snowmman

what I like, is that no matter how much someone complains this thread is crap, I've yet to see any evidence that any other process is superior. (edit) The cathedral vs bazaar analogy applies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar or the essay http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ example thoughts from the essay: given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow 7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers. 12. Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong. 17. A security system is only as secure as its secret. Beware of pseudo-secrets. 18. To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a problem that is interesting to you. and of course: 16. When your language is nowhere near Turing-complete, syntactic sugar can be your friend.

Snow would pay a little more attention to Sigourney, especially back in her Alien 1 days. 377 Okay, you got me. Here's a funny coincidence. Remember "Point Break", the movie Ckret loves? well two things 1) Airtwardo actually did a real life version of the scene where the jumper leaves the LE in the plane when he jumps, and challenges him to follow (and the LE is armed). Airtwardo escaped, like in the movie. That Point Break scene was actually stolen from Airtwardo. 2) I bought the original script for Point Break from a surfer named Peter Iliff in 1987. It was his first script. I was planning on directing it myself. (look it up, if you are an unbeliever) I guess I'm busted! (edit) "he cared more about his props and sets than he did about his cast." Like I said before ...it's all about the gear! (edit) (I'll always own my own reserve..so I'm free to lie as much as I want..lesson learned)

...and ya gotta be careful what ya 'say' on here, even in jest huh Snow?! heh! Lucky I'm not a jumper...I suspect I'd be taught a lesson about fibbing on the next jump....as I go out the door "Hey Snow: We were just kidding about packing that rig for you...but you got a reserve, right? right? see ya.."

"The phrase has been around for a long long time - but those darn writers Scott and Scott who did the Number's segment "Old Soldier" have used this thread for other things they write for." The jumpers in Spain fall mainly from the Plaines. Jo said "Everything we hear, read and speak at one time in our life is usually incorporated within what we write or speak. " Exactly. See above.

Interesting NTSB report. http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR81-07.pdf the pilot basically missed the runway...too early by 13 feet. They fly over once first to make sure the fire truck is there, it comes from a town 20 minutes away for takeoffs and landings. he sheared landing gear and the plane caught fire when it stopped in the jungle. Everyone got out okay. Yap Airport, Yap, Western Caroline Islands. The runway is just 4820 feet. (I'm still planning on landing the 727 at Cooper Island with the gold and uranium..just researching possible things to watch out for. Might talk to John Travolta to pilot it) And the mechanic and other flight crew knew the pilot was coming in too low (pilot was taking pictures of the airport and runway on the landing approach too!) Now picture the scene with the poor guy with his one fire truck trying to deal with something that he never really thought he'd have to deal with: ...the aircraft came to rest, the firefighter manually poured 3 1/2 five-gallon containers of the AFFF firefighting agent into the 500-gallon watertank in the firetruck before proceeding to the aircraft. He estimated that it was 7 minutes before he was in position fight the fire, although the mechanic aboard Flight 614 assisted him and gave instructions to apply the firefighting agent. The firefighter was the sole trained person on scene to on where to apply the agent and water. possible because of a drainage ditch along the runway perimeter between the aircraft and Direct access to the right wing area where the fire was concentrated was not the runway surface. The firefighter drove the firetruck down the runway a few hundred feet and then up a dirt road in the jungle to the area of the aircraft empennage. Because all of the occupants had evacuated by the time the firetruck reached the scene, firefighting efforts were concentrated on the area of the CVR and FDR (aft fuselage) and the cockpit to reduce the fire damage. The truck-mounted turret was not used to apply the agent. A 1 1/2-inch handline was used to direct the agent. The firefighter departed the scene six times to refill the firetruck with water. Three and one-half 5-gallon containers of AFPF agent were added to the second load of water; the remaining loads of water were applied directly. The firefighter stopped at 1800 after using 3,500 gallons of water and 35 gallons of AFFF agent. Each round-trip to secure water required about 20 minutes. On one trip to town to refill, the firetruck fuel pump malfunctioned and the mechanic who had been aboard Flight 614 went and assisted the firefighter in repairing the truck. Interesting they still had the foil recorders like we talked before. Sent to Wash. DC to be read. A Fairchild model 5424 flight data recorder (FDR), serial No. 6061, ... The altitude information was based on a barometric pressure of 29.86 inches The FDR traces for the final 8 minutes of the flight were read out (see Hg to convert pressure altitude to m.s.1.; no other corrections were made to the other parameters. The FDR airspeed trace showed a stabilized airspeed of about 132 knots during the final approach. in terms of stats, it was 36th loss of a Boeing 727 31st worst accident involving a Boeing 727 (at the time) 57th worst accident involving a Boeing 727 (currently) 2nd worst accident in Micronesia (at the time) 2nd worst accident in Micronesia (currently) I attached page 38 which is interesting FDR data they exracted from the last 8 minutes (I suppose they had more but only cared about last 8 minutes?). I guess this is what 1981 kind of FDR data extraction gave you. The plane was modified cargo plus passenger. The aft stairs were a key requirement for emergency exit. (cargo was forward?) I love some of the transcript from the cockpit voice recorder as they're approaching the landing: Have you got the tower over there okay, Jocko? Yeah I'm looking for a golf course now Plenty of places we can put one in here Might even get thirtysix holes in here --- about a five hundred room hotel What's that tower do anyway, is that satellite thing or something? Nah, thatt ' s a Loran That's a big one for a little bitty island. Is that Loran station still active anyway? ((Air noise level decreases)) Look how tall that sucker is, one thousand eighty feet * * wind blows from the east here There's that old abandoned Jap airfield over there Right over there? Yeah, right over there . Yeah that's what I thought first time we came in

I and many other skydivers spent Thanksgiving day at home, eating turkey, secretly disappointed that the FBI was ignoring us as Cooper suspects. The futility of their investigation is so clearly shown by their reaction to Guru's ad. Mayfield reminds me of Duane. Bad guy, often caught, arrested and convicted. FBI has cleared both as not Cooper. Duane had more 727 knowledge. Mayfield was a better jumper. It's really a coin toss. 377 this is a repost from http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3240001;search_string=mayfield%20cossey;guest=65990463#3240001 Mayfield did it to kick Cossey's ass, because Cossey kicked his in this Northwest regional competition in 1969. Took two years to plan it out. Cossey came in first in accuracy and overall. Lewis was second. Mayfield was third. If Mayfield had beat Cossey that day, there would have been no hijack. Cossey knew it was Mayfield, and gave the FBI the hard pull rig on purpose. They were called the "Issaquah Bandits" for a reason. They hung with Duane Weber because he was a babe magnet and got everyone free drinks by singing. Duane stopped getting drinks for Mayfield, so Mayfield was pissed at Duane too. article attached. (edit) There is additional evidence that Mayfield flew on a 727 sometime between 1969 and 1971, but that evidence has been destroyed.

An Air Force C-130, conducting a run down the runway at French Frigate Shoals, during which it performing a mid-air retrieval of a satellite tracking data canister. Undated. from http://www.members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/HI/Airfields_W_Pacific.htm Look at the 3 guys standing by the retrieval apparatus on the ground as the c-130 goes by... The guy on the right, on the ground, looks like one of the Cooper sketches. (edit) added overhead shot of that same runway from the 1960s. interesting how they extended it into the water. no EPA in force then! (edit) description: The Tern Island runway was used by specially equipped C-130s from Hickam AFB. The C-130 had a rig hanging out the rear cargo door that was usually used for snagging in mid-air the parachute of a descending Discoverer satellite capsule. When the French Frigate Shoals tracking installation obtained data from a particularly important track, the data tapes would be put in a fiberglass canister, attached by a nylon rope to a grappling hook at the top of a pole erected on the runway. This would be snagged by the C-130 in mid-air above the runway. They would not land on FFS because the coral sand would be ingested in the engines when the props reversed. After PMR left Tern Island, tracking was conducted on specially outfitted ships such as the USNS Longview. A ranger station occupies the former Coast Guard buildings.

There is only one runway now on Cooper Island. It's a single 5000' treated coral runway. Be nice to land a 727 there. attached a 1991 NOAA chart that also shows the radio towers on Paradise Island. Some nice color pics from 2005. The runway dominates as you would expect from the map. from http://www.members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/HI/Airfields_W_Pacific.htm I mean, say you landed a 727 loaded with undocumented gold and uranium from South Africa there, what could go wrong?

Is this the guy (attached) ? Is that any of the DNA off the tie? Would be interested to know how many DNA compares the FBI has done since they got the tie (or other?) DNA...might tell us about how active the investigation has been in the last 9 years or so? Doesn't it sound like the tie DNA is mostly handling from FBI agents? I mean, Ckret handled stuff without gloves in one video..it wasn't stored well. Shouldn't we expect multiple male dna? I guess I don't follow why the tie dna is important, or how it's been used. Is this from the tie dna? I would think there'd be more than just that image. That looks like old-school dna sequencing... also the name "1234B" seems odd.

Jo said "That is what I was wondering earlier. I believe he may have been referrring to the plane the crew came into the area on and not the craft they jumped out of. I only briefly read Sluggo's paste of this man's emails. This was merely posing a question...food for thought. " No, you misread. The informer said he brought some skydivers on board a 727 he had parked at the airport and took them for a ride. He showed them how you could open the door in flight, and possibly have 100 or more jumpers go out. They made plans for a bigway, but the Cooper hijack two weeks later scratched that. Later, in 1986, the informer jumped with someone from that crowd. Luckily he was able to get a picture at that time, showing the remarkable resemblance (age-advanced) of that jumpmaster (loadmaster, jaggermeister, whatever) to the Cooper sketch (all of them). The informer can't understand why the FBI didn't pursue the leads he provided on 11/25/71 and is hoping Sluggo can help him crack the FBI coverup.

I remember back in '68, I was flying with Air Mike (Air Micronesia) and we used to land 727s on 4500 feet of crushed coral at Chuuk. (old Japanese WWII strips) I posted a video I put together from home movies. You can see the 727 we used to fly then, and the rear stairs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c1ctj_Vqhg in fact, the 727 landing that starts at 1:16 I think is on crushed coral. (watch the dustup at the wheels) At 3:07, the pilot brags about all the stewardesses he ...knows. (edit) Was thinking about how Sluggo's informer already told the FBI everything in 1971. Why does he think the story is still interesting? FBI coverup maybe. Maybe we can put together a full cast for the Coast to Coast presentation?

were you trying to insult someone, Sluggo? The best insult is one which just flays the opponent directly. Obscurity is used to hide lack of firepower, isn't it?

During a private “fly-in” fishing excursion in the Alaskan wilderness, the chartered pilot and fishermen left a cooler-box of fish and bait inside the plane. A bear smelled it and this is what he did to the plane... The pilot used his cell phone, and had another pilot bring him 2 new tires, 3 cases of duct tape, and a supply of plastic sheets. Plane truth - they patched the plane together, and flew it home! Amazon jumped the plane afterwards, and has certified it as jumper-worthy. (edit) The actual story is here http://neveryetmelted.com/2010/01/15/bear-damaged-plane-repaired-with-duct-tape-then-flown-home/

I have a better theory. Doesn't it make sense that someone who could climb a tower with an excavator, could have done it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RobaJKGMMiE&feature=player_embedded (note this vid is not faked. Really) (edit) stills from another time, for the impatient. (edit) For fun, Duane Weber getting a Bobcat back on the truck after digging a grave for a victim. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rW2WHnj0HA

I can't believe this stupid pud-yanking story. (edit) or that Orange1 leaps to conclusions not supported by the post? What's up with that? These guys are going to jump a DC-3. What door on the 727 did the guy show them? If it was learning/info for the DC-3 jump, wouldn't it have been a side door? I still don't get it. And how many people are on the damn Science Team? Is the metallurgist fired since the silver nitrate debacle? Is there a rubber guy there now? How many do you need for a team?

"Oh... I have a photo taken in 1986 of my son and I as we were boarding our jump ship for a skydive along with our jumpmaster." Maybe I just arrived on this planet. Why does it make sense that Steve Fisher is Cooper based on him being a jumpmaster in 1986 and looking like an age-enhanced Cooper sketch? Is the theory that any jumpmasters in 1986 that looked like a age-enhanced Cooper sketch make sense to look at? Should we start a list? The only connection is that there was a guy who showed someone a 727 door, and the door show-er and his son jumped with Fisher in 1986 and have a picture? (edit) The door show-er also knows Tom Bohan, or did. (edit) The door show-er didn't say he showed how to open the door in flight. How could he be flying a 727 with a bunch of guys from the DZ? Not likely. The plane had to be just on the ground.

Sluggo reported "The "Science Team" has some samples of rubber bands from the same formula and are studying the decay times under different conditions." So is the theory that there is some amount of time, where there is no storage method that will preserve rubber bands, at least not one that could be replicated by natural conditions? Does that mean collectors of rubber bands have a hard problem? Or only collectors of this specific type? It's hard to believe that all rubber bands of that formula disappear from the face of the earth, within years of manufacture. Or is the period more like 10 years? I can't imagine how the scientists are going to measure this, unless the expected time period is less than a year? Any attempt at acceleration would seem to nullify the experiment? How long were the rubber bands on the money when the money was in the vault? Do they have to replace those rubber bands every year? Why do they last in the vault, but not buried in sand? microbes? moisture? cold? heat? The microbes need a specific moisture level, I thought. Too dry or too moist, prevents growth. The guys who deal with rubber tires in museums have experience with this. (edit) cold seems to be important for preserving rubber bands. Testing the lifetime of a stretched vs a non-stretched rubber band is different. Have to decide how much stretch too.

This is a story from The Pittsburgh Press, Jull 11, 1901 They were talking to the person in the Treasury then that gets multilated money (we've discussed the modern version of this) But in the article, there's an interesting story of money bundle in a famer's field for 6 years, buried under dirt. You could imagine that's a high potential for decomposition (fertile moist earth) But it didn't all decompose away. And it had no protection. It was pretty unrecognizable on the surface at least. Reaching down and opening one of the drawers of her desk, Mrs. Brown drew out a tin tobacco box containing what looked like a mass or slab of peat or earth pressed compactly together. It turned out on investigation to be a roll of money, amounting originally to about $200, which a farmer had ploughed under the ground while turning a furrow on his farm. He had carried it about his person when ploughing and in some way had lost it by its dropping out of his pocket. WHen he had finished ploughing he missed the money, and having searched the ploughed area in vain gave up the quest. Each time, however, he went over the same field with the plough in each succeeding season he kept his eye on anything that would be likely to look like the lost money. Finally after the bills had lain under the ground for six years his search was rewarded and last spring his ploughshare unearthed the blacked mass which lay in the tobacco box. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TxIbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=i0gEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2756,7885226&dq=money+fragments&hl=en my reading is that the tin box was just to hold the money after the find..that the money was just a roll in the ground.

Take a look at that photo of Ckret and the reserve. I wonder if you could fasten a reserve container to a non D ring equipped harness by using the pack opening bands and bringing them around behind the reserve container. They have hooks on the ends. Could you pass them through the harness webbing then connect them hook to hook? The POBs have poweful springs inside to hold tension when they are stretched. Riggers, your opinions? 377 Maybe my old "Big Hook" post can add to this. from http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3389523;search_string=hooks;#3389523 I managed to get a frame from a CBS news vid that showed Ckret exposing the big hooks on the back of the reserve left behind. Possibly the reserve Cooper took had similar hooks. These are the bigger, old-old style? I also attached a photo with ckret that seems to show them experimenting with a money bag (it's in the evidence box) last photo was from a rig page somewhere that I think shows the big hook next to a rule for sizing (inches)

hmm. I knew all those skydiving party stories were B.S.

I've been reviewing articles about Blake Payne, the guy on the boat with the rake that dragged the Columbia for Tosaw. Interestingly, he found more things then that nylon that was discounted. This article has him finding canvas, a bit of nylon cord, and a bone...with the canvas and nylon cord appearing old. I guess they decided it was just random junk. But what's interesting is that Payne had moved to about a mile downstream from the I5 bridge..i.e. closer to the true flight path, rather than up by where the money was found. This was based on Tosaw's belief of where the flight path was (maybe Tosaw didn't have the FBI flight path...the article didn't mention Tosaw getting any info from FBI) This was Dec 18, 1982 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9s0TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QuIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2139,4842389&hl=en the bone was found on the river bank. Even if it was not connected, it's interesting to muse about how long those items were down there. there was another time he found some olive-drab material he thought was parachute material, but FBI weren't interested because of the color. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dZszAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rTIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=5173,5902299&dq=db-cooper+olive+drab+payne&hl=en The other discounted piece of nylon was found later by a guy named Curtis Rainey who volunteered for Tosaw. That was Nov, 1988. Cossey dismissed the find. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=f20VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0eEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6924,6748308&dq=tosaw+pilot+chute+cooper&hl=en It was found at Frenchman's Bar in the pilings http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wpozAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lzIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=7018,2860640&hl=en picture of that item was here (previously posted) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=z7QpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rO8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6791,6415367&dq=tosaw+pilot+chute+cooper&hl=en Rainey noted there was bunch of other junk there: a part of a refrigerator, and a boat propellor.

Hey, I always had the mental image of white cords around the white money bag, I guess from all the tv shows. But the cords were pink right? (we've posted many photos before) So we've got pink cords around the white money bag?

Di you know that pink in a rig or canopy reduces its resale value by a lot? Isn't that crazy? Even a pink reserve gets discounted in the used market. A reserve is like underwear, nobody's gonna see it unless things get frantic. 377 Bringing it back to Cooper, from Pink Flamingos, is the dyed reserve. Ckret mentioned, when we asked, that the cords were white inside where Cooper cut them. So we never worked out, why that reserve was dyed. Cooper knew, you leave the pink one behind. How come people came up with all sorts of complicated theories about why he cut the "good" reserve. he cut the pink one. The bad one. Too bad we don't know the color of the one he took. I read somewhere that both chutes he took were white. but can't be sure. If he left the pink, must have been a jumper.

Orange1 said "You have no idea how i felt looking at pics of my mates jumping it ... but when the kids are older it will be easier to be more selfish about these things" Nah, it's never easier. If you trap yourself into thinking that, you'll kick yourself in the rear... I think you just have to budget time for yourself. Nothing wrong with that. Heck once a month you should be able to take off and do whatever you please. That's not too much to ask. I think the biggest risk is that you lose the motivation. Better to do stuff whenever you're motivated..that's the thing that disappears and is hard to bring back...Partly because there will be different things in the future!

I was thinking how this thread may seem absurd to a newcomer. But its absurdity is not because of any one poster. Every poster has been absurd at some point. Jo obviously. Ckret has been absurd. Sluggo. Me. Georger. 377....everyone. It's not possible to not be absurd. Even SafecrackingPLF was absurd, although he spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone he was the only one who could think things thru. I thought he jumped the shark when he made a video announcing his thoughts and confidence that Tom Kaye was going to discover something for us...as Tom Kaye ran off with his dinosaur bones into his caves. Bruce, the trying-to-stay-sober, broken-table-light-and-computer, guy-who-shows-up-at-the-Ariel-party-and-drinks, and talks to everyone, has been the best source of new info, for a while here. I wonder what new people think when they find out the whole thing the FBI has talked about with "citizen sleuths" is a big lie? Hey investigate that! How can "The FBI" put something out there that's obviously not true? And: Why does the FBI (Ckret) push information that's obviously not correct? Well, because the whole thing is absurd. Flamingos are on-topic.