Robert99

The Wenatchee area.

Speaking of ducking the issue!

Chaucer, if the money got a ride on a log, it would still end up on the west side of the river (the Oregon side) when it passed the Tena Bar area. When I was about 10 years old, I did a lot of swimming in a tributary of the Columbia River (about three miles from the Columbia itself) so I do have some personal experience with river flows from a very early age. And I stand by what I have written about the Tena Bar money find.

At least Georger is beginning to understand one point. If the money or money bag enters the Columbia east of the point where the river it will sink (per TK's experiment using real money) to the bottom of the river and stay there. Also, when the river makes the turn to the north, the money bag moving along the bottom of the river is going to end up at the bottom of the 40-deep shipping channel and it will stay there. There is no natural process that will move the money uphill from the bottom of the shipping channel to several feet above the shoreline at Tena Bar. Hopefully, Georger will continue to try to understand the General Energy Equation.

Georger, your sick attempts to bolster your ego are obvious to all.

Georger, please post the equation for Cooper being a no-pull and the money making its way to Tena Bar by purely natural means. Or at least give it a try. Heh-heh.

Something seems to be getting lost in the translation here. Everything Wendy and I were talking about was related to the Cooper parachutes.

Olemiss, you need to actually start reading my posts. I have NEVER referred to a backpack as a reserve. As I have pointed out, 377 has posted that he had used a 26-foot conical canopy in a reserve parachute and had used it two times. He did not use it as a backpack. If 377 could not get his 26-foot conical canopy packed in the container for the military 24-foot reserve canopy, then he would need a different container.

The Sergeants got it right.

377 has posted over the years that he used a 26-foot conical canopy as a reserve and came down on it two times. Presumably, if it could not be packed in the standard military surplus reserve container it would need a special container and there is no evidence of one. This whole discussion adds to my belief that no NB-6 parachute, or even a 26-foot conical canopy, was involved in the Cooper hijacking. As I have repeatedly said, if you just ignore everything Cossey claimed then there is no problem with the parachutes.

Wendy, thanks for the information. In my very limited skydiving days back in the early 1960s, the small club I belonged to on the East Coast used 28-foot military surplus backpack canopies with a 5-TU or 7-TU modification and standard military surplus 24-foot reserve packs. I also flew aircraft in that time frame that had very cramped cockpits and the NB-6 rigs were highly desirable and very hard to obtain. But my rigger did manage to get one for me and the 26-foot conical canopy alone cost at least $100. My complete backpack rig, without a reserve, only cost $40. That was a completely different era and before Para-Commanders. I used to jump a 5-TU modified 28-foot canopy until one day I came down on the 24-foot reserve canopy. I landed in some trees and didn't make it quite all the way to the ground, so I don't have any firsthand experience with the ground impact. One question. Can a 26-foot conical canopy be packed in the military 24-foot canopy reserve container?

FlyJack, have you ever worn a parachute? The WSHM parachute container is designed for 28-foot canopies. This is plainly obvious. Can you come up with WW2 surplus backpack containers that are designed for 24-foot canopies?

The canopy in the WSHM parachute is NOT a conical canopy since it is substantially more bulky than a 26-foot conical canopy. And based on Bruce Smith's interview with its owner, the parachute that Cooper jumped with could not possibly be a 26-foot conical canopy either. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a Navy NB-6 26-foot conical canopy was involved in the Cooper hijacking. The two backpacks had 28-foot military surplus canopies and the one serviceable reserve chest pack had a 24-foot military surplus canopy.

I have never heard of a 28-foot conical canopy either. But to disagree with 377 slightly, a Navy 26-foot conical canopy, pilot chute, and container have to go with each other. This is absolutely mandatory. I owned a Navy NB-6 complete rig in the 1960s/1970s which had a 26-foot conical canopy. There were several unique features in its construction that resulted in a small size overall while having the same descent rate as a flat 28-foot canopy. The NB-6 parachute was desirable for wearing in aircraft with cramped cockpits and I spent quite a bit of time in cramped cockpits in the 1960s- and 1970s-time frame.

Eureka! Since Hayden's chute at the WSHM is absolutely not an NB-6, we can conclude once again that the chute Cooper jumped was not an NB-6 either. So, we can put the bogus NB-6 claim to rest once again. Of course, someone will start claiming NB-6 again in about a month. If you want to make sense of the parachute problem, the first thing you need to do is simply ignore everything that Cossey said. Having done that, everything else is logical.

In the 1971 era, if your skin color was white, you did not routinely get searched or even questioned before boarding an aircraft. In that era, the profile for a hijacker was a young black fellow who wanted to go to Cuba, or maybe Northern Africa. I have seen young black men pulled out of the line at the ticket/boarding counters and questioned but all passed the "interview" and were allowed to board, and we made it to our destination without a problem.

There are just too many differences between an NB-6 backpack parachute and the and garden variety 28-foot backpack parachute for Hayden to not know the difference. Basically, you can just ignore everything, repeat everything, that Cossey said about the parachutes.

You need to visit a parachute repacking operation and try your hand at packing a 28-foot canopy in a container for a 26-foot chute. You might just change your mind about what matters.

FlyJack, I don't reject "facts". But we do seem to have some differences about what constitutes a "fact". In reality, the number of actual "facts" related to this hijacking are extremely limited.

FlyJack, as pointed out earlier, 3100 was one of 78 possible hijack codes in 1971. It was not "the" hijack code. The ARINC teletype copies you include relate to communications between the airliner and NWA in Minneapolis and are NOT air traffic control communications. No time is given in your post for the airliner switching to 3100 which should have been coordinated with air traffic control in this particular instance. Note the interesting time stamps in the ARINC teletype copies. The first message is listed as being sent at 3:54 PM PST and the teletype copy was sent at 2358 Zulu which was 4 minutes later. The second message is listed as being sent at 3:55 PM PST and the teletype copy was sent at 2359 Zulu which was also 4 minutes later. Since the airliner was hijacked at about 3:00 PM PST, air traffic control was not informed of that fact until at least an hour later at which time the airliner was already holding northwest of SEATAC. Somewhere there is a comment that the SEATAC tower was not informed of the hijacking until the airliner was in the process of landing.

FlyJack, this does not say that the hijack code was 3100. It simply says that the airliner that was being hijacked was told to squawk code 3100 until told to do otherwise. The link you give for the November 1973 AIM lists the codes 3100 thru 3177 as being "Special Emergency" codes and that of course includes hijacks. So any of those 78 codes could be considered a hijack code. Do you know if these codes were in effect on November 24, 1971, during the hijacking of NWA 305? There was quite a bit of turmoil in the early 1970s as the hijack craze caught on and the aviation community was hard pressed to deal with it. So things were in a constant state of flux and pilots, including me, had to stay up to the minute on what the FAA was doing and changing. The end result was that the FAA officially established code 7700 as the one and only hijack code in 1976, according to Chaucer. My memory may of the unofficial effective date may be earlier than Chaucer cites.

As a matter of fact, I don't specifically remember the 1976 issue of the Airman's Information Manual but I owned an airplane in the 1976-time frame and kept up to date with the AIM and all other appropriate FAA publications. I also kept up to date with the Jeppesen charts and approach plates. I also received FAA mail and other information from FAA personnel that doesn't agree with some things you have posted as I remember them.

Agreed! Does this mean that you have now actually read the Oakland ATC radio transcripts?

What is your source for saying the hijack code in 1971 was 3100?

Chaucer, as I have pointed out to you and others numerous times, you need to read the Oakland ATC radio transcripts to see how air traffic control was actually conducted in 1971. Once you read the Oakland radio transcripts you should be able to understand what is missing from the Seattle radio transcripts.