Robert99

60 seconds from 10K? tumbling? = splat, surely Quade, It would take about 40 seconds or less to fall 10,000 feet in a head first position (at 180 MPH or more), about 60 seconds in a stable spread position (at 120+ MPH), and somewhere in between if tumbling. While people have fallen out of airborne aircraft without parachutes and survived, there have been instances of people being killed from falls out of aircraft that were parked on the ramp. Robert Nicholson

Jamie, what Jerry is referring to on the rig Cooper jumped is that it was an overstuffed container,(small pack (NB6) big canopy (28 ft C9)) and that can result in very high pull forces being needed on the ripcord handle to open the chute. What can happen in a panic situation is that a jumper with a hard pull thinks he is pulling on the wrong piece of hardware and puts his hand on something else, often harness webbing and starts pulling hard on that and fixates on it pulling all the way until impact. This isn't a theory, it has happened with experienced jumpers on sunny days. Was the pull impossible? No, but I'll bet it took a lot of force and that's a setup for the scenario described above. A jet jump at night is a further disorienting factor as a smooth stable exit is highly unlikely. Tumbling without a horizon reference is guaranteed to cause problems. 377 Jamie and 377, Don't forget that Cooper only had between 40 and 60 seconds to troubleshoot and correct any problems that he had during the free fall. Robert Nicholson

Al, How did your meeting with Jared go the last time you were in Tucson? Robert Nicholson

Agreed. lol. tell us how you really feel.

Agreed.

Really? 0.0043 inches is approximately 0.00038 feet (or 0.000000068 miles). The number of significant digits is a measure of accuracy. Using your bizarre definition of significant digits, you are saying if you measure in feet (or miles) instead of inches, you can increase your accuracy. Your calculator can display 8 or 10 or 12 digits, but that doesn't make your calculations any more accurate. This goes to the issue of exit point, winds aloft, and landing area calculations, too. The results of any calculations cannot be more accurate than the starting points of those calculations. Mark Mark, Let's say that 0.0043 has only two significant digits - which is correct. The other two numbers have three significant digits each. There is no information as to any of these numbers having a trailing significant digit other than the ones shown. But you claimed that there was only one significant digit. How did you arrive at that number? Were YOU using a bizarre definition of significant digits? Changing the units does not change the accuracy. Would you amplify your last sentence? If you disagree with something I have written along that line, please cite chapter and verse. My ability to read minds, and my capability with ESP, has declined remarkably in my old age. Robert Nicholson

Yeah. I have a question. How do you get accuracy to 5 significant digits when the original number is accurate only to 1? Mark 0! = 1 0! twice = 2. Mark, Let me say up front that I am not going to argue with Georger on this! To make a full disclosure, I am an engineer rather than a mathematician. And in the following I rely heavily on a small mathematics dictionary that I found on my book shelf. The 6.14 and 2.61 dimensions of the bills each have three significant digits. The 0.0043 dimension has five significant digits based on the two leading zeros to the right of the decimal point being significant as well as the "trailing zero" to the left of the decimal point being significant since there are significant numbers to the right of the decimal point. I don't see what you are talking about when you state that the original number is accurate to only 1 significant digit. Would you care to elaborate? In any event, I will be happy to call the weight of the money "22 pounds" and let it go at that. Robert Nicholson

Which is why I almost always question a person doing even the most trivial of calculations if they haven't shown their sources or work. Quade, The mistake I made in the original post was in multiplying 90 grams by the number of bills, which is 96.72 per square meter, rather than dividing the 90 by the number of bills. I hit the wrong button on my hand held calculator. The 80 gram calculations were correct in the original. Robert Nicholson

Al, You state that "Milk cans float when submerged." Please elaborate. No satire intended. Robert Nicholson

I'd like to see your math/sources on that because by just about all accounts a dollar bill of any denomination weighs 1 gram. 10,000 x 1 = 10Kg = 22 pounds. Here's my source; http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html Another way to look at it is they say there are 454 notes in a pound. 10,000 / 454 = 22.026317 pounds. Quade, First the volume. Wiki.Answers gives the dimensions of a dollar bill (and all other US currency bills) as 6.14 inches wide, 2.61 inches high, and 0.0043 inches thick. Multiplying those numbers together gives a volume of 0.06890922 cubic inches per bill. For 10,000 bills, the volume is 689.0922 cubic inches or 0.398780208 cubic feet. I rounded this number off to 0.40 cubic feet. Now the weight. One source on Wikipedia states that American currency is printed on paper that weighs between 80 and 90 grams per square meter. Using the previously mentioned bill dimensions and on the average, 96.72 bills can be printed per square meter of paper. This gives a weight of 0.82712 to 0.93052 grams per bill. For 10,000 bills this is 8271.2 to 9305.2 grams. Using the larger of these values and converting to pounds gives 20.496 pounds for the weight of the bills. This also means that I made a math error in the previous post. It is not stated if the weight of the ink is included in the above weights. So to be conservative, assume a weight of 1 gram for paper plus ink per bill, as does Wiki.Answers. This gives 10,000 grams or 22.026 pounds for the bills. Another pound or two should be added for the bank bag. Further questions? Robert Nicholson

Using information from Wikipedia and Wiki.Answers, I have calculated the volume and weight of 10,000 US paper bills. The volume is almost exactly 0.40 cubic feet and the weight is 19.2 pounds. The volume is surprisingly small (at least to me) and it may have been possible to put all the money in Cooper's attache case. I have two Samsonite attache cases from the late 1960s and the largest one has an interior volume of 0.5 cubic feet. To put it another way, you could put many more bills than Cooper had in even the smallest milk can. The weight of the money, plus its carrying bag, would probably have been about 22 or 23 pounds. But the relatively small size of the whole package may mean that Cooper didn't have as much trouble tieing the money to himself as originally believed. Robert Nicholson

Al, Here is some friendly advice. Get an emergency appointment with your physchiatrist! Your are nuts! And this last conclusion is supported by some of the people you have apparently mentioned above. Robert Nicholson

Caretaker Al writes: "Verify what I have said." Al, If you cannot verify your own statements why should anyone else try? Just because you are delusional doesn't mean that other people have to join in your fantasies. Robert Nicholson

Sluggo, Are you sure that this is 47 degrees north latitude? My estimate, and the number given in another site, is that it is 45 degrees, plus a fraction of a degree, north latitude. Robert Nicholson

It may not exist. As in the conversations never took place. At least not in flight. The plane was on the ground at Sea-Tac for some time. It's entirely possible the necessary conversations took place prior to takeoff on a different frequneecy than they used for normal ATC comm traffic. Purely a guess on my part, but think about it. The FBI, ATC and the airline could easily have had these discussions over a landline. Also, the options were fairly limited if they were going to follow the instructions Cooper gave. As Sluggo has made clear, V23 was the only real option. Wolf, The air traffic control people have a protocol for handing an aircraft from one enroute controller to another. By its very nature, this is done in flight and they must communicate by phone with each other to accomplish this (any exception to this would be under extraordinary circumstanes). This could not be done prior to takeoff. The FBI does not have anything to do with air traffic control (except maybe make "requests"). The ATC and airline people could talk to each other by phone. But the only way to communicate with the airliner was by radio. Note that the Oakland Center transcript includes both the "phone talk" between controllers but also much more detailed conversations with the aircraft. And this is not available in the Seattle Center transcript. Robert Nicholson

Quade, While there is some reason to believe that I don't have a conscience in the first place, you did not mention me by name. Maybe I just had a knee jerk reaction to your post? Could be. Robert Nicholson

Is that true? With the advent of INS and Doppler Nav winds aloft could be accurately measured (well, actually "derived" since the wind isnt measured directly) in real time using simple computers. GPS has made it even easier. I am not a licensed pilot so forgive me if I mess up some of the air nav stuff. 377 377, The atmosphere is almost always in motion (an exception would be close to the ground under conditions such as those that lead to fog formation). I have used these "motions" in the atmosphere to fly sailplanes to 36,500 feet above sea level. I have also averaged more than one hour per flight in flying sailplanes and that is probably twice my time per flight (or takeoff and landing) for flying powered aircraft. The winds aloft have their eddys, vertical and horizontal movements, etc. just as the winds at ground level do. The winds at any given point aloft will vary from moment to moment. While the winds aloft forecast is just that (a prediction), if an aircraft has an INS, GPS, or Doppler navigation system, then the wind information available to the pilot is much more accurate or reliable than the forecast. Robert Nicholson

Quade, Neither I nor anyone else has got the Cooper matter "all figured out". And I for one have never claimed otherwise. Robert Nicholson

Jamie, Go to Sluggo's web page and then download the Seattle Air Traffic Control Center transcripts and the Oakland Air Traffic Control Center transcripts. Then read them both very carefully. After reading them, can you determine where the airliner is and what it is doing from the Oakland Center transcripts? Can you determine where the airliner is from the Seattle Center transcripts? I think one of your answers will be "yes" and the other one will be "no". After the 17 DME mile point south of the Seattle VORTAC, there is nothing in the Seattle transcripts that gives a location until the aircraft is handed off to the Okland Center in northern California which is about two hours and 300+ nautical miles later. Between those two points, the only communication between the Seattle Center and the airliner involves passing altimeter settings, VHF radio frequency changes, directions to "ident" (which is simply pushing the "ident" button on the transponder to enhance its signal so the controller can be certain he is looking at the correct aircraft), and confirming the airliner's altitude. Things are vastly different in the Oakland Center transcripts which also include the "phone talk" between controllers as they discuss the aircraft's location, intentions, and flight path. The Oakland transcripts contain all the information that is necessary to figure out what the controllers and flight crew are doing. Where is that information for the Seattle Center? Robert Nicholson

Quade, The winds aloft are ALWAYS estimates! And the winds the aircraft actually sees changes from moment to moment, that is the nature of meterology (or fluid dynamics if you prefer). "The track made good" (your term) is history and not necessarily what is true at the present moment. But you have to use the best information available even if it does leave some things to be desired. Robert Nicholson

Quade, "True Airspeed" is the speed of the aircraft with respect to the air mass in which it is flying. Nothing more or less. It is very easy to calculate using the ambient temperature, pressure altitude, and "true indicated airspeed". And this information was available to the flight crew. True indicated airspeed is the reading on the airspeed indicator corrected for instrument and position errors. Admittedly, the instrument and position errors for the airliner are not known, or at least available. In any event, a large amount of engineering and flight test effort goes into minimizing the position error as well as the instrument error so, for all practical purposes, ignoring them in this instance is not going to produce any significant error in the calculations. If you know the winds aloft, you can calculate your ground speed using the above information. If you don't know the winds aloft, but do know you ground speed between two points (such as VORTACs) and crab angle, then you can calculate the wind speed and direction at your altitude. If you have low quality data for both ground speed and winds aloft, then you can do a series of iterations which will approximate the actual ground speed and winds aloft. Each should be accurate to within a few knots. In the case of the hijacked airliner, only two positions can be determined from the Seattle ATC transcripts following takeoff (I believe they were 14 and 17 DME on V23) from Seattle. A third position can be determined from the Oakland ATC transcripts during the handoff from Seattle Center near the Fort Jones VORTAC in northern California. The distance from the 17 DME position to the handoff position near the Fort Jones VORTAC is roughly 300 nautical miles. So even a simple assumption such as the airliner staying on the V23 centerline for that entire distance, will produce a reasonably accurate approximation of its ground speed even if a detour was made in the Portland area. Other such "massaging" of the available information can be done to provide information that is valid for all practical purposes. And this information is as accurate as you will be able to get in this matter unless someone produces the full transcripts from the Seattle Center. Robert Nicholson

Quade, Aerial navigation is neither brain surgery nor rocket science. All you have to do is use your brains and you are now on record supporting using your brains. The calculations, including assumptions and limitations, are online on Sluggo's web page and here on DZ.com. The main limitation is the lack of information in the Seattle ARTC transcripts about the aircraft's flight path. It is easy to conclude that the Seattle transcripts have been edited to remove the information about the flight path. The time hacks in the Seattle transcripts are about as accurate as they can be. The times listed in the "FBI Notes" are suspect since they did not always come directly from the airliner transmissions but, in some cases, are routed through other aircraft, the ARINC system, and the NWA teletype system. The above information was not taken from PIC debriefings. The ATC transcripts were in real time and only the FBI notes involve a time lag. As stated above, the information in the Seattle ARTC area has apparently been deliberately edited to remove information that could be used to prepare a "flight log". This editing may, or may not, have been done after the money was found at Tina Bar and some people were being heavily leaned on to explain how the money ended up so far from the originally estimated jump zone. The flight path between the Toledo area and the southern edge of Portland as shown in the FBI maps is not believable. The airliner was basically not "bracketing V23" in that area as the radar plots would lead you to believe. In plain English, those plots are not believeable since it has the airliner flying several miles off to the side of the inbound radial, and parallel to that radial, for several minutes. I can (or could) do a better job tracking that radial in my own little airplane. If you wish a further explanation of true air speed (including its calculation), ground speed, ground track, headwind component, crosswind component, and how they are all calculated and fit together, just let me know and I will be happy to comply. Also, let me know what type of flight calculator you use (I prefer Jeppesen) and I will tell you how to do the calculations on it. In the meantime, "use your brains" (your words). Robert Nicholson

Quade, Just 10 days ago (in message #20142) you basically told me that I was full of "BS" (your term) because I was claiming that the airliner's true air speed could be calculated from the available information. Now just today, you have probably posted 20 messages in which you use common sense and cite facts from various places. And I am in agreement with all those posts including the ones about hypothermia. Did you have an epiphany over the holidays that led to this change? And how are your BS true airspeed calculations coming along? Robert Nicholson

Al, I do have an agenda and that agenda is to resolve the Cooper hijacking. What's yours? Do you know how much paper money can be stuffed into a milk can? What is the volume of a milk can? You statements seem to imply that you are, or used to be, a member of a law enforcement agency. If you have any qualifications for evaluating information from your supervisor or anyone else concerning the Cooper hijacking, please list them. I do have a low tolerance for nonsense and will gladly burn down the "barn", or whatever, if it is baloney. Beer talk is cheap and readily available, but facts are harder to come by. Robert Nicholson

Al, You are leaving out some simple details. Where did Cooper get the can and the shovel to dig the hole where you claim he buried the can. Surely you cannot be claiming he had the can and shovel with him when he jumped. Your story is just another fairey tale which continues to hinder real progress in solving the Cooper matter. Robert Nicholson