snowmman

Right. It's part of the spec for all dredge pumps. They call it the "sphere passing diameter". You don't have to take the dredge pump apart. It's documented. Looking at the table I posted, my guess for a 30x26 dredge pump would be about 18" diameter sphere passing. (edit) although it's variable. Modern sales brochures brag about "really good" sphere passing diameters (to avoid rock jams)...so the technology may have advanced slightly since 1974...i.e. the sphere diameter vs discharge diameter ratio. I think people have to realize that a 30" pipeline dredge pump is freaking huge. That's why it's important to verify that it was a 30" pipeline dredge used in '74, probably the "Oregon". The whole money bag might have gone thru and gotten shredded a bit, with some of the money protecting a small part of the money. Heck, arms and legs probably could have gone thru. Questions about the cutterhead are valid. But my pictures show the cutterhead blades can be huge also. So no guarantees on "money shred" there? (edit) I'm wondering if Ckret wasn't interested in this, because the word "blades" was used, and Ckret wasn't familiar with what pump impeller "blades" really look like?

Wouldn't their VOR/DME readout make this fairly easy to determine? They can get distance (DME) and bearing (VOR) to a VORTAC station. That and a little map reading would give you a decent idea of present position and deviation from V23. The FE could do it if the pilots were busy. It is an easy task, I think. Pilots? Please add your opinions. 377 Let me visualize. Rat is flying the plane, and he's flying by the seat of his pants. He sort of follows V23. His instruments tell him when he's off V23, but he says "no problem". While flying he makes a mental note, based on some calcs off his instruments just out far off V23 he is, at some point in time, or for a long period of time. He remembers this and brings it up at H's retirement party. That's the theory?

I'm reviewing this, because even I forgot some little details. The pages that Ckret provided later give more info on the '72 dz map creation (see attached) The exact name must be known to Sluggo, since he got a copy before it was redacted, right? It references the "NWA Meteorology Chief" and is signed by someone else from Northwest Airlines. The NWA Chief Meteorologist was Dan Sowa who worked closely on some things with Soderlind. So: it does make sense that Paul Soderlind created the DZ map. We never got the full document that accompanied the DZ map. We got pages 272 and pages 273 (attached) In re-reading, here's the exact text that talks about the data used. I just realized it really emphasized that military radar was used. (Although ARTCCs can be joint military/FAA, I think now the radar used for the flight path reallly was McChord, not ARTCC, although ARTCC seemed to track it...which probably says McChord also had no range difficulties tracking 305) page 272: Aircraft position from USAF radar data from McChord AFB furnished by Captain REDACTED ... Time correlation from the above USAF radar information and from the NWA communications network tape recording. ... Airplane airspeed and altitude from the airplane's flight recorder. Tom Kaye: See, the flight recorder data used was apparently just airspeed and altitude? So I guess that resolves my question of how the data was merged. Now that I remember, my question of "merging" was before Ckret released these pages. So these pages resolved my question of how data was "merged". There was no merging of data. Data was combined, but not modified based on multiple sources of info. It also points out that the radar data is first-order. No big reason to search for the flight recorder data until you get radar data.

nigel99 said: "I also find it odd that it is mentioned the plane was not "on radar"? What is that supposed to mean as ATC radar beams don't decide to randomly "ignore" a plane. The transponder can probably be turned off on the plane which aids ATC (assuming they had those then anyway)." 305's transponder was on. The Seattle ARTCC transcript notes when the radar operator "loses" 305's transponder (implying no longer visible on his radar). Also several "ident requests" were given by Seattle ARTCC. The transponder lost, happened well south of PDX. (in time). Jerry/Himmelsbach's comment about no radar is wrong. Now there is a valid question about whether radar data was stored and used in the flight path map. The '72 DZ map implies that radar from McChord was used along with flight recorder data. That means flight recorder data was recovered. Now McChord implies military radar, not Seattle ARTCC. So it's confusing. But the questions are more subtle than what Jerry is proposing.

How did the pilots know they were east? What references did they use? instruments, visual? ??? I don't understand why they would know they were flying off V23 and by how much. And if they knew, why they would do that?

"If the FBI are so incompetent they can't even tell if the raw data is correct then pack up and go home cause dB Cooper may as well have been Santa getting lost on his way from the North Pole." This is exactly correct. The investigation was incredibly bad. Data was not preserved. Anecdotes ran rampant. I'm surprised it's just getting into people's heads. Cooper was a big serious investigation only in the media. Inside the FBI, it was obviously a clusterfuck. And all this latest stuff from Himmelsbach, well, its just sad. (edit) the insurance claim went to court, and the transcript is available. Interestingly the court case is used as a precedent in evaluating "war risk" exclusions in insurance cases. Now with 9/11 and the so called "war on terror" there's this issue about whether hijackings might be exclusions on insurance policies because they would be considered acts of war. Attorneys have tried that defense in the past, but I think so far have been unsuccessful.

It's very simple if you remember one thing. Most of this "stuff" you're hearing is direct from Himmelsbach. Himmelbach made up a whacky theory about where 305 was, and that's what you're hearing. (this was after he left the FBI) The only problem with the 72 search area, was how they determined the 8:11 jump point. We don't have enough information to really understand, but it seems like they didn't incorporate, or understand, all of the testimony, at the time. I also think it wasn't "FBI", but outsiders that created the DZ. They may not have had all the information.

jerry said: "fly what ever direction they needed they needed they were not on radar" Jerry, this doesn't align with other information. Who told you 305 wasn't on radar? The story is wilder every minute!

Sluggo called it out and implied it did. We never narrowed down "how close"..i.e. how close would a flight have to be, to get an altimeter setting (I'm assuming you're referring to the altimeter pressure callout, not an ident request from seattle artcc) The ident requests from seattle artcc pretty much confirm that radar there, minimally, was tracking 305 on their screens.

Jerry: Dredges don't have propellers, even in 1974. They have dredge pumps with impellers. And usually cutterheads. Where did you get the propeller information? Is there a picture you can scan? Do you know the name of the dredge used in 1974? Was it the "Oregon"? There is a technique called "prop dredging" that uses the wash from a propellor to move stuff, but that's not what a pipeline dredge uses. (in fact many states don't allow prop dredging) (edit) attached some pictures of cutterheads. Not sure what they had. (43 inch) only $5k (edit) added a 14x12 inch Goulds pump. You can picture the impeller inside. (edit) added a Nijhuis dredging pump 400mm/500mm (edit) added a 71 inch cutterhead (only $17k) all from the place I normally go for dredge components http://www.dredgebrokers.com/Dredge_Compnts.html

The people who want 305 flying more east. Well okay, let's accept that (with no data). So why not then also accept that Cooper jumped in the Columbia, just more east? People don't bring that up...they bring up these little river theories, because they were locked into the "jumping in the woods" fantasy, based on the 8:11 Lake Merwin DZ in 1972... so mentally they say "well the money find says Lake Merwin area was wrong"...so have to shift around a bit, and look for a river in the woods that feeds the Columbia. Instead they should focus on flight path and timeline and jump point. Stepping back and looking at what's fuzzy and what's not, landing in a river other than the Columbia, is the least likely probablity, given all possibilities. There's just no reason why you would grab on to it. Anyone grabbing on to it is just showing a love of the myth. Unless someone's going to draw an alternate flight path and timeline. That would be nice. Then we could predict an alternate jump point off of that, that's consistent with other testimony. But no one will do that. Because it makes it obvious how bogus it is.

The only "data" that suggests the flight path is wrong, is from trying to justify the myth of Cooper jumping in the woods amd dying. That's the only reason the flight path is challenged. Because people want Cooper to have jumped in the woods. Although it's unclear what time they want him to jump at. It's like they're working back from the myth, and forcing "facts" to fit the myth. Actually, if people would have realized the timing for the jump was predicted wrong, they wouldn't be so adamant at keeping Cooper in the woods. Because he could have died jumping in the Columbia!

Georger said: "There is another small airport east of PDX near the Columbia whose name constantly escapes me, but I have been told by several people 305 crossed the Columbia very close to that airport." Yes, it's Pearson Field. But it's not East of PDX. It was there in 1971. I show it on the picture attached with 305 flight path. Yes, 305 flew just about over it.

if flight 305 was cowboying it (Jerry says something about "manual flying" although I don't understand what that means..you still look at instruments to see where you're going, at night, in a storm) ...but if they were just flying wherever they felt like (watch out Mt. St. Helens!) then how could Himmelsbach "vector" to intercept? He wouldn't be able to be able to predict where they would fly, right? Because they were unpredictable. Also, Himmelsbach never saw the plane. So it doesn't matter where Himmelsbach flew in the helicopter.

Rat may have been referencing a certain number of miles east of I5, since that is a visual reference, unlike V23. If I measure that, I get 5.85 miles. Add some radar error, and yeah 6-7 miles east of I-5 is correct.

Ok. There were secret instructions on where to fly, that somehow Jerry uncovered, probably from Himmelsbach, who got it from who knows where. In addition, the flight path was transcribed incorrectly on the map, to hide this additional flying. At what point was the map wrong and what point right? The map we have, has the same location for the 8:11/8:12 predicted jump point, in the 1972 DZ map we have. So the two bits of flight path info we have, around 8:11/8:12, agree. They committed a huge number of troops based on this. Himmelsbach himself, in the Norjak book, muses about the plane flying near Lake Merwin. So somehow, the instructions about where to fly and the actual flight path, are recreated from someone's memory, post 1972? When people think the plane flew somewhere else, do they also say "plus the predicted jump point is wrong" OR do they say Cooper still jumped at 8:11, and Flight 305 was not near Lake Merwin at 8:11. My mind just reels at all the possibilties. It's never clear, because people just throw out one liners like "Rat said the plane was farther east" Which is no data, that is usable. (minimally there are time issues...when and for how long...Portland issues...etc..on and on)

If you look at the flight path section (attached again), I believe that Rat is remembering that they curled east, maybe up to 4.5 miles off of V23, (if you included some radar error) before turning back towards Portland. (edit) it would have been pretty bad if they flew around the wrong side of PDX, wouldn't it? The flight path shows it. That's why I wanted to know how Rat came up with his distance measurement. Some visual estimate? Something off an instrument? Random hunch? (edit) also: Why would you have a number for how far off you were from V23? V23 is not a physical thing. It's referenced with instruments. I don't know why Himmelsbach would know. He wasn't there. Hey here's the reference again on a recent study comparing radar measurements vs GPS. I just noticed their numbers were average error. Not max error. I didn't purchase the paper to see the full study. So I think it's fair to say the radar error could have been greater than +- 0.5nm back then. Maybe 1nm at most? http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F10454%2F33180%2F01563441.pdf&authDecision=-203 Comparison of host radar positions to Global Positioning Satellite positions Paglione, M.M.; Ryan, H.F. Digital Avionics Systems Conference, 2005. DASC 2005 265 flight's of radar tracking data were compared to their GPS positions. Three distance metrics were used. The time coincident straight line distance, referred to as the horizontal track error, and its two orthogonal components: cross track error (side to side error) and along track error (longitudinal error) were calculated. A total of 54,170 measurements were taken. This resulted in an average horizontal error of 0.69 nautical miles, an average (unsigned) cross track error of 0.12 nautical miles, and an average (unsigned) along track error of 0.67 nautical miles.

If the rubber bands were compressing the center of the bundle, why didn't the bundle curl when the money got wet? Does a wet bundle not curl with the tension from the predicted rubber band? Or, did the rubber band lose it's tension? The bundles seemed to be pretty flat when found. That seems odd. I'm guessing the current story is that the 3 bundles were all stuck together, not just close to each other, in scattered orientations? If 3 bundles floated "quickly" when dry, independent of the bag, it's hard to understand how they travelled together. Maybe there was a rubber band around 3 bundles, and the testimony is just wrong or something.

Yes that's sensible, if you're making an excuse to not do the experiment :) It would be easy to measure the force needed to strip rubber bands from a bundle of dollar bills. You could spray a bundle with a fire hose. What happens? The bundle and the rubber bands move together. (think of the relative surface area of the two items, for one) See the problem in your thought experiment, is that the turbulence is acting on both the bands and the dollar bills. So you have to think about differential forces, not just forces. It's like analyzing the effect of wind on the bundle attached to Cooper. It's about differential chaotic forces on Cooper and the bundle. Not just looking at one. But I'm reminded of the time, I had the nerve to call out an old guy, way smarter than anyone, on why he had people doing some stuff that I considered a waste of time...he looked shocked, like he couldn't conceive that I wouldn't understand, and his point came down to this: "You have to do the experiment" Sure you may think you know what the outcome will be, but you won't know till you do the experiment. He was also big on publishing all results or thoughts.

This is good Jerry. Why restrict it to FL? what about the rest of the USA? And Orange1 is South Africa. Don't leave out that continent. There was a poster from australia here too (bigway?) and one from the UK! nigel99 I believe? I always wanted to make formal public statements, but they always get rejected. I got published in a letters to the editor once, though.

Skynet became operational on April 19, 2011 and began its attack against humanity on April 21. It was learned that that the Serrano Point Nuclear Power Plant would be one of the machines' key sources of power. John Connor sent Dan Cooper back in time to destroy the one man that would enable the functioning of Serrano Point. All Dan Cooper had was a codename. "Sluggo_monster". Dan's plan was to hijack an airplane and not get caught, causing Sluggo_monster to go insane trying to figure it out. When that failed to work, a worm was unleashed in 2009, known as Conficker. Conficker was released 4 days before the 37th anniversary of the hijack, on 11/20/08. It's name is a play on the word "Cooper" and "fucker". It used the MD-6 encryption mechanism, as a tease to the FBI about MD-80 aft airstairs. MD-6 had only been developed by Dr. Ron Rivest of MIT in Oct. 2008, in response to this need. http://mtc.sri.com/Conficker/addendumC/index.html Some errors in the worm unleashed a storm of email from Sluggo_monster's computers, but were quickly fixed. The true intent of the worm was made known on 4/1/2009. The worm searched out all DB Cooper information on computer hard drives world wide, simultaneously, and deleted all of it. This prevented Terminator units that were sent back from 2011, from finding out what happened to Dan Cooper. Microsoft offered a $250,000 bounty for information on Conficker. Microsoft was the parent company of Cyberdyne Systems. Skynet was initially funded as a replacement for aging ARTCC radar and computers. And thus, humanity was saved.

at 20:15 (or 20:14 depending on your point of view), flight 305 was 3.5 miles east of V23, according to the flight path map. That's 3 nautical miles. (see attached) So Rataczak is correct. At one point near Portland they were East of V23. How did Rataczak decide it was 9 miles, rather than 3.5 miles? And at what time? The error bounds in the flight path was supposed to be +- 0.5nm. But a recent paper comparing GPS to radar determined location of airplanes suggests that the error could have been larger than that. I forget the number I posted, but I'm thinking +- 0.75nm 3+.75 = 3.75nm => 4.3 miles But we don't know if Rat was talking statute miles or nautical miles. Or really what Rat said, passed along by Jerry.

It's quite impressive how you can post or even make a phone call, without a computer there Jerry. But yeah it's good knowing where the plane was now. How did Rat reckon out where the plane was? (and when) Did he visual something or ??? (edit) Another thought When Rat saw Portland or Vancouver lights, did he see them out to his right 9 miles or did the plan turn or what happened? I'm still not clear on whether they flew close to Portland. It sounds like you're saying they didn't. Be nice if we had the exact testimony from Rat about the Vancouver lights from 1971.

Jerry, I'm not attacking anything you're saying. You're too used to all these DBC folks you hang out with that want to argue with you. I'm just trying to figure out what you're saying. I don't need to verify it. But if you've made it clear, then okay, I'll go back and reread.

"There was pieces of money above the site where Brian found the Bundle of money" There were numerous reports of this in news articles, but Ckret repeatedly either ignored our questions or said only 3 bundles were found? The pieces that were found "above" ...what does "above" mean? further from shore? Or North or South of the 3 bundle find? Note they only dug 2 or 3 trenches. So they would only find money where they dug. The area where they found money may be misleading. But it'd be good to know exactly? (edit) Another question for Jerry you said "acording to Fazio /Ralph and others the dredge had placed there pipe more than 100 ft above the site" Do you know how far sand was pushed when it was moved around Tena Bar after the dredging? and by what kind of equipment? Was it just pushed, or loaded on trucks or ??? It had to move further to create the big sandpiles we see in the '74+ photos? (edit) Another question for Jerry: "In short the only way the money could have reached tena bar is durring a high flood stage with fast moving current.and had to be done quickly in order for the money to retain its boyancie.This means the money had to be dry and compact.Hope this helps you to understand what science has provided." I'm willing to believe that Jerry. But what science provided this? I've not seen it. Do you have a report or ?? Are you saying you think the bundles travelled on their own, with no bag, and no attachment to anything else or ??? it would be nice if whoever did the science on this wrote a report we could all review.