snowmman

what public? There's just us. There was never any status/attention on any of this. There was Ckret going on TV and web sites, for whatever reason of his own. No one fell for that TV crap did they? (except maybe Sluggo :) ) As Ckret said, there is no FBI investigation. The FBI investigation was done. What's weird is the FBI did a lot of work on Duane, and that was just 8 years ago? So it hasn't been that long since they did real work. I think the real difference is that Duane was pre 9/11. There's no reason to investigate Cooper, because it's just for bragging rights. The FBI never really had a hard hijacking case. The one where they caught a guy recently after 30 years...they knew his name...but hadn't realized he returned from Cuba until someone Googled his name recently. Now that the FBI is all supposed to be about terrorism and international stuff and CIA wannabes, there's no way someone can put up a Powerpoint that outlines a budget proposal for a Cooper investigation. Now if Cooper had done some terrorism post hijack...murdered a few people...Now you might be able to sell a story inside the bureau and get some budget. If Duane arrived at the FBI today, he would have gotten close to zero investigation.

It's reasonable to believe that Air America was developing capability to expand what it could "sell" to it's customers. Not everything is done in response to demand. Sometimes you have to create demand. I think in other places, it was described that the 727s were problematic for Air America. They seemed a good idea at the time, but then they didn't really work out as part of their overall goals/needs.

a while back during the '727 as drop plane' discussion, you posted photos of the roller skid assemblies? at the rear end of a 727 ...... I searched back clear to 240 and cant find those photos. Any idea when and what page you posted these? I confess Im really getting lost here buried under so much peripheral "data". I can repost. I had posted some quick snaps I did, and then a couple of better frame grabs. I can do a specific frame grab if you like. Why interested in the pallet/roller setup? Anything specific? With respect to "peripheral" data. What else is there? We covered all the stuff you might consider main long ago. I thought we're well into the random shotgun speculation phase. Unless there's a reason to revisit the main stuff? Do we know what doesn't apply? or what does apply?

Just cause we like timetables around the interesting time period. Note that the fares were all in US dollars. Most, not all though, under $20.

this is kind of off thread, but there's a great Air Vietnam page here. http://www.geocities.com/airvietnamairlines The page with a bunch of their 727 photos from the 60s/70s is here (15-20 pics) http://www.geocities.com/airvietnamairlines/B727_photos.html Tan Son Nhut was big for Air Vietnam 727s. 1974 727 hijack trivia from that page AVN Boeing 727-121C S/N: XV-NJC on the taxiway at Ninoy Aquino International (MNL/RPLL) Manila, Phillipines August 1968. This aircraft was destroyed September 15, 1974 near Phan Rang during a hi-jacking attempt.

nah. I was using SE Asia for that overall description. In the Air America full length video, they show how their bases covered a lot more than that. Phillipines and Japan say also. Clark Air Base was a major nexus. Depends what you're looking for? The US was flying stuff everywhere in SE Asia as part of the Vietnam effort. In reading all this stuff, it sometimes seems like Vietnam was an excuse to use all this new aviation technology. Now if you think the grudge meant Cooper had to be more hands-on/closer to the action/nasty business, then yeah, Cambodia/Laos/Thailand/Vietnam are more specific. -There are skills/knowledge theories (jumping, aviation) -Grudge questions. -military/non-military questions. Oh, I've seen some pics of World Airways 727s flying guys to Vietnam, as part of the Military Air Transport. (World Airways). And I was reading a US embassy newsletter from June 1970 that was talking up the commercial growth of Air Vietnam. They had two 727's by 1969. Elsewhere that suggested Air Vietnam had some service ties with Air Asia (subsidiary of Air America) and Continental Air Services (CASI), although I don't think CIA was involved with Air Vietnam. This is a great site: http://www.air-america.net/index.htm with a lot of scanned-in paper stuff from the Air America days. ....passports etc. Evidently there was an Air America stamp you could get for your visa page while you were in Thailand? See the right page of the first attach. I've never seen so many Air America ID's and chits and logbooks and ... as I have at that link above. And here's some telegrams guys got when Air America was trying to hire. And here's some Air Vietnam stews back in the day. Lots more at that site. The world airways 727 was from a guy at Danang talking about how you arrived in Vietnam and left on MATS 727 flights. A page of the secret Air America codes attached. (funny)

it just felt like there was a succession of things where we losing our notion of what was fact vs spec. Sorry about that. Leeker told us Takhli. But I've not seen a document on that. U-Tapao is Thai. So that's not much different geographically than Takhli? So was Udorn. How does either of them translate to Vietnam? Are you saying Vietnam is a metaphor for Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia?

Hi Jo. Whatever. You made it up. If you had a document that suggested $200k to you, that would be interesting if you could scan it. But otherwise, it's just another random thing you made up. Don't care what you believed.

Have people lost their f*ing minds? There is NO evidence that 727's were used for air drops in vietnam. Geez georger, you're admitting you're like Jo here. There is evidence of a test drop, likely at Takhli. There is no other evidence other than bullshit or speculation. There is no evidence the 727 in question was ever in vietnam. We talk about information moving around SE Asia, and now you're talking airdrops in Vietnam? What evidence did you have when you were quiet? You didn't have jack shit. If you have anything, let's hear it.

The T-33? No way. It's a two seat trainer, right? Dick Perry had the other seat. See the post. No room for H. I'll have to go read Norjak again to see if H claims to have been in a Huey during the hijack.

If these 12 made up 3 bundles, and a single bill is .0043" thick, then 100 bills would be half an inch or so thick minimally? one inch max say due to imperfect compression? So yeah, I guess they could be it. Each of those 12 bundles maybe 1/6 to 1/3 inch thick? 33 bills or so in each?

there's a bunch of bands and songs named after Cooper. There's been some new songs in the last two years actually. Here are 3 I liked. The first is kinda retro images and odd. I liked the lyrics actually. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKhdijAzN_k "Hijacking a hijacked plane To fly home And grow old To get home To die young" I think the reference to 'told his wife' and "suffered from nightmares" might be Duane/Jo reference..! Two more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbNa1cAUFiQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBrIoNrXXu8 here's a recent CD released one from the UK! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kysg6OX3Jg lyrics to D.B. Cooper by Senses Fail I'm leaving home Above the clouds with silver wings I feel my guts slowly drop as engines sing My teeth are clenched 'Cause gravity is defied I'm at a place where I feel dead inside I know I can take back what I never lend 'Cause all my plan is crushed in the end Desperate As I slip the screws out from the seat I need a way to breathe The wind Takes the fusell lodge from the tail piece I hope it sets me free With my nose pressed up to the window pane I lost the lights so now they dance in rain I breathe out to make a canvis for your name I can't realise my shoulders carry the blame I know I can take back what I never lend 'Cause all my plan is crushed in the end Desperate As I slip the screws out from the seat I need a way to breathe The wind Takes the fusell lodge from the tail piece I hope it sets me free I look below and way the rip And now the bag is up, I'll be dropping wind I'm diseased just like my father He says it comes from my mother I hope my son does not catch it Look at what I have to do to survive I hurt myself just to feel alive I don't know if I'll make it back home 'Cause I don't know if there's no hope left there Everyone's looking for someway I am looking for the one way out I've been wasting my time Standing in line And this is what life is all about Desperate As I slip the screws out from the seat I need a way to breathe The wind Takes the fusel lodge from the tail piece I hope it sets me free

satisfying DZ.com rule to incorporate boobies every 250 posts. Attached is an actual D.B. Cooper T-shirt, from 1971. the one the guy printed with the "where are you" thing. second pic has a zoom showing the copyright 1971 and "Dick Kaiser" Dick was quoted on Jan 7, 1972 as believing he helped start the "legend". from google news: Corpus Christi Caller-Times - Jan 8, 1972 Money making effort Dick Kaiser of Portland, Ore., believes he started the D. B. Cooper legend with the T shirt ...

Evidently this was only used by Mexicana airline because of the high, hot air of Mexico City. There's a test video, I think made around 1970 on youtube here, of a rocket assisted take off. 3 rockets on each wing. They fire in sequence at 10 sec intervals. Pretty cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7LErwBNobU (it's a video of something playing on a tv) I'm always curious if I can find something 377 hasn't seen before...? The RATO bottles evidently supplied 13,000 lbs of extra thrust for emergencies and take-off. Mexico City is at 7000 ft. You can Google for stuff on this, there are plenty of other references, so it's not b.s.? I didn't find a good still of a Mexicana plane though.

I believe a certain poster here posted that 'mythology' as a fact, claiming that someone who worked in the insurance industry would know that. I'm not sure how to do a search with enough terms to verify that without reading through hundreds of posts though. well I provided the link above for the court case where northwest had to go to court to get the money from the insurance guys. I didn't get the full article cause you have to pay, but there's enough there at the link I provided to say it's true, right? I mean we should be able to take court case docs as "close to fact" right?

377 said "Did F 106s chase the 727?" Yeah, two F-106s from the 318th FIS at McChord.. we covered all that. There were additionally F-102's that never made contact, according to the Norjak book. Dispatched from Idaho Air National Guard, from Boise. But they didn't make contact. Hell, I even posted the name of the manager from Seafirst who brought the money to the airport. I wonder if he just drove his own car? Wouldn't that have been a great idea to do a robbery of the guy delivering the hijack money?

I suspect this web page is from the same Norman Battaglia. http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/110007787002877040722 Oregon ANG1966 to 1981; Retired in 1981; rank, Lt. Colonel USAF. maybe used the name "Batman" ? funny: "I have been in four movies as an extra. I belong to SAG (Screen Actors Guild) " There's a phone number for him in Portland if you plug his name into google. Could call him up and see!

reviewing old posts. Jo had claimed she had a picture. on Jun 23, 2008, 4:37 PM skyjack71 posted: "CIA used the 727 in Vietman - that has been stated from get go by Himmelsbach and it is in his book. Maybe it was not made public knowledge so as not to spur such conversations as we have had here...but this was stated by Minnesota. WHY do you think they started looking for individuals who served in Viet Nam? This is nothing NEW. Years ago I found a picture of such a delivery being made by our armed services on the computer and then it disappeared like so many things did over the yrs."

T-33 isn't myth, as far as I can tell. A T-33 was directed to chase. This has been posted about before here. It's in Tosaw's book or the Nojak book. Forgot which. It didn't get involved until too late. The chopper thing, I get confused about all the time. We've posted details about the chopper and pilots before. I'm still unclear whether H. was up that night or the next day as part of search. (edit) Heli pilots were likely Lt. Col. Gale Goyins and Maj. William Gottlieb. Oregon National Guard S&R heli pilots? (edit) repost of my prior post/notes about the T-33. It was in the Norjak book. The T33 trainer jet was diverted to follow. Note that Lake Oswego is south of Portland, so all their info doesn't help, since it was after the jump. Norman Battaglia was going to Portland Air Base for a night training mission, about 5:30 pm. He and pilot Dick Perry went thru their pre-flight, took off around 7:50. Battaglia was Air National Guard officer, in back seat as instructor-pilot. Shortly after they were airborne, they were told to switch radio to Seattle Center, and Seattle told them to trail 305.... They turned toward Lake Oswego, putting them about 3 miles behind 305. They made radar contact and noted 305 was changing course 45 degrees every 30 seconds. He had to throttle back to 135 knots and fly with landing gear and flaps down to maintain contact. Near Eugene they were told to break contact, go to Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls. They say they never saw the 727. At one point they were about 3/4 mile away.

I had posted details of '75 insurance court case before, detailing who transported the money. I just noticed that the insurance coverage was for $250k, not $200k which I think some mythology had created. $20k deductible. The policy was written on 9/29/65 from https://www.fastcase.com/Google/Start.aspx?C=a6f6e841929ba0e63b670d1c13b96ccfb97401dad2c83d47&D=18946b2467c59bc7ca946f4642c1ae0e7e5beba847e0ef74 Page 831 225 N.W.2d 831 303 Minn. 16 NORTHWEST AIRLINES, INC., Respondent, v. GLOBE INDEMNITY COMPANY, Appellant. No. 44904. Supreme Court of Minnesota. Jan. 24, 1975. Page 832 Syllabus by the Court 1. An insurer must indemnify the insured for payment made [303 Minn. 17] by the insured to a hijacker where the policy was a blanket crime policy, as opposed to one insuring for specific risks only. 2. In the event of ambiguity in a policy, the policy language will be strictly construed against the insurer. Robins, Davis & Lyons, Harding A. Orren, John C. Hart, and M. Arnold Lyons, Minneapolis, for appellant. Dorsey, Marquart, Windhorst, West & Halladay, William J. Hempel, and Lane Ayres, Minneapolis, for respondent. Considered and decided by the court en banc. YETKA, Justice. Plaintiff brought an action in the District Court of Hennepin County, seeking recovery under an insurance policy issued it by defendant for losses sustained as the result of criminal acts of an unknown person perpetrated in the states of Washington and Oregon during an airline flight. From the judgment of the district court determining that plaintiff was entitled to recovery, defendant appeals. We affirm. On September 29, 1965, defendant (insurer) and plaintiff (insured) executed an insurance agreement entitled 'blanket Crime Policy' and providing indemnity for covered losses not to exceed $250,000, with a $20,000 deductible clause. This policy was in effect at the time of the alleged loss.

that trutv article is bad. I believe it started the myth of the flight path being shifted, due to incorrect reading of the Norjack book. oh btw: If anyone finds earlier references to theorized (mythologized?) flight path shifts, post a link. (edit) no my memory was good. the supposed H./Scott meeting is described here: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/DB_Cooper/7.html But there is no such meeting in the Norjack book. The trutv article is from 2003? or 2004? If there are earlier references to a Scott/H./retirement meeting, please post.

I thought we confirmed that there was no exchange about military vs sport chutes. that was myth. The exchange involving "McChord" is documented on Sluggo's site. (Cooper didn't say it first) And there was no hat. I don't think we have a perfect timeline on when the glasses were on vs off.

This one is interesting for a couple of reasons. July, 1972 1) Vietnamese student. 2) 747 was flying from WA to South Vietnam? 3) grudge, although kind of unique one (shows how hard it is to predict grudges). Interesting: one of the notes was written in blood? 4) What the pilot Vaughn, 53, did was pretty extreme. Read the article, around where they quote "Kill the son of a bitch". Passenger shot him while Vaughn was holding him. 5) The shooter (5 shots) was a former policeman, going to Saigon to work for an American firm. I've attached a news article with a lot of detail and photo. quick synopsis from here: ("vacationing cop" seems inaccurate) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877868,00.html "One hour out of Saigon, Nguyen Thai-Binh, 24, a South Vietnamese returning home from studies at the University of Washington, took command of a Pan American 747 jumbojet and ordered the pilot to fly him to Hanoi. Thai-Binh's U.S. Government scholarship had been canceled at the Thieu regime's request, possibly because of Thai-Binh's antiwar activities. The pilot, Gene Vaughn, 53, flew into Saigon anyway, and Thai-Binh sent him a second order written in blood—apparently his own. It got him nowhere; he was shot dead by a vacationing American cop."

Just noted that under "New Accessions and Openings for the 1st Quarter FY 2007", the National Archives (run by U.S. federal gov), apparently acquired a Cooper case file from Washington? Not all of their stuff is online. Interestingly this case file is from 1972. I cubic foot. They have regional archives. Not sure exactly where this archive is, physically. from: http://www.archives.gov/research/accessions/2007-quarter-1.html Records of United States Attorneys (Record Group 118) 1 cubic foot Western Judicial District of Washington: Significant Case Files – D. B. Cooper, Case #72-0451, 1972.

orange1: just to show that you and I are really talking about the same stuff in Vietnam. (I may have already pointed this out). It's very difficult to understand how knowledge might have flowed thru people of the time and area. from a CIA web page (like I've said, CIA has published a lot of historical stuff, slightly biased). The whole history is very convoluted and no matter how much has been written, it is still difficult to figure out. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no2/a-retrospective-on-counterinsurgency-operations.html By 1967, the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), had succeeded in consolidating all military and civilian pacification efforts into one entity, called Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). CIA and MACV were intensely involved in CORDS, which was run in conjunction with the Saigon government. CIA-veteran Robert H. Komer initially headed CORDS, but it was most active and successful under William E. Colby, who replaced Komer in 1968. Colby had served as chief of station in Saigon from 1959 to 1962 and as chief of the Far Eastern Division since then. Colby believed the United States must rid the south of the existing communist parallel government in the villages and eradicate the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI) in the countryside. Thus CORDS, while working on village defense and civic action programs--the latter included land reform, infrastructure building, and economic development--also devoted considerable resources to rooting out the VCI. Another component of CORDS was the Phoenix Program. Although Phoenix was run and ostensibly controlled by the Saigon government, CIA funded and administered it. Phoenix built on the work of the CIA-created network of over 100 provincial and district intelligence operation committees in South Vietnam that collected and disseminated information on the VCI to field police and paramilitary units.