can only open the one... but would IN be a much easier terrain to find stuff (like the farmer found the money, for example) than WA, given the descriptions before given here? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

No idea how you can correlate it, especially considering that very experienced people still can and do die on skydives. However, you do point out that someone showed McNally how to rig up and jump. We still have no idea if anyone ever showed Cooper how to do that...or if he needed it, because we have no idea if he was a novice or someone a lot more experienced. Of course, McNally as comparison might also have more weight if he we knew he was also jumping a rig with a very hard pull. re this well, i don't know much about Indiana really. How does the terrain where he jumped compare to the area where Cooper jumped? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

That's an outstanding job of taking a quote out of context. Someone suggested that Weber might not have wanted to be connected with Cooper. Someone else pointed out that he made a deathbed confession. Where in the hell did ANYONE suggest that what he said was true or false. Way to go, Orange. There's nothing like skewing the hell out of a statement to mock it. Kicked any dogs today? ?? I interpreted the sentence as implying that it must have been true if it was a deathbed confession - a point of view that comes up every so often (i.e. "why would Duane have said that if it wasn't true" has been used a number of times to help support the case that it was him). I do apologise if I offended your sensibilities by misinterpreting something - assuming I actually did. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

The possibility that he thought he would get the rigs from McChord has been discussed already. No "mythology" here. btw, Ckret's theory from an earlier post: Cooper was in the military during the time frame of 1946 to 1951, give or take a few years. He was stationed out of McChord or Ft Lewis. He served on an air crew in some capacity and received cursory training in emergency exit (which is why he chose the military chute over the obvious choice, it was all he knew). Yeah, maybe... but then Cossey also gave him one unusable reserve, remember. I seem to recall reading that Cossey was in a rush to get the stuff together hence the error. But actually this makes me think. Cooper asked for 4 chutes. Cossey gives him 4, but at least one and maybe two of them are of no practical use. You want a conspiracy theory? Maybe Cossey was waiting on the ground for someone to bounce to take the cash off them The placard that blew off the door was found and identified as belonging to the plane. Have you actually read these threads...? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I think the confusion is more over the absence of the dummy reserve than anything else. Could it blow out? Well... possibly, if it was right next to the door and had something that the wind could snatch - it is much easier to understand why the placard got blown out (or thrown out), it was right there. But why would he have moved the dummy reserve there by the door - and left the other chute insider where it was found later? The point is no-one knows if he knew the NB6 was a reserve or not. Personally I wouldn't know what to do with a pilot emergency rig... I'd jump what I was used to, a sport rig. He may have known both, or neither. I agree we just don't have enough information to know if he was a novice or not. The more interesting question to me revolves around the evidence we've had here that the rig he jumped, as given to him, would have been a very hard pull. If he couldn't even pull it, and had no reserve, he's dead. (Yes, reserves are also there for when you can't get your main open at all.) I personally think if he was a novice, the chances he survived the jump are very slim. If he wasn't a novice, we're out of suspects. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Others have put forward the very reasonable (imo) argument that an experienced jumper would rather place their trust in a (rigger packed) reserve (NB6 rig) than a sport rig (who knows what is in it and who packed it) in a situation like this. But it still makes no sense that if you take another reserve with you you take one that doesn't work...? You can't cut away from a reserve/emergency chute because it's your last chance anyway - it is NOT a main. It is my understanding that the sport rigs referred to were people who had modified them to use as mains - but someone from that era can answer that properly. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

It's been noted a few times in these threads and is clear from the transcript (link posted a while back) that he did NOT ask for 20s and in fact very clearly indicated no preference for denomination. So your conclusions about either 20s or 100s are not valid. There's one of your 100 questions you can lay to rest Asking for a knapsack does make sense as you put it - no matter what the denomination was, it would certainly be easier for a long walk. This comment confuses me more: Well... of course having a reserve hugely increases your probability of survival if the main fails. What on earth do you mean "probably minor"?? If he pulled high, he also would have had more time to deal with any potential malfunction. That is of course assuming he pulled, assuming he would know what to do with a reserve. Not being able to cutaway from an NB6 would be a problem of course... but would he KNOW that? re if there is any idea how long it took him to gear up, what was seen etc... At 7:42pm the remark was made that he could not get the stairs down, before Tina went there. The comment about tying the knapsack round him was made at 7:48pm, the comment with that that she "thinks he will attempt a jump" seems to indicate that he had at least some gear on or ready to put on then. That's 24 minutes to when the "oscillation" was reported. 24 minutes is a very long time to gear up... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

So all deathbed confessions are automatically true? It will interest you all to know, in that instance, that there most definitely were aliens at Roswell then. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21994224-2,00.html Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Re the interest on cash, two things. Firstly, the amount of cash might be "big" to most people but in a bank's life would probably be quite small. Second and more important, not sure but in all likelihood this would have been allowed to be classed as part of the bank's reserves by the Fed; these reserves (all banks have to keep a % of deposits on reserve) are non-interest bearing anyway. These funds are either kept literally as cash in the vault (which is presumably where these funds would have been), or on deposit with the Fed but in the latter case would not have earned interest. Insurers always reinsure, there should be no need for comeback to the federal government; and anyway it's an insurer's job to pay out on what they have agreed to accept insurance premiums on. The amount is nowhere near big enough to threaten the existence of an insurance company ... that's normally a Katrina-like event. It's an interesting question though in a circumstance like this, whose money exactly is it that gets lost? Did NWA have to draw the money out of their account, considering that the demand was made on them, or would the FBI have the power to force any old bank to hand it over? Re what the FBI knew... well maybe ckret should answer those specific questions! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

ckret: jo, in response: You were dead set on getting photos of the clasp... until it clearly became not the one you were looking for, then you suddenly dispute it is the "right" clasp. Whatever.... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

----------------------------------- It is a useless waste of energy to attack me - use that energy to prove or disprove any one of the individuals are Cooper. I doubt the energy that goes into typing out one sentence is going to do much good either way ..and if you consider pointing out a contradiction as "attacking" you, well ...you are entitled to your opinion. I see you are now changing your story on the tie clasp too (from "the fbi won't show you" to "well no-one has proved that was the clasp" when the fbi says of course they will show you. You keep on doing this kind of thing, and wondering why people regard the next post with a jaundiced eye... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

That's fine, you are entitled to your beliefs... but then stop trying to claim that you are objective when you clearly aren't. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I'm assuming you're 16... Are you trying to imply that you are somehow "special" because of this? (I know someone who did her first jump on her 16th birthday, but maybe because she'd grown up around skydivers she has never exhibited this type of attitude.) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Ha! The hubris! You think 42 years is enough to know everything?? There must be plenty military jumpers on these forums... perhaps one of them will tell us if they were, in fact, encouraged to eat cheese. Military jumpers in action of course would often be in the plane for at least an hour and sometimes a few before they jump; so do they take their blocks of cheese on board with them? And maybe someone who knows will tell us if cheese will, in fact, do what they say it will. edited to add: I just remembered I am married to an ex military jumper - when i asked my husband if he was ever encouraged to eat cheese before they jumped, he looked at me as if I was mad and burst out laughing. (That's a no.) He didn't jump in the US of course but I'm guessing practises would be pretty similar most places... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.