Orange1

This possibility actually was raised in the locked thread. It never seemed to gain much traction though. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I've had one of these... stood up a 26' Phantom barefooted on a cut-away once upon a time. It's possible... I was 20-something, in great shape, and damn near immortal at the time though... So, Glitch. Where were you on that night of infamy? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Graham, even if anyone else has done that, i GUARANTEE you they haven't done it in Deneysville ... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Oh for crying out loud. Will everyone stop moaning at Quade? (obviously this isn't directly in response to quade's post ) For the record I found it surprising that he took Ckret to task when I thought others had said far worse... but he is a moderator, this is a moderated site, and there are rules that apply to these forums. Anyone who posts here has implicitly accepted those rules. Now, can we all get off our high horses and get back to discussing DBCooper? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I doubt there's a formula. When i started jumping with my team (around 80 jumps), i needed a full weight belt to match their fall rate. Only 60 jumps later and a couple of hours tunnel time, I've shed all my weights and fly perfectly comfortably. So from that experience I guess it will depend on body position as well as the actual "weights" issue. Unless the formula can take degree of arch into account? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Going on the no-pull theory would there not be a significant chance that the money that was found would be contaminated with blood. I don't mean soaked in it possibly just speckles? Not if the relatively small amount that was found was blown away on exit, as has been speculated a # of times by jumpers who have experience with high-speed turbulent exits. Someone (SCPLF?) has speculated that the money may not all have been bundled in the same place anyway. I don't think the money that was found tells us anything except that Cooper never ended up with all of it at the end, whatever that end was. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I can't remember exactly where it was to go back and look - but my reading of the shoes description was loafer-type shoes that extended to the ankles. by the way Jo thank you for taking heed of the requests re the way you post, these latest posts are much easier to read!!

The grudge could simply be: you go fight for your country, go through hell and come back to find you can't get a job, or a decent job. I can imagine very many people would get a grudge in that situation. $200K would be nice under those circumstances. ("I was trained to jump in shitty circumstances, it doesn't help me get a decent job in civilian life, at least i can make money this way out of it"...) Re Ckret's question about whether such a jump would be sanctioned by USPA or whatever, i think the real question is to ask the ex-airborne guys here: could you expect to be ordered to do a military jump under similar conditions? If so ... Cooper may have already done a jump or two like that? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Just a reminder that "paper" money is not cellulose paper but a mixture of cotton and linen. I'm not sure if this would make any difference to your argument. Skydive Jack's comments about Cooper seeming to have the knowledge of a pilot were very interesting. Another thought, seeing as we're in speculation mode: I presume it would be reasonable to assume at least some pilots of the time would be familiar with how to operate the rig that Cooper was given (I didn't follow all that rig discussion in detail, having no experience on rounds, but IIRC it was the same type given to pilots for emergencies?) ... and may even have actually had cause to use one once... This MAY be a link tying the theories supporting Cooper as a man of very limited jumping experience with the fact that he seemed to know a lot about planes (eg "interphone" discussion) and didn't seem too fazed at jumping. The pilot theory starts sounding attractive to me. btw - can't remember who theorized about a military loadmaster - did they wear emergency rigs? what rigs did the pilots of military jump planes wear? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Life expectancy of paper currency: http://www.frbservices.org/help/coin_and_currency.html#a5 So it is 2 years for a $20 bill. That life expectancy will be based on the frequency of circulation (how many times they get passed from hand to hand) - which is why the lifespan is much shorter for the smaller denominations than the bigger ones. If the bills were new or newish when Cooper got them (Ckret - can you shed any light on this?) and kept somewhere for a while where they would not degrade (i.e. not in water/buried in wet soil!) their life would be much longer. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Now that is a very interesting observation. Not sure what to make of it cos it might lead to all sorts of speculation...but it certainly is an interesting observation. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

So there is still no clarity on what this may have been? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

to like... er.. christiansen. Another theory to throw into the mix... about the money. The 2 assumptions have been either (1) cooper lost the money and it landed in the water and then all the debate about post-1974, etc or (2) he kept it. Is it at all possible that he lost all or some, it landed near but not in the water and got stuck in... something.. until a storm or whatever dislodged it? Maybe a wild theory, but I've seen wilder on here Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Are you just dismissing a theory? shouldn't you first check the expanded LZ you talk about before making that statement? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I'm not sure what you're asking. IIRC, anyone who flew often feel free to correct me, your ticket was in a little booklet type thing, written on with carbon to the end with each page being a coupon for a leg of the flight. I'm presuming the carbon at the back was what you say you found. The coupon (is that what you mean by card?) would be pulled out, i recall them being in sleeves as boarding cards. It seems strange to me that you claim never to have touched your boarding card, anytime between receiving it from the check-in clerk to handing it to the person at the gate. And maybe you never opened your original ticket book to check it was correct, or to check your flight number/time etc, but many people did. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I agree with you. All that crap would have weighed him down on his exit. It's probably buried under years of fallen leaves, pine needles, dirt, and bushes... but it's probably where he left it. At this point, it would probably take a metal detector and a very patient person to comb through those square miles of woods. Question... how does this theory change, necessarily, if it is rewritten as rig + canopy + corpse? The work done (that you are doing) in narowing down the potential DZ is probably going to be the only thing that i can see that will give any potential lead on this. It may yet yield some physical evidence. And yes of course I agree that anything right now is an assumption as there is not one shred of evidence anywhere, just a range of theories. I'm not dismissing anything out of hand, it just seems to me that certain of them seem less obviously logical than others. I personally would only go to the more, uh, inventive ones (like assuming cooper was sending a "signal" to persons unknown who were in any case apparently too dumb to pick up on it for 35 years) once the obvious ones have been dismissed. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

?? I made that point ages ago and someone, can't remember if it was you, pointed out that there could have been prints on the tie pin. It was specifically the possibility of prints on that that i was referring to, not the tie itself. What on earth would the point of the throwdown theory be if there was nothing to lead anyone astray? Am I missing something here? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

that of course is the more rational response Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Don't confuse reality with perception. All that is required is for Cooper to believe prints were there or could be found on it. I know it's a long shot, I'm just saying the fact that prints weren't found doesn't undermine the idea. Sorry ScPLF, on this one I am gonna disagree. IF the intention was indeed a "throwdown"/planting prints/whatever - one assumes it would have been done in such a way to ensure the FBI had a false print to go off on a wild goose chase on? Occam's razor, and the more likely option is simply that the tie was left because skydiving with a tie is not such a great idea, and Cooper in those pre-DNA days didn't think there would be anything on it of use to the FBI. And gee, couldn't you have found a name that was easier to abbreviate? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

no probs, i reminded him yesterday & he messaged me - he assumed elimination prints were done but is checking - also said there were no prints on the tie pin - which I guess also kind of undermines any 'theory' about 'planting' prints using it. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Ckret why don't you explain that it was the boarding pass and not a piece of paper normally handled by the passenger as it is sandwiched between carbon and paper Jo, if you had read the rest of my post rather than selectively choosing something, you will see that I knew exactly what it is. And I noted that I (and i am sure not just me either) had often handled these BEFORE they were torn out and put in the sleeve to act as boarding pass. Come to think of it there is an easy possibility that prints get on it while it is in the boarding card sleeve as well. To simply dismiss the possibility that any prints of use might be on it seems a bit strange. Wouldn't the better procedure to be to check to see? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

safecracker, wasn't the kool-aid just a reference to the low budgets they have? seriously, sounds like you're doing some good work there, keep it up. something is bugging me about the ticket story. i can remember those old tickets (clearly, cos i once had a travel agent write the incorrect time for a flight in). I can certainly remembering handling the tickets, if only just to check flight times etc. I suppose it's possible Cooper's prints weren't on it, especially if he knew it could be used for evidence - Ckret, you said you checked the ticket for prints - were you able to match all the prints found on there against check-in clerks, flight attendants etc or were there any prints that were "left over" and could be Cooper's? did any match the partial found on the tie pin? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Do they know this? i.e. they are not all sitting out there thinking "I wonder when that FBI guy is gonna get round to interviewing me"...? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Jo..you are not coming across as crazy but you are maybe coming across as a bit unreasonable in your expectations. You had led us to believe that you solved it - but now want the FBI to find something else. You want the FBI to "prove" that it wasn't Duane by placing him somewhere else that night - a bit difficult this long after the fact and besides, everyone in america except cooper and the flight crew were somewhere else that night. (should the FBI be expected to do that for everyone's favourite cooper suspect?) You've slated the FBI for their lack of evidence and what they will or won't reveal, implying (intentionally or not) that you know all the bits of their case, yet a couple of days ago you claimed surprise at a 'revelation' by a poster - when this fact has been in the FBI's public case files all along. Is it possible there is other stuff in there that might help you, if you looked at them? And might I make a comment: taking it to the media maynot be such a bad suggestion after all. If the clue is what you think it is I'm sure a decent investigative reporter would love to help break the case, as well as having the ability to follow up on what you need to know. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Interesting indeed! Thanks for posting. Wonder if they figured out whose version of the cause was correct? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.