snowmman

although I have no idea what's true, I've read some posts by mechanics who say their 727 were missing a vane, and wondering if "Cooper Vane" was a myth. Apparently most US 727's installed the mod, but some didn't or got deliveries without it. Iberia was mentioned as getting theirs without it (at some time). Hey, 377 had a good question about 727s in use. There's actually a web site that will track all planes currently in flight in the US, by aircraft type, so you can check, like real-time. The code for a 727-200 is B722. 727-100 is B721 so the links are: http://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/B722 http://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/B721 Click on them and you get a nice little real-time map. They have little green planes..that actually have little black shadows under them.

(edit) this phrase is in the Dec. '71 letter "I don't blame people for hating me" That kind of statement has never entered my mind before. Whenever I see a collection of sequential words, a phrase, that seems unique, I always like to google it, to see how often it's used, and by what kind of people. while it has nothing to do with a 1971 use, here's an example of someone else using it: "How can anyone stand to look at me or be around me. I don't blame people for hating me. I'm a gross monster who should never have been born. I disgust myself so I can only imagine what other see when they look at me". It's weird now that I think of it. That one little phrase does capture both a pushing-out "I don't blame" while obviously the writer does blame...and a pulling in "people hating me"...i.e. feeling attacked. It's like the phrase would be used with a false sense...pretending to emote over others, but it's really all about me. Glibly, I could say "like Jo'...but Jo would never use a phrase like that. That's not Jo. So it's a weird kind of phrase. It's like someone saying they're not writing about something, but the reader has to say, no, you are writing about the thing you say you're not writing about.

I have posted the full text before. It was evidently copied to the NY Times, The Wash. Post, the LA Times and the Seattle Times. It was signed "D.B. Cooper". Supposedly typewritten? I'm intrigued by the sentence structure and particular phrases. For instance, in "situations of high risks". Both situations and risks are pluralized. You'll find that sometimes people singularize one and pluralize the other. I've highlighted that I believe the "boasting man" line betrays a literature background. I'm curious about how the letter was formatted on the page. I think the claim of wearing a toupee may possibly have been correct. Cooper may have not worn a hat for that reason. The toupee may have been one that thickened thin hair on top..not one that glued to a bald pate. The initial Cooper sketch had very thin hair on top. Thicker hair appeared by the '81 sketch, say. The face putty may have been a lie. Possibly to cover up the reason for truly tanned skin. But I think there are two key misinterpretations in the letter. Speculating: The "Unfortunately I do have only 14 months to live" was not a statement about impending death. It was a statement about needing to live..i.e. have money ..for the next 14 months for some reason. It didn't imply death at the end of that period. The "few fast grains of peace of mind" may have been a reference to emotional or nervous "breakdown" type issues. It comes after the description of a "life" of "turmoil, hunger and more hate". An example of the complex sentence structure is this next sentence. Note "though" was used instead of say "although". And "nor" was used correctly. Note the comma position. "I don't blame people for hating me for what I've done nor do I blame anybody for wanting me to be caught and punished, though this can never happen" Colons, semicolons and commas were used (apparently to my quick scan) correctly throughout the letter? I'm curious if any punctuation was missing in places (periods) It would be a "fun" and "interesting" part of investigating this world famous case, if a copy of this letter could be made available. And any report that was written on it's analysis. For instance what kind of typewriter. And the envelope if available. Was that typewritten also? Stamp? (postmarked in Seattle apparently?) If the envelope was available, there might be DNA on the glue? I'm also intrigued by the claims of flying airlines in the period after the hijack already (by Dec, 71) Thank you for your attention. (edit) I'm drinking a Schlitz while writing this. Hopefully that de-uppities things sufficiently. (edit) Oh, as a matter of course, I expect the letter and enveloper were dusted for prints? Were the only prints found from the newspaper folk? If so, does that say the writer took precautions to prevent prints? Would be interesting to know. A simple hoax letter (no fraud) is not very criminal. May indicate the writer actually was worried about prints?

okay wolf I'll shut up for a bit here. A "fun" thing for me about the forum is just listening to other folks, with a common thing to talk about. I get a little bent about someone going on about their personal perceptions of what being intellectually "uppity" is about. (i.e. projecting motives) My life experience says everyone is brilliant. The problems occur when people think they can pretend to be dumb, and somehow that helps things. -done for the day.

The whole point here (for me and I hope you) is fun, entertainment and just maybe doing something really cool; solving one of the most intriguing mysteries in American criminal justice history. *** by implication, you're saying your actions have led in contributing to achieving what you describe in the paragraph above? You jump around. Sometimes you say the investigation was done, and you're doing nothing and it's up to "us". Sometimes you act like you're involved. Sometimes you act like you have no time. You're full of shit. At least we're consistently nuts. Fun? You might be speculating about others. How exactly are you having fun? I could describe how I am. Your turn.

re: mumbo jumbo: Or it's like DVDs. Once you get used to the idea that, for a lot of reasons, there are no facts in the Cooper case, then it becomes a matter of predicting what movies someone might like. Where "like" is a codeword for actual resolution thru other means. See, it's all about humans. You can use info about what movies others like, to predict the "will like" behavior of a single human, to a degree, but not 100%. Netflix wants to improve that prediction capability, cause they'll make money. Humans don't live on facts, they live on things they like...move away from things they dislike. I guess the facts could be the total space of movies made, but that's constantly changing (growing). Like info in the Cooper case. You can lead with data, even if it's talking about "like". Like is good. Like works. Like clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. You start with "like", but in the end someone really watches a particular movie, and then you have a fact. You can always "prove" that it's impossible to be correct on knowing what a future fact will be...but that's only if you worry about being 100% right on a single guess. The nice thing is, Netflix doesn't have to be 100% right on a single guess. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23Netflix-t.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&oref=slogin "THE “NAPOLEON DYNAMITE” problem is driving Len Bertoni crazy. Bertoni is a 51-year-old “semiretired” computer scientist who lives an hour outside Pittsburgh. In the spring of 2007, his sister-in-law e-mailed him an intriguing bit of news: Netflix, the Web-based DVD-rental company, was holding a contest to try to improve Cinematch, its “recommendation engine.” The prize: $1 million. Cinematch is the bit of software embedded in the Netflix Web site that analyzes each customer’s movie-viewing habits and recommends other movies that the customer might enjoy.(Did you like the legal thriller “The Firm”? Well, maybe you’d like “Michael Clayton.” Or perhaps “A Few Good Men.”)"

? Hey Georger now you got me all scratching my head. But I'm going to bed!

Your inclusion of references to rape and murder of young people, to add emotion to an argument that has nothing to do with such things, belittles those who suffer from the actual events you include. I realize my offhand remark did the same thing, and I apologize. I do overreact sometimes at your attempts to control people's thoughts. This is just a forum. This is not life.

my daugher? That sweet young thing on the floor of the Cessna was no daugher of mine. You have incorrectly invoked Godwin's Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law The correct invocation: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Crawl under a rock? Isn't this thread a pretty good approximation of said destination? Or where now brown cow?

Reply: Wouldnt it be interesting if someone who has direct access to the current Chinese Ambassador was reading this, like the son of the former Chnese Ambassador. Stop the crap!? Georger son? I suddenly understood I had a unrealized bias when I found ltdiver apparently is not male? Possibly cat? At least that's my current guess. maybe ltdiver can confirm (or not). Why not daughter of Chinese ambassador?

Good point Georger. I have some snaps from the video that included Hicks, that showed a placard. There is another video with another placard. I always wondered if all the pictures we have of placards are really recreations. Do you know if the actual placard found is the one in the video, or just the one in the FBI-provided snapshot. It would be nice if you posted a picture of what you think the placard is/was, if we're going to start a placard discussion? ps. from one whuffo to another. If you don't know Jamey, then most of the other folk here are laughing at you. At least I know when they're laughing at me, I figure, say a little more than 50% of the time.

Jo, in the past you posted that the gentleman in China was in a very rural area, therefore had difficulty getting to a notary. It's odd to be "very rural" yet still have email access? In other post, you posted an email from him that was interesting. It included the word "firefight". You can repost that if you like. Also, in another post, I just noticed that apparently he has an ex-wife and a current wife. The ex-wife you said supports his story. Was she "wife" while at Rodeway Inn? You mentioned talking to a supporting wife on the phone during the first contact around 2001. Was this the ex-wife? When did she become ex-wife? You also mention a recently current wife. Supposedly the night clerk was in OR and WA for a short time, you mentioned Portland, but he was unable to travel to Seattle to talk to FBI. Apparently in-USA for both health reasons and to handle citizenship issues for the new wife. Is the new wife Chinese? Do you have a year for this marriage? And then you mention the return to China to fulfill a "contract" as a teacher. Was the position as an English teacher? I'm wondering how a 27 year old Rodeway Inn night clerk became skilled in something such that China would be interested in him teaching. The most likely thing would be simple skills like English. I know these are a lot of questions. Feel free to answer as you like.

on the other hand, back in 1997, Jamey posted, and is probably correct (since we know it was a 28' round), that Cooper jumped with an unmodified C-9. I had been wondering if there were any panel mods. Someone suggested a double L back then, but Jamey shot it down. Someone else had suggested that it was likely, in those times, that a C-9 would be modified. Interestingly another poster claimed Issaquah was "the happening sport DZ" back in the day. Issaquah was only 20 minutes from Seatac. Cooper only mentioned McChord=20 minutes after McChord was mentioned to him. I wonder if Cooper knew about Issaquah. as whuffo or non-whuffo. It's funny no one has mentioned that the good chest reserve may have been unpacked to check for tampering. (beacon or other). i.e. check something that appears "good"..that they think you'll take. If it looks good, then you can guess the rest are good/untampered. You wouldn't want to unpack the thing you actually use (back NB6) because you don't want to repack. So you check something that's good. (especially if you're panicking that they're all bad cause one is obviously bad!) Just a thought. A plausible scenario. I shouldn't bother mentioning it because Cooper's exact thinking in this area has already been identified.

yes that's one part that's wrong, right. Read it a couple of times. There's a lot of wrongness. I can't understand it. I mostly want to know what a Type 226 is.

We've talked before about how eyewitness testimony can be wrong. Now I don't know Jamey. I'm sure some of you do. And I have no mean intentions here. But like I said, "The Web never forgets". At the very least, we can dissect this next bit. Basically, the post below is wrong in a number of regards (apparently). Although Jamey claims he was there, and him being Jamey gives him credibility. I think he just got some secondhand information mixed up over the years. I was looking at this mainly because I couldn't find out what a Pioneer Type 226 rig was. If someone has a url that describes anything about "Type 226", please post. in 1997, Jamey Woxxxxxx posted to rec.skydiving, in reply to a question about the Cooper rig: *** Lucky me, I happened to be there when the Washington State Patrol came roaring in and demanded 4 parachutes, 3 good ones and one bad one. Earl Cossey, the master rigger on duty, gave them 2 pilot emergency rigs and two chest mount reserves, one of which was totally unairworthy and used only in our student hanging harness simulator. (Incidentally, that rig was left on board the aircraft and for years afterwards we used it in training day in and day out. It was labelled "DO NOT JUMP - DB COOPER"). Interestingly, neither of the pilot rigs had D rings on the harness to allow the reserve to be attached to it. One of them had been deployed down the aisle of the aircraft, and he jumped the other one. Both reserves were left aboard. He left the aircraft with only one parachute on. ***

no..it's not worth it. Like I said, you can't find an LBJ rubber mask online. Nowhere. If someone can, please post.

I was surprised to find some references to using early chest reserves without a cutaway on the main. Here at DZ.com on another thread, there's even some pics of someone landing back in the day with a fully deployed main and chest reserve (both rounds). I'd be interested in hearing any stories about people deploying a chest reserve without a pilot chute, without a main cutaway. I also received written instructions with this chest reserve I got. It was an old one. No pilot chute. "If your main fails to fully inflate (and your ass is sucking 90 mph of wind at 2 grand), throw away your ripcord. Hold your left hand over your (belly mounted) reserve and pull the reserve ripcord with your right hand. Throw the ripcord away. Allow pack to open sufficiently to feed reserve into both hands. (Simultaneously while you're shitting yourself,) Look to see in which direction you're spinning. Throw reserve into the spin (and see how much of an atheist you are now, MFer). If reserve fails to inflate (kiss your ass goodbye), pull reserve back into your arms and try again (to keep yourself distracted before impact)." Since I couldn't figure out how to kiss my ass goodbye while shitting myself and doing all the above, would I be a total whuffo if I just said fuckit and figured my chances were about the same with just the main?

Jo: there is something we can do to verify whether all the emails you have posted are really coming from China. I'm starting to think that it's possible they really are. It is possible to set up accounts, so that email is sent from China, while someone is typing into say a browser in the US. So anything we do with expanding the email to see where it's coming from is non-conclusive. uhh...I'm only familar with faking where things are coming from because of ...ordering male enhancement products..yeah that's it. In any case, you need to find out how to display extra info in the email. Hopefully the email is still in your email client, not on paper. In your email client, ideally you have to find out out how to view the message source. (the key part is called the full header, it has the IP addresses of the source and destination..IP addresses have a uniqueness for delivery reasons ..sort of like mail addresses). If you PM me with the email tool and version you have, I can give you details. Then we can get the IP address of where the email came from. If you do this yourself, you can obscure the exact email address, so I/we only see the IP address of the email server. That way we can only track it generally, not to a specific user. Even if the person is in the US using a method of getting email sent from China, it might be informative to understand where in China, since it might be tied to the person's travel habits. It would also be useful for correlating where they've told you they are, with where the email is really coming from. Depending on how you forwarded the email to Ckret, the email header may not have been preserved. So while the FBI can do this simply as a matter of course, Ckret might have ignored this or not had the right data from you. So the ball's in your court. You can easily prove you have email from China, without revealing your source. It's like fingerprints. It can be faked, but I doubt we're dealing with that much sophistication here... You have to do it, because your computer isn't accessible by outsiders over the 'net. Cough.

:) Hey Quade. notice that half of my post was a joke and half was accurate info from what I can tell. It's interesting to me, I couldn't understand my problem searching on LaPoint etc. like I said. Only interesting if one is concerned about using this thread as a database for info..Remember how I mentioned using Search Engines without understanding what they do? Always gotta understand the limits/problems with a tool. All tools are broken in some way. Maybe humans too! (testttt 377: i just checked that it gives us the capability to post in "stealth" mode..i.e. it's possible to create posts that won't show up in the search! So if the clerks are using the DZ.com search function for writing up the warrant..we can be under the radar, I think!)..as long as there is enough noise (posts) that they won't wade thru all the pages...377 you suggested that noise was a problem, relative to a coherent signal. Now can you see the benefits of noise?

Okay guys, I posted a DZ.com search issue before, saying that I thought there was a bug in DZ.com or user error. I have more info/speculation. I had to hack into DZ.com and take over everyone's account for 37 milliseconds (I didn't look at private photos, although I didn't know so many of you guys out there jumped in panties?) I double proxied in thru Pakistan and Slovenia, so hopefully no incriminating crumbs. I only use wireless for my last hop, and I spoof my MAC address every 15 minutes. In any case, it appears that the search database that stores our posts, doesn't store the text that you see "right now". What I'm guessing is that the search database is updated on the original post, and not updated when you use the Edit or Delete links. (note that your edit or delete ability disappears at midnight (I believe?) for the day associated with the post) You can check this speculation if you have a good memory, by searching for text for a poster who deleted messages. You'll get that post in your search (matching your remembered text) but when you click on it, you'll see it's deleted. Quade can confirm. There are alternative possibilities, I suppose. tearing down the proxies now. Note that search also hits on posts that have been dumped in the recycle bin, say if Quade deletes them. Although you can't read the post. It's not a question of the search database just being a late copy of what you see "right now". Posts show up pretty quickly in search after someone makes them.. Issue reminds me of the quip "The Web never forgets" You might ask "Why is this interesting snowmman?" Well if true, then hitting "Delete" for instance, doesn't mean your post is deleted. Someone, for instance Quade, would still have an old copy of it in the search database.

got it. Thanks for the sign off.

hi ckret. You tend to pick stuff and just say what you want to believe. You can say the opposite interpretation here and it sounds just as good. If I need a part, I don't try to salvage parts from something I know is broken, since I don't know which part may be broken. I get a desired part from the best device I have, as long as I don't want it. You're saying "oh it's obvious that even if it's soft it would have the cord Cooper wanted". (edit) We only know the failure mode because of extra knowledge Cooper didn't have without full inspection. Okay. Sounds like an FBI agent with a little bit of knowledge who's a danger to himself, to me, but whatever. I'm not supporting either point of view, I'm just amused at how quickly you embrace black and white interpretations.

Lisa, you've not done your homework. Read up on McNally. Read up on Heady. Its Lisamarie, so google search on them? Ive heard the names. And nope I havent done my homework on many aspects hence why I keep up with the thread but hes my weird icon folk hero I can, no matter the evidence think and know he survived and is an experienced SD. Oh and Im not a USPA member anymore ... what other fast insults ya got for me. Just because someones read all the data does not mean they know what it feels like to skydive nor does reading about it give even a small glimpse to what life is like after jumping. I had re-editted my post because I thought it first read like I was referring to you. I was referring to Heady. I was actually making a leap saying Heady was up to date USPA, but you can read stuff I posted and decide for yourself. Just search for Heady or McNally, posts from snowmman. I guess I'm not going to apologize, because unintended insults are two-way blame. Receiver thinks a certain way about Sender. Sender maybe isn't sensitive enough to Receiver. Maybe this post itself is an insult. Who knows. At a certain point, I should just stop. (edit) attached clarity, to avoid getting gutted with a broken beer bottle in a bar by lisa.

I keep thinking Cooper couldn't have been a sport jumper. The Pioneer sport rig would certainly have a sleeve and that would make a BIG HUGE difference in slowing down deployment compared to an unsleeved C9 canopy. Why subject yourself to a painful and even dangerous slammer opening if you have a sport rig available? If you had stuff tied to you, opening shock is something you'd definitely want to minimize. Also, you could clip a reserve to the Pioneer rig, right? 377 Didn't the comment complaining about the chute delay "mcchord is only 20 minutes away" betray an expectation that the chutes would come from military base? If so, then the Pioneer would be something not part of the initial plan/expectation..i.e. a wild card. Yeah, it might have been superior, but if you had planned it thru with certain expectations, you might not adjust on the fly. You see something like what you expected, and you grab it. Done. If Cooper was expecting sport chutes in his initial plan, would he have said "it's only 20 minutes to Issaquah?" If he was whuffo, would he have said "oh, is it hard to get chutes?"

I think that prior mentions of "gangsta movie english" have muddied our thinking. Does your thinking change if "do the job" is used this way: "If he can't do the job, get rid of him and get someone who can"