snowmman

2003 event Note that Padilla is 50 years old. 6'2", brown hair, brown eyes. and from Pensacola, FL also. Really. Must be the water down there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N844AA http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Security_Issues/727disappears.html best, latest summary here: http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/padilla_ben.html fbi seeking info on Padilla in 2004 http://www.thewebfairy.com/911/boeing/padilla_files/PADILLA.HTM Padilla, a United States citizen from Pensacola, Florida, was overseeing rebuilding work on a Boeing 727 airplane at the DeFevereiro International Airport in Angola in 2003. The plane had been there for two years. Padilla had been working there for two months; his duties included supervising the team of mechanics. He was also going to hire a pilot and co-pilot once the plane was in flyable condition. Padilla is a licensed aircraft mechanic, flight engineer, and pilot of small airplanes, but he is not licensed to fly a 727 and has never flown a plane that large. He was going to be the flight engineer when it took to the air. The company that owned the plane was going to repossess it from Air Angola, which had failed to make its lease payments, and fly it to South Africa. Maury Joseph, the president Aerospace Sales & Leasing Co. which owns the plane, visited the site two weeks before Padilla disappeared to see how things were going. He gave Padilla $43,000 to pay holding fees to the airport. Padilla paid the fees and faxed the receipt to Joseph. On May 25, 2003, at approximately 6:00 p.m., the 727 took off without clearance or a flight plan, and has not been seen since. A photograph of a plane similar to the missing one is posted below this case summary. It is described as a 28-year-old 200 series 727 with a tail number of N844AA, and a serial number of 20985, unpainted silver in color with a stripe of blue, white, and blue. The plane was formerly in the American Airlines passenger air fleet, but all of the passenger seats have been removed and replaced with fuel containers. The plane is outfitted to carry diesel fuel and had taken on 14,000 gallons of A-1 jet fuel shortly before it departed. Padilla disappeared at the same time as the plane and is believed to have been on it when it took off. John Mikel Mutantu, another crew member from the Congo, is also believed to have been on the plane. Photographs and vital statistics for Mutantu are unavailable. The plane may have originally been headed in the direction of Burkina Faso. Its last radio contact was to ask for landing permission in the Seychelles Islands, which are in the Indian Ocean east of Africa. The plane never actually attempted to land there. Padilla's brother believes that Padilla did not leave voluntarily and that the plane may have been hijacked by terrorists. He claims that he and Padilla discussed the possibility that this might happen and Padilla said he would crash the plane rather than fly it anywhere against his will. Based on his memory of this conversation, Padilla's brother believes he was either killed or is being held prisoner somewhere. Joseph agrees with this theory; he does not think Padilla stole the plane either. He does not have a history of criminal behavior. It is worth noting, however, that Joseph himself has been convicted of forging documents and defrauding investors by exaggerating the profits of another company he ran. American authorities believe that the plane was stolen as part of a financial scam or possibly a business dispute. Three American agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA) the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), are all looking for Padilla, Mutantu, and the plane. England and several African nations are also searching for them. In the summer of 2003 a plane was found in New Guinea and rumors spread that it was the missing 727, but this turned out not to be the case. Padilla and Mutantu's cases remain unsolved; they and the plane are still missing. The circumstances surrounding their disappearances are unclear.

jo asked "Snowmman: Are you talking about that VOR - I guess that is the ID (not going back to find it)? The radar contraption around Orchards and below Battleground?" No, just exploring issues around how the flight path map we have might have been created, and whether they knew where Flight 305 was that night, or not. other note: I've read other things that said the system ARTCC uses has a different set of radar symbols than the in-close ATC, and that a different symbol pops up if the plane is "off-course".

from that same page: (note they should have logged altitude also if they were getting the transponder?) "The most accurate position coordinates recorded by the ARTCC are in latitude and longitude, whereas approach radar records position coordinates as range and azimuth values, and both record the transponder-generated altitude values. Military and private radar facilities can provide similar position time history information." Seems to suggest military-provided data would also be lat, long. This all is good because it eliminates the idea of "errors" due to range/azimuth numbers from a radar installation, which 377 was talking about, way back in the thread.

I said before I was confused that the flight path was apparently determined using both radar and FDR data. In looking at some FAA accident reports (recent) I found that a flight path was estimated, using ATC radar and DFDR data. So then I looked for NTSB info on how they used ATC + DFDR to estimate flight paths. Found something interesting here (I think I referenced this page before) http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/symp_rec/proceedings/authors/grossi.htm ------------------------------------------- "Utilization of ATC Recordings by Accident Investigators The importance of ATC recorded data will be determined by the circumstances surrounding an accident or incident. Accidents or incidents involving very dynamic conditions, such as aerodynamic stall and loss of control, are difficult to evaluate with ATC data alone. ATC data are more significant for less dynamic accidents, such as controlled flight into terrain, or when used in conjunction with FDR and CVR data. The correlation of events common to the ATC recordings and the FDR and CVR recordings can provide a very accurate local time reference. This can become critical because the FDR and CVR are only required to record relative time and the local time reference may vary from one ATC facility to the next. ATC radar and FDR data can be correlated by comparing the altitude time histories whereas ATC communication recordings can be correlated by the radio transmission time histories recorded by the various ATC facilities and the CVR and FDR. In addition to a time reference, ATC-recorded information will also provide ground track reference, which is essential in performance-related accidents. A wind model can be developed when radar flight path data are combined with FDR parameters such as altitude airspeed and heading and airplane acceleration parameters. This is particularly useful in accidents or incidents involving dynamic meteorological conditions such as wind shears or crosswind and turbulence conditions. ATC radar data are particularly useful in evaluating the relative position of aircraft when multiple aircraft are involved. Investigations of mid-air collisions and wake turbulence encounters rely heavily on this information. There are significant accuracy and resolution limitations that must be taken into consideration when using recorded radar data. The accuracy limitations are known and should be factored into the ground track calculations. The sampling intervals of 4.7 to 12 seconds, presents a significant limitation on usefulness of recorded radar data. " ---------------------------------------------------- I've been curious about why we only have flight path data transcribed at one minute intervals on the flight path map . It may be that a human extracted information at that resolution. I think the technology in 1971 had higher resolution. Note they talk about reverse-engineering a wind model, by combining FDR and radar info. Interesting. The wind could have been predicted exactly at each point?

We've touched on this before, but I'm putting a finer point on this issue here. I've posted a number of things speculating that 305 was visible on Seattle ARTCC radar all the way down past PDX. I started looking thru the transcripts to see the times Seattle ARTCC requested transponder idents from 305. Sluggo's timeline mention of an ident made me wonder about this. -It does appear that Seattle ARTCC radar could track all the way past PDX -a la Nixon tapes, there's a 18 minute ARTCC comm gap at the critical juncture :) background on how this works is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_traffic_control_radar_beacon_system "The transponder has a small required set of controls and is simple to operate. It has a method to enter the four-digit transponder code, also known as a beacon code or squawk code, and a control to transmit an ident, which is done at the controller's request" "The air traffic controller can request the pilot to ident, and when the identity control is activated, the SPI bit will be added to the reply for about 20 seconds (two to four rotations of the interrogator antenna) thereby highlighting the track on the controllers display." Basically, sequential-in-time ident requests indicate likely visibility on radar, right? Eventually Seattle ARTCC says that the transponder is lost at 8:54 PST From the Seattle ARTCC transcripts (page 70 of 99) ident requests are at: (SEA R5 & R6 are operators at Seattle ARTCC) SEA R5 - 08:13:14 PST ident request SEA R5 - 08:15:52 the altimeter setting that Sluggo highlights is given here No communications with Seattle ARTCC for 18 minutes. This is not atypical? Suggests that the radar was tracking well? There are gaps later on also. SEA R5 - 08:33:46 PST 305 signs off from SEA R5 saying "so long" and SEA R5 acknowledges "Good day sir" This is after telling 305 to contact Seattle Center (assume this is Seattle ARTCC) on 125.8 Mhz. (I guess switching frequencies) SEA R6 - 08:33:55 PST ident request. Note R6 is a new operator. SEA R6 - 08:45:45 PST some comm. SEA R6 - 08:54:53 "Roger sir I lost your transponder"

According to the fbi site: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/march09/dbcooper031709.html "Carr discovered the comic book connection on D.B. Cooper Internet forums, where fascination with the case is undiminished. The forums are also where Carr found the “citizen sleuths” who volunteered to help us reinvigorate the case." So there's the implication of multiple Internet forums actively posting. There have been a flurry of one-offs posted recently to various forums as a result of the comic book thing. But I've not seen any posts at other forums for a while. Not since the parachute find last year. Georger is trying to get some momentum going at another site. I think outside of DZ.com, they have a hard time keeping the conversation interesting. Historically they like to debate McCoy=Cooper, Mayfield=Cooper, Duane==Cooper. But they only really discuss names that get tossed into the pot. The team of "citizen sleuths" that's working with the FBI is dissembled from the TV video and fbi site: Tom Kaye partner Carol A. Alan Stone (metallurgist) Brian Ingram There may be others. Tom K. was going to publish a scientific paper shortly, but that may have been scuttled. Supposedly pollen was found on the tie, metal on the money and who knows what else. Money bundles have been tagged and thrown in various rivers, so people can find them. The FBI is looking for someone with air force loadmaster background, possibly interested in comic books. (edit) oh yeah, Tom K is on a mission to validate the data behind the flight path. There are people of the H. sect, who believe in 305 flying all over the place.

"Barb Dayton makes a really good Cooper from that angle." I agree the bills must be paid. I would play up the macho-man image of Himmelsbach. In his book he dismissed one suspect just because he was too feminine. I think part of the interesting part of Cooper, is how he messed with people's male image....i.e. he had to be a kook, because macho men like Himmelsbach, and skydivers of the day, and paratroopers, and ... said so. That reminds me: Is this next guy a kook? or no? I was trying to analyze the risk in this plane to plane skydive. The hard part is that the target plane is in a vertical dive, it has a drogue chute to slow it down? So it's descent rate is maybe 110 mph, and the jumper is matching that. Now 110mph is 161 ft/sec, and the jumper is just 10' or so above the prop of the plane. So assuming the plane and jumper can vary their relative descent rates by 10% pretty quickly, that's a 16' vertical relative blip in one second easily.. so one fuckup and you're in the prop...I guess he's got to make the horizontal distance across the prop risk envelope into the cabin quickly. Still, if you did this 30 times, I think you'd end up in the prop at least once? Can't imagine the plane to jumper relative vertical speed, and horizontal, is that controllable over many repetitions. What cracks me up in the video is the classic white middle to upper class parents, acting all concerned, but confident in their son who is well trained. Bullshit! He's just another guy going for it, tweaking the odds, and sure he's trained, and there's a pretty good chance of success. But basically, he's rolling the dice against the physics variations involved, and hoping he can react to any variances. Have people dissected this before? I'm interested in how jumpers perceive the difficulty here. Assume balls=0. I mean once you decide you just wanna do it because you "believe" it can be done, there's no balls involved. The real question is repeatability. Can this be done 50 times without getting the chop, literally? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGphGbJool4 I'm not dissing the guy. Heck it's on youtube, so I guess he wants people to watch it. I'm just wondering about it.

Of all the theories we've had, any kind of loadmaster service in the WA area, or smokejumper training, is the most easily investigated. I don't think the smokejumper thing is all that interesting. What I find interesting, is that I don't think it was ever investigated deeply, beyond calling up someone in 1971. Who probably said "Hell, none of my boys would do something like that." The FBI did interview at least one smokejumper guy. Lee Kahler http://www.smokejumpers.com/obituaries/item.php?obituaries_id=427 He had a Boeing connection, as long-term employee. Was NCSB 1946. NCSB is North Cascades Smokerjumpers Base. If we just knew the whole list of Smokejumpers they talked to, we could get past this. But we'll never know. The obit makes it sound like they interviewed more than one smokejumper. But I doubt they hit all the possibles. "Lee died in October 1984. He was a native of Winthrop and worked at Boeing in Seattle until his retirement. He and his wife lived in Chelan after his retirement until his death. Lee was another one of the jumpers who were interviewed by the FBI in the D.B. Cooper case."

There's been a number of people on ebay trying to make money selling the FBI "files" on CD. Which is just stuff you can download for free from fbi.gov. I just noticed one new twist. This guy claims to include a copy of Duane Weber's death certificate. If he came to this thread, he could sell a copy of Duane Weber's FBI fingerprint card! Hey maybe I could sell a CD 'all the posts, pictures, videos ever posted by snowmman on the notorious "internet forum" referenced by FBI SAC Larry Carr when the Cooper case went hot in 2009.' (I've been searching for other internet forums talking about Cooper, and can't find any recent posts, so Carr must be talking about DZ.com??) from the ebay ad: (but it now $4.99, which is not bad. I notice the fiction book "D.B." is only going for like $8-$9 as an e-book) Included here you will receive: http://cgi.ebay.com/D-B-Cooper-PHOTOS-FBI-File-Death-Certificate-for-Resrch_W0QQitemZ390038762910QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item390038762910&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 1. 2 glossy 4x6 photos of FBI sketches of D. B. Cooper, the first as sketched in 1971, the other as sketched in 1972. 2. FBI Files (over 175 pgs have been declassifed) on CD and viewable at your leisure in PDF format. Includes tons of news articles relating to the Cooper incident, FBI correspondence etc. Very cool. 3. PLUS the death certificate copy of suspect Duane Weber!!! No joke. Death certificate lists interesting info about Weber including place and date of birth, parents info, spouse, date and place of death and more. Really interesting material to study.

Cousin Brucie asked: "By the way, 377, what do I get calibrated against, or with? Pray tell. What do you hold to be bed-rock truth, down amongst the deepest of places in the center of your soul? " It's the way the sentences are written...all breathless and panting. I mean, even my snip of yours above is all breathy. The Cooper story is boring. It only deserves a recitation of facts and possibilities. But no one reads that. And no one tells you anything real, so you have to make up stuff. You have absolutely no current sources, even though the FBI investigation is supposed to be "hot". Like 377 wrote, you write like a fiction spy novel. Need shorter sentences. If Cooper blew the pilot's brains out with a shotgun, you'd write shorter sentences. Because then people are revolted.

377 got me searching after reading his reports of stolen aircraft stunts. Robert K. Preston is interesting. 1974 He dropped out of helicopter school, but managed to steal an Army UH-1B heli and fly to the White House, force down one of two police choppers, and then land on the White House lawn while being shot at with shotguns and machine guns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Preston We get all worked up about a little training for a jump. But how about jumping into a UH-1B (Huey) and taking off, with incomplete training, and flying over the White House? (he was 20 years old, helicopter maintenance guy, flunked out of the instrument stuff in flight school) http://news.google.com/archivesearch?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=robert+k.+preston Oh, and the followup: they called him a psych case at first, but the final thing was court-martial, six months (or year) at hard labor, and $2400 fine. Not bad. Don't know if there's video. He only served 2 months. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50A11F935581A7493C2AA1783D85F408785F9 Evidently he was shot at in the air also, from a Maryland State Police helicopter. Oh and p.s. He landed at the White House at 2 A.M. at night.

Gee Snow, dont you have any nostalgia for the 60s? Maybe you were hard core east coast Weather Underground while others were reaping the immediate benefits of the kumbaya approach in Berkeley. That cold weather makes people bitter, vengeful and over clothed. 377 Hey I do remember Woodstock, though. I was stuck in traffic jams in the back seat of my parent's station wagon while we were driving home on vacation from the Catskills. All I remember is them attributing it to "Woodstock" whatever that was. I did eventually work for someone who was legitimately there though. The first time I heard/held the Woodstock album, was in the back of a trashed trailer owned by two vets from Vietnam. Tom and Ed. They let me and John play with a busted .22 they had. They had keg parties where guys with motorcycles showed up in force. Had a cool hand crossbow we played with. They were building a house, and had dreams of hiring a maid that would always wear a French Maid's outfit. I remember hanging off the house whacking nails into the plywood. Don't know if that house ever got finished. They had a crazy-assed dog that wanted to eat my head. It was quite a thing for a kid, sitting in that trailer, with two crazy guys back from Vietnam, listening to "And it's 1-2-3-4, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, my next stop is Vietnam" The police eventually came and took away all the cool stuff.

TK apparently knows the exact manufacturer of the rubber bands. I'm assuming that means he knows the size and width of the bands. In his test run, he twisted rubber bands multiple times around the bills. A lot. More than I would have expected. I'm assuming that means he used really big rubber bands, not multiples. In any case, I was always wondering whether the Cooper rubber bands were doubled (or more) around the bundles. We talked a little about additional chemical compounds in the rubber bands. In reading about film preservation, they mentioned taking rubber bands off the reels, because when they deteriorate, they leave almost-permanent sulfur stains that are very hard to remove. I had always been looking for marks on the found bills, that might be a shadow of a narrow rubber band in the middle. Couldn't really see anything good. but it would be interesting if there were sulfur deposits. It would only be on the top and bottom bills I guess. BUT: if the bands were still there, just crumbling to dust, then the bills that the bands were touching should have still been there..and any chemicals from the rubber bands, should have stained/migrated? Just something I was wondering about. Probably not able to find the right bills to really analyze this..although the serial numbers of the "top" bills in the bundles are visible in some of the bundle photos we have...so conceivably it's doable to identify them.

I had the same thought 377. Bruce sounded perfectly sane and intelligent. But then he writes tabloid journalism. I'm assuming, it's just feeding the maw to get the paycheck. It's weird. I'm called a whacko, yet there are journalists doing crazy stuff, FBI agents doing even crazier stuff, and "scientists" saying even crazier stuff. Seriously. Me and the crazy lady are holding the fort on sanity, I think. And the local shrink, georger, well, 'nuff said. And sluggo beating on me for not doing a kumbaya and holding hands around everyone who wants to join the Citizen's Work Force that neither Ckret or TK are organizing but are organizing and asking for help with but don't want help or shared information.

I've been mulling over what I said about that guy that wanted to do some analysis and help out the FBI, and how he should contact the FBI using their email address, like they said. Ckret has said on TV how it would be great to find Cooper with no FBI resources expended. But imagine if they get a lot of tips via the comic book angle, or the loadmaster angle. How do they get processed without expending resources? It's all very confusing. I suppose if someone delivers Cooper on a plate, like the guy who delivered Madoff on a plate to the SEC years before he was exposed (SEC did nothing)...... :)

Yeah, I really liked that footage. It's really good to see stuff, to synchronize on what we're speculating about. Because everything we talk about has to be pre 1971...possibly all the way back to WWII (late '40s). It is really interesting to muse about what it would have been like to been jumping back in the '50s at a base camp with those guys. I liked the funny thing where they tied their legs to the log and were doing those reverse bendovers on their backs..OUCH! like an initiation ceremony..which many male group things were back then. It is really amazing how stuff appears on youtube that's just excellent historical info. That second video was just put up by a reputable history society in feb 2009. It's a segment from a longer dvd/movie from way back they sell. New stuff just appears..so have to be constantly looking. Every month potentially new stuff everywhere on the web. It was interesting how they showed early air drops, and I believe they had someone similar to an Airborne Safety who was wearing an emergency rig. I just glanced at it. And they were doing air drops, so hey they have loadmasters. I wonder why smokejumper loadmasters are verboten, but air force are in (for FBI profile)? I think it's just the supposed McChord connection, which we know is very weak...i.e. Cooper commented only after Tina said the chutes were coming from McChord.

http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew%20photos/1947%20crew%20photo%201.2.jpg http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew%20photos/1949%20crew%20photo%201.2.jpg http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew%20photos/1950%20ready%20room%201.2.jpg http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew%20photos/1953%20smokejumper%20overhead%201.2.jpg http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew%20photos/1954%20jump%20refreshers%201.2.jpg http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew%20photos/1956%20crew%20photo%201.2.jpg I've always wondered if people had this vision of smokejumpers as "manly men" who would never morph into the myth of Cooper as bumbler. Looking at the photos, and trying to guess at the people, I think helps bring reality, rather than myth to the question of "who were these people who smokejumped back then"

Each of these links is the roster of McCall smokejumpers (plus another base) from '43 to '58 (later is also available, but I think this range is good) There is detail showing the years as a smokejumper for each person, and the details of the jumps they made. (training, fire, rescue, helispot/project. Total jumps in the season. Total Career fire jumps. Total Career jumps. Position in the team. You can see how many short-timers there might have been, and jump experience. I guess this doesn't cover Missoula? which was a big site. The age (A) of each person, that year, is shown. The Total Career Jumps is shown for each individual also, you can see the range of experience. (CJ) (edit) Even if this is not complete per year, (missoula missing, minimally?), it is a good sampling I think of jump experience and age for smokejumpers of the right era. http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1943_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1944_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1945_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1946_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1947_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1948_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1949_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1950_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1951_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1952_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1953_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1954_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1955_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1956_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1957_roster.asp http://www.mccallsmokejumpers.org/photos/crew rosters/1958_roster.asp

I think knapsack needs to be researched - my understanding is that knapsack was a COMMON expression for smokejumpers and forestry rangers. I have held on to that for a long time --- I sent emails yrs ago to different foresty and smokejumper groups - and knapsack was a common term for them, but I couldn't get any specifics. I sent so many emails and enquires and I made copies of them all - in the 1,000's of pages I have. Knapsack was also a Scouting term. Hi Jo, Given Cooper's age, it's likely if he had any smokejumper training it was either when they started expanding post WWII or the 50's. The total number, according to the Smokejumpers book, that trained wasn't that high. I would think records would have been available pretty easily. It's an interesting question if the FBI looked at all smokejumpers trained in the late '40s-50s that met the physical description. It's also an interesting question that if they didn't, why look at loadmasters first? (loadmasters are statistically more likely to be nefarious characters?) (edit) It's arguable about skill levels between loadmasters and smokejumpers, when talking about jumping, I would think? smokejumpers were all static line back then? Not a lot of jumps per individual. (edit) Historical 1937 video of smokejumpers. 377 will like the old plane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25J2SO3Dj-E more historical footage: (even better, has some early test jumps, it looks like..no helmets) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rePLC-7uqY

Off Ebay. container is part # 60A113E2-51 according to http://www.alse-shop.com/marine/product.asp?pID=83&cID=260&c=19423 that's the part number of the container of a NB-8 Personnel Parachute Assembly. So the ebay listing sounds correct. Comes in regular or oversized. (edit) as nitro pointed out, you can see the little webbing "keepers" are black. Can see clearly in these photos.

heh. Freud would be taking notes. Looks like I mistyped. The original plane history doc say "George Hardin" An unrelated thought. I was thinking about how Ckret is pursuing this case. Ckret has been consistent in a point of view that says the FBI investigation was good, with only a small number of errors. (say on DZ etc). i.e. Ckret backs the idea that portions of the investigation were good. My point of view is more that the errors in the investigation point to a likelihood of errors everywhere. That gets perceived as attacking the FBI. My point that we need a new agent is related to this. The perfect new agent would accept the theory that the displayed error rate in the FBI investigation, makes it likely that all aspects of the FBI investigation were flawed, which is my point of view. No need to post the snowmman==maggot responses. I'll just assume that.

I thought about the separate canopy for the money too. But a loadmaster would know that it would be way too high risk, because of the separation when he landed on the ground vs the money. Likely you wouldn't find the money. (edit) and where would you pull the money chute? on the stairs and toss it? I guess that might work. In Vietnam I was reading about improvised canopies from ponchos for improvised air drops. Now I threw out the idea of deploying both the main and the reserve, to slow down the descent rate, especially when loaded down with the money. Was thinking of this when I saw a picture of someone landing with both main and reserve deployed (both rounds). We've discussed this before. I think it would still work as a nice way of dealing with descent rate. HEY: new thought. If cooper did a dual deploy (not, because of the reserve he grabbed, plus no D-rings)...then his descent rate would have been a lot slower and the DZ would have been miscalculated! funny thought (but improbable)

I'm mulling over the military experiences of all the jumping hijackers, again. I hadn't focused on Hahneman's military experience before (which I think had the coolest jump) because I thought he was a civilian contractor during the Vietnam War. But I was just looking at another news article, where Hahneman claims to have "fought" in 3 wars...WWII, Korea, Vietnam. I guess not clear what roles in each (maybe civilian contracting) 377: We talked about Hahneman's job role before. I thought he had worked connected to helicopters. This article says he was an Air Force radar technician Interesting! I know 377 was Cooper. Once the radar background was admitted. p.s. I've posted before about the excruciatingly detailed lists of gear Hahneman asked for, including the cigarette brand and number. Benson & Hedges. (edit) so people don't have to search. He got six parachutes with the money. From my prior posts, I noticed it was interesting he asked for the money to be exchanged into bigger bills. (even though his $303,000 was mostly $100 to start with) Hahneman was American citizen born in Honduras. Puerto Castilla. Honduran mother. Father of German "extraction". Had been trained as a radar operator and flight crew member with US Army Air Corps in World War II. He also demanded two cartons of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, fuel, bush knives, jump suits and crash helmets. He traded the mostly $100 bills when they landed again after 5 hours, for larger $500 and $1000 bills. DZ was suspected to be near San Pedro Sula, in the jungle about 20 miles from the Caribbean coast.

Hi 377, The chest-as-money-container makes sense when you know Cooper got the open necked money bag. But it doesn't make sense when you think about him ordering a knapsack. A knapsack wouldn't fit in a chest container. what do you think about that?

Back in May 29, 2008, Ckret posted on some of his thinking about loadmaster. I just noticed something. He said the "bulk of the investigation was conducted on those with a high level of skill, either a sport jumper or someone with military jump experience." What's interesting there, is that we never got any details on how complete the FBI investigation was, in terms of people with sport jumping experience. I've posted a lot on why I think it was incomplete. (basically because they focused on the wrong years, but I don't know). Ckret also gave me an "attaboy". :) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ckret posted: Orange, The load master guess is a way to explain how someone would have the knowledge Cooper had about jumping and aircraft without actually having working knowledge of either. As a load master he would have just enough information or exposure to dream up his escape, go through the motions of it but not have the working knowledge to successfully forward the plan. The bulk of the investigation was conducted on those with a high level of skill, either a sport jumper or someone with military jump experience. Snowmman, Why would you be surprised that I could not understand your genius. Your brilliance shines too bright for mere mortals. I am blinded by it, maybe you could turn it down a notch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On May 28,2008 Ckret posted: Sluggo, I think he was going to bail out as soon as he was comfortable in doing so. On the assumption he was a load master during his military service, he would have a good understanding when he could jump based on the cargo he threw out of planes. I also think there was a part of him that didn't think the plan would work at all. When he got the money the stews said he changed and acted suprised and child like. I take that as, "oh shit, i can't believe this stupid ass plan worked, they actually gave me $200,000 dollars." Soon after the reality sets in, "Oh damn!!! now I have to really jump from this plane." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 29, 2008 Ckret posted In regard to military service (I have posted and disscussed it many times) the theory is he was a Load Master operating out of McCord.