Robert99

I live more than 4000 feet above sea level and 112 degrees would be more accurate at my house. But just wait until mid-summer gets here. Here are a couple of things I seem to remember from TK's experiments using actual US currency, his own I might add. When TK placed bundles of money held together by rubber bands in water, the ends of the bundles flared and the bundles soon sank. When the bundles sank to the bottom, they stayed there permanently. Having visited Tena Bar several times and having spent several decades involved with such things as aerodynamics and fluid flow, I can categorically state that the money DID NOT come from the river. If the money entered the river in its east-to-west segment adjacent to the Portland International Airport or at some point further upstream, after it made the turn to the north it would have passed Tena Bar on the riverbed and the Oregon side of the river. While the exact location and elevation where the money was found is not now know, it was probably not more than 5 or 6 feet above sea level. Except during spring runoffs, the surface of the river at Tena Bar is typically only 2 or 3 feet above sea level. The daily tidal change is less than 2 feet.

FlyJack must be the new owner of this site. And he apparently feels that he alone has all the answers. He calls some of the people who disagree with him liars and others lesser names. So far as I can tell, FlyJack has not done a single thing here that advanced the Cooper investigation and has claimed credit for things that other people originally did long before he turned up on this site.

By coincidence or otherwise, the 10,000-foot altitude that Cooper specified also happens to be the minimum altitude for radio reception and obstacle clearance for aircraft headed south on V-23. It should be remembered that the airliner had to climb to 11,000 feet to clear the mountains between V-23 and Reno when it turned toward Reno. While Rataczak suggested climbing above the overcast and then circling over the Pacific until Cooper jumped and/or blew up the airliner, he was told to forget about it by NWA management. There is no specific reason for any aircraft flying south from Seattle to fly over the Pacific.

Here is an honest answer to your honest question. Honest answer: Do you actually think the FBI is interested in solving the hijacking? Answer "yes" or "no"? No "maybes". Next question. How many air traffic control radio transcripts have you reviewed in your lifetime? Hundreds? Thousands? More? Do you have any experience listening to live air traffic control communications or communicating with air traffic control? Have you read the Oakland Center/Reno radio transcripts? Did you notice any differences with the type of information in the Seattle Center radio transcripts? In all the paperwork shuffling, the FBI has NEVER denied the existence of an unredacted version of the Seattle Center transcripts. And they have NEVER claimed that the publicly released transcripts were not redacted. Himmelsbach was not directly involved in the initial FBI investigation which was done by the Seattle FBI Office. OleMiss, if you have a copy of the unredacted Seattle ATC radio transcripts how about giving a link to it. When all is said and done, it has been in the public domain since day one.

It all depends on which FBI agent to believe. I have held various licenses issued by the Federal Government since the age of 16, I have served in the military, and I have worked for several different government organizations. The USAF, and presumably the FBI, have had my fingerprint cards since the age of about 16 since it was required for me to fly on military aircraft. In all that time, the government got my name wrong in only one instance. And that was when I filed an FOIA action to get the unredacted version of the radio transcripts between the airliner and the Seattle ATC Center. After denying my request, the FBI changed my name on the appeal paperwork to DOJ from "Robert" to "Richard". And "Richard" didn't compute with the DOJ. Although I never got the transcripts, my Congresswoman did get some information for me through her House of Representatives office. The point of the above is that there are some bureaucrats, even in the FBI, who like to play silly games. OleMiss, how about passing your web site, or whatever it is, to Funny Stuff so he can make some effort to catch up on what has been going on here for the last decade or two.

Oh my! What do you mean by "the frequency was known to be down"? What are you talking about? You need to take a look at the 17 pages of information that the FBI sent to Sluggo about 2009. Plus the brief text print outs of the ARINC messages in the Portland/Seattle area. All of this information is available on this site, or at least it was before the move. The FBI said in 1971 that the jump time was 8:11 PM and you can take that number to the bank. Anyone who thinks it was just discovered last week didn't do their homework.

The FBI documented the jump time as 8:11 PM PST within a couple of days of the hijacking. There is no "alternate data" to the contrary.

The FBI was preparing 302s a day or two after the hijacking that clearly, plainly, and correctly stated that 8:11 PST was the best estimate for Cooper's jump time. This jump time puts him practically overhead of Tena Bar and is a perfect match for the flight path that the airliner was following. The flight path was exhaustively analyzed on this site about 15 years ago and nothing has happened since that changes that analysis. Of course, everything on this site, especially the speculations, get recycled about every two years.

I don't remember any charges for the Skychef or ICS small book of matches. Specifically, the ICS booklet was an advertising gimmick intended to get people to inquire about the ICS courses.

The parachute at the WSHM is absolutely NOT an NB-6. It is simply a collection of WW2 surplus parachute components made by different manufacturers and apparently assembled by Cossey. Specifically, the harness is NOT an NB-6 harness. The container is NOT an NB-6 container. The pilot chute is NOT an NB-6 pilot chute. The canopy is NOT an NB-6 canopy. Even the NB-6 ripcord would not work with the WSHM parachute. There are pictures of a genuine NB-6 parachute on Sluggo's website which is available, or at least used to be, somewhere on this site. I used a genuine NB-6 parachute rig in the 1960s/1970s time frame when flying aircraft with extremely cramped cockpits. At this moment, I have a genuine NB-6 harness, container, pilot chute, and ripcord in my garage. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE THAT AN NB-6 PARACHUTE WAS INVOLVED IN THE COOPER HIJACKING. This is simply a myth that has a life of its own and that gets recycled ever year or so. On the matter of Sky Chef match books, in the 1960s/1970s time frame they were available on just about every airline from coast-to-coast and border-to-border. They would accompany meal services that included a small packet of four cigarettes from different companies.

Sorry, but there is absolutely no evidence that an NB-6 parachute was involved in the Cooper hijacking. I owned and used an NB-6 parachute for several years prior to the hijacking and own some components of one now. The entire NB-6 parachute system has several unique features which are not evident in Hayden's parachutes or any other backpacks that have been suggested. Everything that Cossey claimed about the backpack parachutes is pure baloney.

Press agents? Whoever is named will not be the right one.

More than 10 months after the hijacking, Cossey had still not bothered to inform the FBI of data that should have been in his parachute rigger's log book and could have been retrieved in less than 5 minutes. Obviously, the log book information did not support whatever Cossey was claiming or he would have provided it. Simply ignore everything Cossey claimed and there are no problems with the parachutes. Has any progress been made in Cossey's murder investigation?

"The Seattle and Portland Agents in attendance felt the accurate story concerning the incident had never appeared in its correct form in any publications they had read." I'll bet their statement is still valid.

Also, it is reported that the seats that Cooper used and others adjacent to them were removed by the FBI in Seattle late on Thanksgiving Day. The act of removing those seats is supposed to have been when the tie was discovered. The airliner itself was back in regular service within another day or two. In any event, the seats Cooper used are long gone.

Has your book been published? If so, where is it listed? I haven't found anything resembling such a book.

Thanks for the information. Since the hijacking occurred 34 years after the Earhart flight, I doubt if old D.B. had access to these reports. I have never seen the two linked sources before, didn't know that any Army Air Corps personnel were involved, or that a Navy Admiral was on the scene at Howland. And I have plenty of information on that flight. Some of the information that I have contradicts the information in the linked sources. Here are a couple of examples plus some other information. 1. Noonan was also a licensed pilot and reportedly held the same rating as Earhart except for the Instrument Rating. 2. Reportedly, the Ontario did not even have a radio. So it wasn't really involved in the flight. 3. There is nothing in the linked sources or elsewhere to my knowledge that even remotely suggests Earhart tried to go to another location. It was do or die for Howland. 4. Putnam, Earhart's husband, was at the Navy/Coast Guard headquarters in San Francisco. When the Itasca left Howland to search for Earhart, the ship wanted to go to the Northeast but the powers in San Francisco insisted that they go to the Northwest. 5. One of the notes in the Cooper report mentions the Bureau of Air Commerce. The Chief of that organization was a fellow whose last name was "Vidal" (I can't remember his first name right off) and he was the father of writer Gore Vidal. The senior Vidal and Amelia were reportedly lovers despite her being married. This topic was briefly touched on in the Earhart movie that starred Hilary Swank.

What is the source for the claim that an "army air corps officer" was on Howland Island awaiting Earhart's arrival? I have never seen anything to suggest that the Army Air Corps had anything to do with Earhart's flight. The only military services involved were the US Coast Guard and the US Navy. No mention whatsoever of the Army.

Madson's stories, regardless of the number, are nothing but bullshit. EDIT: I was busy elsewhere, and still am, and did miss the switch. I am going through the posts since January 1st and should be caught up in a couple of days. Here are a couple of things that FlyJack and I do agree on. The jump time was 8:11 PM PST and the jump was nowhere near Orchards. Also, there is no believable evidence that an NB-6 parachute was involved in the hijacking. In fact, just ignoring everything that Cossey said will greatly simplify understanding the parachute situation. More as time permits.

Tina's story about the match books is probably completely true. In the 1971 time frame, Skychef provided meal service for numerous airlines (probably most of them) and included cigarettes (a small pack of four) and a small book of matches with each meal. Skychef undoubtedly provided their airline customers with plenty of those matches for anyone who needed a match. Somewhere a few years ago, if my memory is correct, Tina indicated that Cooper's original small book of matches was from a small school that advertised such things as GED courses and similar things. It was basically a mail in type school that advertised extensively on small match books similar to the Skychef match books. I don't remember exactly when smoking was stopped on the airlines but it was probably in the mid-1970s.

In the 1950s era, I am fairly sure the repack interval was 60 days for everything except maybe a "chair" parachute which may have had a longer repack interval. Somewhere in the 1960s or so (basically the time frame that the new para-commanders came on the scene), and as newly designed and manufactured civilian parachutes started hitting the market for emergency parachutes usage, studies were made of the required repack intervals and those intervals were increased in several steps. The repack interval for modern civilian emergency parachutes may be as long as 6 months at the present time.

OleMiss, THERE WAS NO NB-6 PARACHUTE INVOLVED IN THE COOPER HIJACKING! That is the whole story right there! Just ignore everything that Cossey claimed! Why are you so obsessed with this?

FlyJack, thanks for the information. The T-28A was indeed in civilian hands in the 1960s and was fully acrobatic. When it was used in military pilot training by the USAF and Navy I believe it was the second military aircraft that the trainees would encounter. I don't remember what the initial aircraft the USAF trainees encountered but I think it was the Beech T-34 that the Navy trainees flew. The T-28A could accommodate both seat and backpack parachutes and didn't need a thin backpack such as the NB-6 or NB-8. This is another reason why there was no point in Hayden paying two or three times as much for an NB-6 as he paid for the parachute that is now at the WSHM. I knew a fellow who owned a T-28A in the early 1960s but never got a ride in it. While in the military, I did get some flying time as a passenger in the DeHavilland beaver. Thanks again.

Does anyone know what type of aerobatic aircraft Hayden owned?

Let's not make a federal case out of this but take a look at the card in FlyJack's post #63951. The heading for the column where "I & R" is listed is "Repairs and : or Remarks". The word repack is not mentioned but is undoubtedly included in the "I & R" service.