georger

why would you have a secret conversation with Ed while Duane was alive, that involved a conversation about jumping? What was the context? Snowmman: Why do I have to repeat this story and why is everything I say taken out of context? This was not a "SECRET" conversation and it was not about "JUMPING". Ed was ill while we were in Denver and he asked Duane to come over and run an errand for him to get his medication. I stayed with Ed while Duane went to the drug store. It was a general conversation. He asked me where I was from and "just stuff". Toward the end of this conversation I asked him how long he had known Duane and where he knew him from. Simpy ordinary questions just general conversation. I had never met Ed prior to that time. He told me that he knew Duane from way back in WA, OR and ID. He mentioned Helicopters and planes - he was a pilot or mechanic. He also said something about Alaska and Vancouver. I told him I didn't know Duane had ever lived there. He immediately stated - that he supposed Duane had never told me about that part of his life and he did not realize I did not know. He asked me not to mention this to Duane - I would suppose thinking Duane would be upset. I kept my word and did not mention it to Duane and over time I forgot about it. Ed was very adamant about my not sharing our conversation with Duane. What I have just said is all he said. The conversation was interupted as Duane was back with the medication...the drug store was just on the corner of the block so what time I spent with Ed alone was about 15-20 minutes. Reply: Alas, now we have the Reluctant Hijacker, and personal ID. thief. Cooper didn't mean to do it. It was beyond his control. It was all an accident! He gave all the money to charity and wrote Max Gunther to arrange it. But kept a small wad he had forgot, which he and Jo send down the Columbia "wrapped in one rubber band Jo provided". Makes sense.

But on the bright side!: To Althea. From Prison. "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty." Richard Lovelace, written in prison (edit) or: "To DBC thread. From the banned Zing" :) and: No man is an island entire of itself But a piece of the continent and A part of the maine. If a clod be washed way by the sea Europe is the less As well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were Every man's death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind. Therefore, Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. The bell toll for thee. (robt dunne from memory)

What you have just described is how I would imagine one lives within the confines of a prison to stay out of trouble. Don't toot your horn, keep to your tasks, be polite - a means to an end - get out of prison. Come Jo. You dont have to imagine, You know. There many kinds of prisons. ... G.

Disagree. He said he had a grudge, but I don't recall anything reporting him as saying that was the main reason for the hijack? Cannot prove that it was his primary motive rather than the money on what we know. Read Ckret's post above. Unless I misread it, Tina sked C why he was hijacking the plane. He said a grudge, not against the airlines, just a grudge. He didn't elaborate. So if Cooper was speaking truthfully, his primary motive was a grudge. You know something better? G.

Let Zing back.... Im still intrigued by night jumps at dusk. I still think there is an advantage to it - lack of depth perception in low light so jumping doesn't look as threatening. what do you think? G.

I was surprised that Ckret repeatedly said that if the grudge was primary, Cooper would have stated it when he got the microphone. I'm no shrink, but isn't that a narrow view of people with grudges? Cooper, the quiet guy seemed like the slow-burner type. He was probably used to internalizing crap? If Cooper did have a grudge (he said he did) and he was trying to not get caught, then airing his grudge would have been stupid as it would have disclosed something about himself. He seemed consistent in not disclosing much about himself, so why would he air his grudge? I'm guessing that he had a basket of grudges...in his mind layered in complexity. So that maybe also it just wasn't worth trying to explain it all to Tina. After all, what was she going to fix about any grudge? I'm just musing about why the grudge is expected to be aired. Just lashing out may have been sufficient for Cooper? In addition to needing the money. (edit) In fact, there's no grudge that a hijack addresses in any rational way. Maybe he was mentally both rational and irrational. Schizophrenic sort of. Reply> I agree with everything you say above. Without knowing the man its difficult to generalise - you would almost certainly be wrong somewhere. He's too old to have a single grudge, in all likelihood. I wouldn't describe him as schizoid at all. He's under real stress but stayed with the tasks at hand and finished his mission. I dont agree with Ckret he would have stated his grudge when he had the microphone. I am sure he didn't want any microphone. I don't think he was enjoying anything. I think this was merely a means to an end, in his mind. We don't know who this guy was before the event or anything about him afterwards. Georger

Reply> Nice post. Thanks! I for one appreciate the common sense approach. Georger

So, there is a lot of fatalities among the experienced skydivers who are doing pond swooping and high speed landings. However, even though a high percentage of the fatalities are represented by the experienced skydivers, only a small percentage of experienced skydivers participate in those activities. Second, USPA does an analysis of fatalities in the sport. (Pie chart) It generally points to the same type of division. Experienced people - pushing outside the envelope of their skill. New jumper - making mistakes. Self-inflicted choice vs ignorant mistakes. Third, I haven't seen any evidence to connect DBC to an experience level or motive yet. No evidence has pointed to anything as a motive other than money. There is no evidence of long-term participation in the sport either. Reply> The above would seem to suggest a rather steep cutoff beyond which injuries result no matter who you are. That certain people engage in certain behavior is not nearly as important as, if you go beyond a certain window, probability of injury goes (way?) up (quickly)? In other words, physics and physical parameters of the human body conspire in parachuting to make a rather narrow safety window? Now, if for any reason Cooper goes beyond these limits his chance of injury is greater. Perhaps that is why McChord told Ckret they would have called off a jump given the conditions of that night - Cooper stated his primary motive. Grudge. G.

I have sat patiently still while you and 377 throw 'gravity waves' around. Reconsider your metaphor. Its a bit out of date by decades. Its no biggie but thought I should mention this, just in case Jo's next reincarnation is as a physicist-hotel clerk! Then my gluons would unhinge. The book I want to read is the book where each FBI agent on Sluggo's list writes a chapter. Dont know if such a thing would even be possible but it might make good reading. (There you go Ckret. A retirement project of merit!). G.

! x10E20 = some uncountable number. God Jo your bias is so clear. Ckret already posted before he could find no record of the registration being taken and was open enough to admit that didn't necessarily mean it hadn't, just that he could find no record of it. For someone who keeps sniping at people who ask questions that have been answered already, you do a very good job of doing the same. Then again you clearly won't be happy till the FBI starts acting as your personal PI agency and/or tells you that Duane was Cooper. I'm guessing neither will happen though. And especially fter all the time Ckret has wasted on you, his civil and polite responses put yours to shame.

Creepy Uncle Sluggo is back!!!!! I am glad you brought that up, ever play that game where you whisper a statement to someone and then they pass it along and then that someone passes what they hear along............ by the time it gets through 10 people what comes out the other end is not the original message. I believe this is what is at play here with a few issues. Cooper makes demands with no real specifics to people who operate with specifics. I wrote about this some time ago; when you fly the 727 with wheels down at 10,000 feet what are the flap options? My guess is 15 degrees is the most optimal setting, so when the pilot radioed the demands he simply added the “15 degrees.” I am sure to the pilot “flaps down” means nothing; especially when the pilot is communicating with others who speak his professional language. If the pilot said to flight ops “flaps down” well what does that mean? So given the parameters Cooper gave the pilot overlaid his knowledge so that it meant something, “15 degrees” The same can be said about the pilots stating “chest” chute versus “front” chute. The pilots must have at some point had some type of instruction or knowledge transfer in regard to jumping and the equipment used to do it. So again front chute did not mean anything to the pilots but chest did. So when communicating to others that speak your language you will translate the meaning so that they understand. Reply> I don't want to complicate this. But, my reply to Sluggo is 'one instance is not a representative sample'. We do not have multiple instances of Cooper giving technical instructions. Even if we assume Cooper said 'flaps to 15 degrees' one time, Cooper could have picked that kind of thing up anywhere. It doesn't add up to deep technical knowledge. I dont think communications were so poor on that airplane that Cooper couldnt say straight out what he wanted and get it understood by Scott etal. The period where technical knowledge matters most is the period where 305 climbs from ~7000 feet to ~10000 feet and Cooper is trying to get the stairs out to bail. It is during this period where it almost appears Scott and Rat are aware of what Cooper is intending and trying to accommodate him, because it "appears" Scott & Rat are trying to configure the plane so Cooper can bail. There is nothing in the Transcript during this period about Cooper giving technical orders or requests. What there is (in the Transcript) is some confusion and mystery on Scott's part about "what is going on in the back" ? This is the period leading up to Cooper and Tina's last conversations together before Tina goes to the cockpit. Presumably (I stress presumably) Tina did convey some communications for Cooper during this period to Scott, via the PA. Whatever those exchanges were the Transcript says nothing about Cooper issuing technical instructions. Lastly: I think the Transcript and Tina's notes reveal there were times when Scott (and other crew) were genuinely confused and frustrated about what exactly Cooper wanted, technically. Central technical issues keep getting debated over and over between Scott and others. Obviously Cooper was not being clear and concise on many issues. And yet we know when Cooper and Tina were together he did use her to communicate with Scott. If Tina's interview says he said "15 degree flaps" then I would be more inclinded to believe it, but I am willing to bet Tina's interview does not say that. There are several flight comms where I think Scott is clearly expressing his frustration over what Cooper wants, exactly. If Cooper has technical knowledge or specific requests he sure isnt helping get these requests understood - first time out. You may interpret this as Cooper being coy and secretive or even highly skilled and able to deal with whatever situation given him, but, 'it was never necessary" for Cooper to even mention "15 degree flaps" in the first place because it is obvious from a technical point of view that Scott is doing everything to climb and slow down the plane to accommodate a jump as best he can, and down flaps are guaranteed in any event, and Cooper is going to have to suck up the rest and bail, in any event - to escape. Th picture to me is Cooper issuing general demands and the crew and others fill in the technical details. The biggest mystery to me is Cooper does not even request a route! There was NO discussion between the crew and Cooper over a specific route. Cooper seems to assume the route will be over land. They almost went via a ocean route! What does that portend for Cooper if he bails into the Pacific as opposed to over land? He never even asked. I have to seriously wonder what Cooper would have done or said had they taken off for the ocean route, with all lights of civilisation vanishing underneath him? Would he have inquired about that through Tina? All I am suggesting is this crucial period is not that long (timewise). We have talked around and over this period many times here at DZ, but the period can be parsed out specifically. But if that is done Tina's testimony for the same period has to be added to what the Transcript conveys, to get a fuller picture? G.

Orange, what do you think about the transition between prop vs jet jumping, especially at 160 kts? It would seem to me except for velocity, the jet is the cleaner faster separation? Maybe Im all wet. Any comments appreciated - G.

Quote"John Searle's 1980 paper Minds, Brains, and Programs proposed an argument against the Turing Test known as the "Chinese room" thought experiment. Searle argued that software (such as ELIZA) could pass the Turing Test simply by manipulating symbols of which they had no understanding. Without understanding, they could not be described as "thinking" in the same sense people do. Therefore—Searle concludes—the Turing Test cannot prove that a machine can think, contrary to Turing's original proposal." Google provides the vast database of symbols. By manipulating those symbols, even without understanding them, one can mimic intelligence. All you need are the simple rules for manipulating the symbols. Reply> That is a sobering hard-won observation. Contrary to what the empiracists predicted going clear back to before WWII. I have a friend who works for the robotics division of a corporation - their toys are serious. After multiple failures in the 80s they finally began dumbing down their command algorithms and made appropriate mechanical changes. Success began to take form. The amount of memory required began to level off. Today they design dumb robots which perform well, conduct routines flawlessly, and return without a hitch. Sometimes simple is better. There is a passage in the Transcript where Scott speculates 'our friend in the back may the blueprints' (paraphrasing). Consider the perspective if in fact Cooper didnt have the blueprints. Scott is dealing with complexity from many directions. Cooper is sitting in the back ... merely sitting at the time ... with Tina at his side. Cooper knew enough on some level not to interfere. Scott was juggling multiple levels of noise. Cooper is the hijacker. Scott is unwilling Manager! Their tasks are considerably different with different levels of weight, up to the time of the bailout. Scott will go on to land at Reno. Cooper may be dead torn in pieces or deep in a grave. But Cooper's routine works. It's a simple routine. Cooper's routine may have been simple because he planned it that way or because he was capable of nothing more, or some combination of the two. G.

Ok, I'm just going to report the results of the analysis by the PH-D's (nod to Tom) here. All we know about the posters is what they post. Analyzing it, the only rational poster appears to be 377. Even Sluggo doesn't tip the scale the right way. In short, there is no evidence that Ckret is rational. We don't know his goals, but if you analyze his posts, they seem to be at cross-purposes with any goals one can imagine? Therefore -> not rational. And that's not saying anything negative. My posts are not rational. Many others aren't. 377 I think passes the Turing test. Reply> Ok. Free drink anyway but not of your choice. Your 'rational is as rational does' test (The Forest Gump Test) has the wrong object/goals in mind. If you do not weight the Turing machine then you will come up with Linquist-Turing machine which as we know LasCegas would not buy, because it favoured no house. Moreover could not even be weighted to favour anything but a pure random outcome. (Now I know why! John Paulos refused to join us here! Yes, I asked him to come.) Moreover, performance in posts is not 'performance in a hijack'. We are free-willed entities here. Nobody's life or pile of cash is at stake, so far as I know but I wouldnt even bank on that - these days. Cooper's turns are weighted from the start by a series of choices. He walks on the plane like a normal person. Not there very long knowing no one he passes his Note to Schaffner and gets his first surprise. She pockets the note (not in her purse as the Mt. Sage Hearld Action Newz reported!). Cooper must remind her "read my damned note!". But, the crucial fact is his choice of communication is by note, not by voice. He is leaving nothing to chance which includes his own anticipation of his own actions including his own frailties (which only he knows what they are!). ................. his next action soon to come is getting rid of Schafner because he has estimated her psychology in about 3 seconds. (The same amount of time it takes for men and women to bond in a chance encounter if they are going to). All estimates and facts are probabilities. The Forest Gump Test is nonconclusive. (Godel took it several steps further). G.

Reply> question: were their prop based jumps happening where the plane was going nearly 160 knots?. And a protocol for those kinds of jumps, if any? Is the jump from prop to jet really that great given how Scott flew to accomodate Cooper. (I wonder what jump conditions Scott was thinking about trying to accomodate Cooper?) G.

Reply> Bailing was the hard part. The execution easy. Like pearls falling off a necklace. The crew, NWA, FBI, all did exactly as he wanted. He sat and smoked a few cigs. The beaurocracy did the heavy lifting, and quite frankly, the beaurocracy helped him vanish. I have a reason to believe he may have suspected this was how it would go, what may have given him impetus to try in the first place, so he may have simply used the system against itself and squeaked out the door before people could catch on. The selection of the target may have been difficult if it wasnt a total accident (but I dont think so). I think our Cooper is a calculating man. Simply on one hand but intelligent and mentally active underneath. He either saw a target and reconised the opportunity and took the chance (saw the vulnerability), or he had been watching and planning for some time until a flight like 305, at an opportune moment, occurred 'in his venue of operation'. There are very specific things he did which lead me to this scenario. On the other hand there are very specific things he did not do, or failed to do. I think our Cooper is quite bright, but is not 100% rational as say - compared with Ckret! Cooper could have been thinking about this for a very long time - gestating within his grudge. Then saw an opportunity and took it quickly. But he has to be in the background to seize "this" opportunity. We know this because of the quick sechedule change that brought this flight into existence. I do not believe he was working up to picking any flight at any time, or he wold have already hijacked or robbed a bank, or something. His execution seems flawless but in reality it was a host of others who did all the real work. Cooper merely sat with his bomb (and Tina). Im not writing a novel here!

The door was already cracked open at liftoff. He may not of known, or he may have. The fact he wanted door open and stairs down at liftoff shows he considered the issue. If he didnt know and they had said the door must be closed to lift off and cant be opened after airborn, then he would have been screwed. Just as he was screwed waiting for refueling and screwed again getting the stairs out at liftoff, then screwed again getting the stairs out fast after liftoff ..... so its pretty obvious he didn't have the deep knowledge some think he had OR he wouldnt have asked for door open and stairs down prior to liftoff. But, yours is a damned good question and helps define the realities! G.

Quotegood points, georger. But: Most planes have doors in the back (or somewhere). Ventral or side? So you're saying 727 was special choice or not special choice? Just random? Reply> I dont know. Im not in Cooper's mind. But it could have been random, or based on the time of day and route, plus the aircraft. An overall opportunity based on several favors coming together which spelled a unique opportunity, for him. It does seem to me the 727 offered certain opportunities. Rear exit with lower risk of encountering wings or engines. Pilots have mentioned this before here. These lower risks would especially appeal to a novice and seem commonsensical. Was there any intelligence in side door exit vs ventral exit? Reply> No, as I see it. Rear exist is the preferred choice. Any theory is fine....although if such an exit was obvious to Cooper why not to others, earlier? Reply> I dont think any theory is fine. I think common sense and the simplest explanation has to rule here because there is a palpable lack of evidence to prove a more complex theory - and very simple requirements must be fulfilled before anything more complex can apply in any event. The man must apply basic problem solving in complying with basic principles 'before' anything more complex could apply, if in fact something more complex does apply. Example: he had to be able to know up from down, rear from forward, fast vs slow, issues of timing .... basic performance criteria. He had to comply with these basic principles even if he had ten phd's and had worked for Boeing for 20 years! If it turns out he satisfied some more complex judgement or action that requires experience or a credential, then and only then can something more complex be attributed to him. All he had to do was get on the plane, make his demands known, make a few requsts and make things as low profile as possible, sit, wait, keep track, issue a few new orders, get ready to bail, and then jump out the hole (at the rear). Those few actions equal one hijacking in this case. (The crew, FBI, NWA, etc did all the work!) He had his plan written out in concise demands. His terms were simple (Obey or I blow you up! and he showed the bomb as proof). He selected Tina (great selection on his part! He rejected Hancock and Schafner.) He didnt want the passengers alerted or involved. He disappears to the lew at a crucial time. His whole effort was to keep things simple and leave. If he missed SEA (his original departure) he may have targeted PDX or the Columbia next. This is a man with a plan however informed or uninformd (experienced or inexperienced) he was. Everything indicates he had a plan when h got on that plane and he knew where it was going (and maybe coming from). G.

I think you make some very large assumptions. I dont see special knowlede is required. You are turning something that is essentially simple into a technological-historical-epistemological-ontological morass. One can simply observe the plane has a rear door, ie. a hole in the back of the plane - through which stairs lower and protrude. You could forget the stairs and jump through the hole. Rear exists have advantage over side exit. You dont have to be a parachutist or engineer to see and "know" that, as a probability. Anyone with military time would see that in one second. The rest of the world would see it in 30 seconds if looking for a "door" (escape route). It is fairly likely he knew that before getting on the plane. His notes were pre-pared? His plan preset. Then you can get more complicated: Boeing, NWA, Vietnam, WWII, engineer, draftsman, military occupation, reads books, looks at photos, is a genius, has some special knowledge base or training, etc... When confronted by multicomplex explanations the simplest is usually the best. Cooper could have made this observation standing on the ground or in an airport watching - people offload from a 727. Asserting Cooper had technical knowlegde or experience requires proof. Otherwise we have an average Joe who used parachuting to conduct a hijack and then he vanishes after bailing with no trace except for money found at Tina Bar - a very odd place!

Hastur was part of the Cuthulu mythology. At points, he is described as a benign shepherd. At other times, he is something that kills you in an ugly fashion. However, Hastur was called "He Who Shall Not Be Named" because when you spoke his name, he would appear to you, but not in a good mood. Summoning him was a bad idea. Since the Night Clerk is not going to be named, and seems to be another of the fairly mythical characters in this tale, the parallels are uncanny at this point. I vote that we start calling him Hastur. From now on, we can assign any unnamed, secret beings with the names of other characters from mythology to keep them straight. Reply> funny. And Sluggo can put up a page of pseudo-nyms.

Quotefrom wikipedia. All hail the comic book! How many wannabe Pynchons existed in WA at Boeing? Reply> One!

QuoteThis is in the strange but true category. But I consider this a Snowmman Excellent Post. Hopefully all you skydivers know who Thomas Pynchon is, right? It provides evidence of my claim of engineering being only one of the ways to acquire 727 knowledge and how we have a stunning lack of knowledge about how information was created and maintained in the '60s at Boeing. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6750/is_/ai_n28819965 "Early in 1960, after having graduated from Cornell and while writing V., Thomas Pynchon moved to Seattle and began working for the Boeing Airplane Company. What Pynchon did while working at Boeing has puzzled scholars .................................... Reply> from Wiki- Pynchon attended Oyster Bay High School, where he was awarded 'student of the year' and contributed short fictional pieces to his school newspaper (Pynchon 1952-3). After graduating from high school in 1953 at the age of 16, Pynchon studied engineering physics at Cornell University, but left at the end of his second year to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, he returned to Cornell to pursue a degree in English. After leaving Cornell, Pynchon began to work on his first novel. From February 1960 to September 1962, he was employed as a technical writer at Boeing in Seattle, where he compiled safety articles for the Bomarc Service News (see Wisnicki 2000-1), a support newsletter for the BOMARC surface-to-air missile deployed by the U.S. Air Force. Pynchon's experiences at Boeing inspired his depictions of the 'Yoyodyne' corporation in V. and The Crying of Lot 49, and both his background in physics and the technical journalism he undertook at Boeing provided much raw material for Gravity's Rainbow. After resigning from Boeing, Pynchon spent some time in New York and Mexico before moving to California, where he was reportedly based for much of the 1960s and early 1970s, most notably in an apartment in Manhattan Beach (see Frost 2003), as he was composing his most highly regarded work, Gravity's Rainbow. Pynchon during this time flirted with the lifestyle and some of the habits of the hippie counterculture (see, for example, Gordon 1994); In 1964, an application to study mathematics as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, was turned down (Royster 2005). In 1966, Pynchon wrote a first-hand report on the aftermath and legacy of the Watts riots in Los Angeles. Entitled "A Journey Into the Mind of Watts," the article was published in the New York Times Magazine (Pynchon 1966). Following this period Pynchon concentated on literary pursuits leading to a number of literary-academic affiliations which has served as the basis for the rest of his life. On several ocassions Pynchon has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. G.

Hole in the back of the airplane with a door, and even a ladder! Much more convenient and user friendly than all of that 'side door tough guy' stuff seen in movies. He could have seen the aircraft once at an airport and made the decision. Now for Sluggo's theory: he had a phD in avionics, knew Max Gunther, had been a paratrooper in WWII, probably had FBI and CIA connections, knew the real story of JFK and maybe some of the principles, married Jo whoever, and hid the loot in some cemetary in the State of Washington ... and maybe was in the Astronaut core or ran for public office? (It's Teddy!) G.