Robert99

Jerry, You are blowing smoke. I have no idea what you are talking about in your last sentence. What "compacity" are you referring to? Transcripts, unless intentionally changed or "sanitized", are accurate. The ATC transcripts were originally sworn to as being accurate by ATC personnel. But anyone even casually knowledgeable of IFR flight can understand what is being said, and/or not included, in the Seattle to Fort Jones, CA portion of the flight to Reno. Your claim that the US Weather Service data has been falsified is laughable. I will plead guilty to not believing all the fairy tales that you have put forth. But that's not my problem. Robert Nicholson

Jerry, An overcast by itself doesn't mean bad weather. Robert Nicholson

I love Farflung's posts. The man has talent. I don't think slant range errors add any meaningful ambiguities to 305s altitude or position. It was flying unpressurized. You know the approximate altitudes. You know it wasn't high enough for the crew to don O2 masks or Cooper to get drowsy. DME gives you a "good enough" range and bearing fix relative to the VOR/DME station. I like military radios and avionics. I am willing to bet that Farflung's "DME" was really a USAF ARN 21 TACAN set. Am I right Farflung? Continental Airlines pilot Bohan supports my violently turbulent dark and stormy night prelude, but nothing else does. 377 377, It is unfortunate that Captain Bohan's remarks are not supported by the available weather data. The relevant weather information can be obtained through the links that are in Robert Blevins posts. Robert Nicholson

Farflung, You have flung your challenge far. Just to make sure that we understand each other, I am one of the "former" (as apparently are you also). If we could get Quade and Mark to do their homework properly, such as you have done, there would be a great reduction of posts to this thread. First, let's discuss the altitude. When your pilot says that the airplane is at 48,000 feet, how high are you? Unless there is a trick answer ("As high as the Byrds!"), you really can't say how high you are without further calculations. Modern altimeters have a little knob to adjust for sea level changes in atmospheric pressure. When set to a specific pressure, the reading on the gage is a function of the pressure that the aircraft is experiencing at its flight level and that pressure is shown on the gage as feet above sea level. But the reading on the gage depends on whatever "standard" atmosphere was used to calibrate the gage. Basically, standard atmospheres specify a certain pressure and temperature for a given "tapeline" height (it can easily be more complicated than this). Corrections can be made to the pressure and temperature to determine "true altitude" but that value may not be correct either. Generally, "true altitude" is of no consequence in general aviation or airline type flying. Pressure altitude being used for air traffic control purposes to keep aircraft seperated and density altitude, which is a function of both the pressure and temperature, being used for determining aircraft performance. Allowances are made by the FAA mapmakers, the air traffic control people, and pilots to make sure that adequate terrain clearance is maintained. After that, it is just a matter of keeping the aircraft seperated. In the matter of the DME, as you have correctly pointed out, at an altitude of 10,000 feet and 23 DME miles from a VORTAC, the error in true horizontal distance is only about three times the fuselage length of an early 727. This is certainly close enough for air traffic control purposes. Please permit me to elaborate slightly on something I mentioned in my earlier post on this matter. If the aircraft is flying directly from (or to) a VORTAC at a ground speed of 180 knots, it would cover one nautical mile of ground every 20 seconds. Thus a reading of "23" would only appear on the gage for 20 seconds. That is a rather tight window for a given position in the NWA 305 matter. Robert Nicholson

Jerry, No it wasn't. Take a look at the radio transcripts on the flight from Portland to Seattle, the radio transcripts on the ground (which were apparently conducted on both the Seattle Tower's ground control frequency and the NWA company frequency), the radio transcripts from the Seattle Center for the portion of the flight from Seattle to Fort Jones, CA VORTAC, and the Oakland Center transcripts for the remainder of the flight to Reno. It is very easy to conclude that the Seattle Center's transcripts for the flight from a point about 17 DME south of SEA VORTAC on V23 to the Fort Jones VORTAC have been heavily "sanitized". If those transcripts supported the east of Portland flight path theory, why would anyone sanitize them? The obvious conclusion is that the transcripts never supported an east of Portland flight path. Robert Nicholson

Jerry, There is nothing in the radio transcripts to support your statement. Robert Nicholson

Small technicality there; the crew didn't need permission. It was an emergency and they could do whatever was necessary. Quade, You are absolutely correct. In addition, the flight crew had been specifically told by ATC in Seattle that they could do anything they wanted to do and that ATC would keep other people out of their way. However, there is not a single fact to indicate that the airliner passed east of Portland. Robert Nicholson

Jerry, I agree with you that subsequent facts indicate that Cooper did not land in the original search area. The location of the placard is of secondary interest, but it would still be wise to put its landing point in the record. I don't believe in miracles in the context of the Cooper hi-jacking and, in my judgment, he died in the jump without a canopy opening. Also, as I have pointed out to you privately over the past couple of years, as well as on this thread, there is not a single fact to support a flight path east of Portland. An east flight path would be irrational since the airliner was already well west of Portland and would have to loop around to rejoin V-23 west of Portland. Such a detour would add an additional 10 to 15 nautical miles to the route for no reason whatsoever. Robert Nicholson

Mr. Blevins, Could you also ask for Rataczak's comments on where the aircraft actually was when it made the position report that is given in the "FBI Notes" at 8:22 PM PST? The position listed is "23 DME south of PDX" and that would be 23 nautical miles from the present day Battleground VORTAC. Specifically, was the airliner on the centerline of V23, or anywhere laterally on V23, at the time that report was made. The exact position and time that the above report was made is of great significance in determining the flight path. It should be noted that the report could only have been made in about a 20 second time window. Robert Nicholson

Amazon - how does that stack up against the Perris Russian? Seems that even with modern technology and in a busy part of the world you can be missed. I doubt very many loggers ... foresters...timber cruisers...biologists... berry pickers ... mushroom hunters..... hikers... hunters ... or the ubiquitous Cooper or sasquatch "researchers" were out in those fields around Perris for the last 39 years. The area where Cooper bailed is very well travelled public lands, not private farmland as evidenced by the finding of a small placard and none of that which I mentioned. Occams my dear fellow... There are two conclusions that can be drawn from the above. First, Cooper jumped in the "Official FBI Claimed Jump Zone" (where ever that may be), survived, and then walked out with everything he jumped with. Second, Cooper didn't jump in the "Official FBI Claimed Jump Zone" in the first place. Not all dead bodies stink the same. If Cooper died in the jump and was in a cool or cold area, such as Vancouver and Portland, he could have decayed at a slower rate, been covered with snow part of the time, and not even detectable by people hiking nearby. Even if he was in a relatively civilized area, people would be driving around with their car windows rolled up, etc., and there would have been a smaller chance of them noticing an unusual ordor. So by the time the next spring and summer rolled around, odor would not be significant. And Cooper could have been very close to civilization without actually being detected. Robert Nicholson

What is column 3 and what do I have to do to get there? Robert Nicholson

Blevins you have said a lot of dumb things in this forum: This below is the best so far. "wide-eyed stew who dallied with Cooper." Dallied with Cooper? Wide-eyed stew? Your knowledge of Tina Muckow surpasses Bruces', surpasses the FBIs', surpasses the Smithsonians', surpasses Jennifer Anniston's. As you "dally" here with us stuck between space and time and the Men's Room. The telling point which totally escapes you in life, is Tina Mucklow does not post here, never has and never will, but you do! What does that tell you? I don't know what this tells Blevins, but it tells me that Tina is sane and very intelligent. Robert Nicholson

I rest my case. Quade, Read your previous post! You actually said that "gullible" was not a word in the dictionary! Your case needs to be "unrested". Robert Nicholson Are you at all familiar with the meme, "facepalm"? Quade, "Meme" is a word that is defined in my dictionary. "Facepalm" is not defined in my dictionary. If your intent was to insult, I have no idea what the insult would be. Well, you could always [rel "http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=facepalm&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8"]google[/url] it, but let me save you the trouble. It refers to when somebody just doesn't seem to understand the common usage of a word or phrase or joke and they've reacted in such a way that really the only thing left to do is put your face in the palm of your hand and wonder what the hell is wrong with them. http://www.thefacepalm.org/ You sir, truly exemplify exactly what I was speaking toward earlier about gullibility and/or people that just don't understand subtext or satire. You have gone well beyond proving my point. Quade, You are talking about the "common usage of a word" that has not made it into my dictionary yet. Also, as I remember it, you made some disparaging comments about the use of satire a couple of weeks ago and, again as I remember it, those comments were addressed to me. I may not be hip or use jive talk, which I guess makes me as boring as you claim to be. Robert Nicholson

I rest my case. Quade, Read your previous post! You actually said that "gullible" was not a word in the dictionary! Your case needs to be "unrested". Robert Nicholson Are you at all familiar with the meme, "facepalm"? Quade, "Meme" is a word that is defined in my dictionary. "Facepalm" is not defined in my dictionary. If your intent was to insult, I have no idea what the insult would be. Language is very important and dictionaries are very important to language. Earlier this month, and not very far from here, my US Congresswoman met an individual for the second time. The first time they met was in 2007 and the individual asked her a question something like this, "What would government be if there was no language?". Apparently the individual didn't get the answer he was looking for. When they met again earlier this month, the individual put a 9mm round through her head from about two feet away and then proceeded to shoot another 18 people for good measure. So should I start packing heat, which is perfectly legal in this state, and looking over my shoulder? Robert Nicholson

I rest my case. Quade, Read your previous post! You actually said that "gullible" was not a word in the dictionary! Your case needs to be "unrested". Robert Nicholson

Well, I for one, believe some members of society will believe anything they read on-line. I'd call these people gullible, but that's not actually a word in the dictionary and nobody can really prove otherwise. More than likely they're simply people that don't recognize subtext or satire. My studies show that a full 30% of the population is afflicted by this. Quade, You're on! "Gullible" is actually a word in the dictionary, at least the English dictionary. How about giving some details about your "studies", such as they may be, including data that backs up your allegations. Otherwise, everyone on this thread must assume that you are just blowing smoke. Robert Nicholson

Melting simply fuses and bonds all the ends of the fibers together. I don't think it has anything to do with turning anything into a "more stable" state. I am talking chemistry of the material. You are talking doing. For example. its already been cited these material is dfficult to tie to a hard knot - fibres wont compress and sinch down. That has to do with chemistry of the material. Specifically synthetic fibre vs natural fibre. (different nuclear binding energies in materials which mustbe overcome in order to physically manipulate a material into a form you may want ie. tied knot. Some atoms dont like to be compressed, tend to preserve the space around their nuclei and outer electrons... ). ..... When you melt a thing you re-arrange the atoms and molecules ....... that is what melting does. The melted end enteres a semi-glass state .. Tg. You can find Tg on various materials in any chemistry handbook... Every material involved in the hijacking had a Tg ..... etc. This is basic forensics. We need to take advantage of the thread's expert on such matters as parachute materials and knives. So Amazon please give us the benefit of your knowledge on pocket knives, hook knives (which are undoubtedly the best solution for cutting a shroud line while oscillating wildly), shroud lines, and how you would do things if you had been in Cooper's place and were having to make decisions based on his assumed level of experience and knowledge. Amazon, it is understood that you would have done things differently from the outset if you had actually been Cooper. Robert Nicholson

Farflung, Somewhere, maybe Tosaw's book, I have seen a statement that Tina was standing by Cooper's side when he pulled a pocket knife out and cut the shroud lines. What "far more roboust equipment" was available on the aircraft for cutting the shroud lines? Robert Nicholson

But all good things must come to an end and Hef's DC-9 was last heard from while flying packages for the package delivery service that used to be located at the Wilmington, Ohio airport. Robert Nicholson

Well… I’m not so sure about the year, month, day, and hour. Look at (FBI) page 149 of the transcripts. You will see that Jack Graves , Assistant Chief, Seattle-Tacoma Tower, who supervised the reproduction of the transcript, affirms that it is a true copy of the original recording. If you look closely you will also see that the period covered by this transcript is from approximately 00:11 GMT to approximately 01:05 GMT on November 24th, 1971. Hmmm… That would be 16:11 to 17:05 PST on November 23rd, 1971, a day earlier than the hijack occurred. My point? All documents, all reports, all articles, even ones from impeccable sources (in this case the FBI) are full of errors… human errors. Placing unyielding faith and any one document surrounding NORJAK without attempting to reconcile it against other documents and common sense is an approach that leads to less clarity rather than more clarity. Just IMHO, from one who has been starring at this shit for about 35-years and has dedicated his efforts to add clarity (i.e. separate the facts from the myths). Sluggo, Your points are well taken. The same date mistake was also made on pages 144 and 150 (and maybe others). Further, whoever typed up some of these transcripts continually refered to "Victor" airways as "Vector" airways and "radial" as "radius". But these are obvious mistakes and easily corrected. They would not be important unless, of course, they were significant to 377's client's defense. Robert Nicholson

All time stamps are questionable except the ones in the Air Traffic Control transcripts. Quade will probably dispute this and everything else, but the times shown on the ATC tapes are precise because they are part of a system that is designed to be precise in the first place. Precise times are needed for use in aerial navigation and these times are routinely used in incident and accident investigations. The other times come from various sources which apparently show the time that the message appeared on the NWA teletype system print outs. South of Portland, the crew contacts with the NWA ARINC system were relayed by other airliners and this resulted in time lags of up to 5 or 10 minutes from the time the crew spoke the words until the message appeared on the NWA teletype. Robert Nicholson

A cigarette lighter can definitely burn (or melt) through shroud lines and melting the ends of a fresh cut is an effective means of preventing the lines from unraveling further. Cooper carried a cigarette lighter because he smoked and needed a light. He apparently had no idea that he would have to cut shroud lines since he thought he was asking for parachutes with D-rings and for a knapsack, or backpack, that had loops that he could run the parachute harness through. So in my opinion he was just lucky that he normally carried a pocket knife. Robert Nicholson Larry said the lines had been cut (frayed) - melting would have been noted? Pure conjecture on my part. If the shroud lines were cut by making a U loop and then using a sharp pocket knife to cut it, the cut should be at an angle (roughly 45 degrees) rather than directly across the line. If he had a rather dull pocket knife blade, then he might need to make two or three cutting motions to complete the cut and that would result in fraying type cuts (rather than a single neat one). Robert Nicholson

Guru and Jerry, I think Jerry is right on this point. Back in the "old days", Boy Scouts (and I used to be one) had to practice and demonstrate the tying of a range of knots including the simple square knot. Parachute shroud lines are very easy to tie and I'll bet Amazon made sure her survival students knew a range of uses for those shroud lines. Since the typical canopy shroud line on an emergency chute is rated at 500+ pounds or so, the money bag could be easily secured to a parachute harness (tying it around the waist is not recommended) by punching holes in it as Georger has suggested. To me, the interesting point is that Cooper had a pocket knife and that he apparently routinely carried such a knife. If he had not had a pocket knife, what do you think he could have used to cut the shroud lines? I can almost completely assure you that there wasn't anything else on that airplane that he could have cut the shroud lines with. The cutlery would not get the job done (based on my personal experience with airline cutlery in that time frame) and it is unlikely that anything in a first aid kit or anything else available in the aircraft cabin could do the job. Robert Nicholson were there razor blades in those first aid kits? If the first aid kit was a "professional" level kit it probably did contain sterile blades (or razor blades). I have heard of MDs carrying sterile blades in their wallets. But if the kit only contained scissors, then they probably would not be of sufficient quality to cut the lines easily. Robert Nicholson

A cigarette lighter can definitely burn (or melt) through shroud lines and melting the ends of a fresh cut is an effective means of preventing the lines from unraveling further. Cooper carried a cigarette lighter because he smoked and needed a light. He apparently had no idea that he would have to cut shroud lines since he thought he was asking for parachutes with D-rings and for a knapsack, or backpack, that had loops that he could run the parachute harness through. So in my opinion he was just lucky that he normally carried a pocket knife. Robert Nicholson

Guru and Jerry, I think Jerry is right on this point. Back in the "old days", Boy Scouts (and I used to be one) had to practice and demonstrate the tying of a range of knots including the simple square knot. Parachute shroud lines are very easy to tie and I'll bet Amazon made sure her survival students knew a range of uses for those shroud lines. Since the typical canopy shroud line on an emergency chute is rated at 500+ pounds or so, the money bag could be easily secured to a parachute harness (tying it around the waist is not recommended) by punching holes in it as Georger has suggested. To me, the interesting point is that Cooper had a pocket knife and that he apparently routinely carried such a knife. If he had not had a pocket knife, what do you think he could have used to cut the shroud lines? I can almost completely assure you that there wasn't anything else on that airplane that he could have cut the shroud lines with. The cutlery would not get the job done (based on my personal experience with airline cutlery in that time frame) and it is unlikely that anything in a first aid kit or anything else available in the aircraft cabin could do the job. Robert Nicholson