Robert99

I am not aware of any Cooper flight simulations having been done. And I doubt if sufficient information, publicly or otherwise, exists at this time to do a meaningful simulation. The flight path work that I have done was not a simulation.

Isnt the NWA search map just such a work product? The idea is as old as the Cooper case itself. Actually older. Yes. Take a look at the write-up that accompanies the colorized version (I think it is) on Sluggo's web page. That jump zone was apparently worked up the very night of the hijacking.

The problem is not really WHERE Cooper landed. The unknown quantity is WHEN Cooper jumped. Knowing when Cooper jumped, the landing area can be estimated with some degree of accuracy. Some assumptions will be necessary but they can easily be applied to the problem. So, did Rataczak ever mention an estimated TIME for the jump? Rataczak is surely aware that the Seattle ATC radio transcripts, the FBI Notes, and ever thing else has been "sanitized" to eliminate the possibility of determining such things as the jump time. So to repeat, what TIME did Cooper jump?

The main problem is that this would not be very useful in Real Life, which exists only here on the Cooper thread. Cooper's jump point probably could not be determined with sufficient accuracy (or within several miles) from the ground radar information, presumably available somewhere, and navigational information available to the flight crew, again presumably available somewhere, even if the complete radio transcripts from the Seattle ATC and the ARINC system suddenly popped out of some file cabinet in Seattle or Minneapolis. Such information could answer many, many questions and could produce some meaningful leads. But it is probably going to stay right where it is now. Nevertheless, all is not quiet on that front. Who knows what might turn up through other channels. Stay tuned.

Thanks! even if nothing pans out, I can say I tried

I don't believe that Tom Kaye made the remark about clip-on ties that you give. If I remember correctly, Tom has documentry evidence of people working in shops wearing non-clip-on ties. I believe this tie matter was discussed in great detail on this thread last fall.

Airtwardo and Farflung, I think you have solved the case. Cooper was either Barb Dayton or a fairy (or maybe both).

Forget about the matches. Until about the late 1960s, airline meal service usually included a small packet of four cigarettes and a book of matches. Sky Chef probably still has a warehouse full of matches from that time frame. But if you can come up with a genuine "left-hand" tie clasp, then you need to continue and look for a shirt that can be buttoned with the left hand. Is there a place on the planet where such shirts are customary?

I see an individual who does not bear any resemblance to D.B. Cooper.

I see an individual who does not bear any resemblance to D.B. Cooper.

Sailshaw is correct about KC.

(I had asked him about comics. He did NOT say anything about the Cooper comic in particular, nor did he know of it. Later, I spoke to him on the phone and got basically the same story.) We found out later that the comic was either not available at the time KC was on Shemya, or had not been in publication long. KC went to Shemya in 1951 and left five years later. These dates are approximate, although we know he was there for almost five years, which is about three times the average stay. We know after he left Shemya, that he was occasionally assigned to flights out of Seattle that landed on Shemya to be refueled before continuing on to Orient destinations. How long that went on before NWA stopped that route and went directly to Japan, I don't know. I attached a flight plan below with KC's name on it. I can't tell from the map whether a stop on Shemya was scheduled for that particular flight. I'm not a pilot and don't have a clue how to read a flight plan properly. Maybe you can make sense of it. The first issue of Dan Cooper was published on February 2, 1955. This makes it remotely possible that KC saw it on Shemya, but without any further evidence to confirm it, we dropped this theory from the Revised Edition. (The window is pretty small. First Cooper comic came out in February 55 and KC was gone from Shemya by mid-56 at latest.) So in the Revised edition, we said that the comic remained an interesting thing, but there was no way to link it to the name the hijacker selected (or KC) without further evidence. By the way, Farf...you are the only one quoting anymore from the first edition of the book. It sold less than fifty copies before I pulled the files from Lightning Source. The Revised has done somewhat better. I've given you the opportunity at least three times now to download the Revised free at the website. Maybe it's time you stopped flogging a dead horse. If the book did not have inaccuracies...we wouldn't have pulled it so quickly in the first place. Anytime you want the REAL book (the one actually being distributed) let me know and I'll make it available to you (again). Yes, we also dropped the reference to Captain Scott leaving the cabin. That was MY mistake. You should try writing a book sometime with a guy whom you never actually get to meet. It's done by email mostly, and very difficult. I thought Porteous had told me Scott left the cabin, so I put it in the book. That was my fault completely. But since only a few people actually SAW the book, I didn't think much harm was done. On a side note, I think in 1958 NWA was still using DC6's, or the (?) DC-6B's. That form is not a flight plan. It is a chart, and not a navigational one, that includes some notes at the top that apparently lists the names of the crew members, flight number, and times related to boarding and preparing for take-off. For this particular flight, there appears to have been two pilots, one flight engineer, one navigator/radio operator (?), and two flight attendants. On the bottom half of the chart are a solid line that probably represents the great circle line between Seattle and where ever the flight was headed. The dashed line appears to be a weather front. The numbers separated in an over-under line manner are the latitude on top and the longitude on the bottom. The numbers separated by a slash are the wind direction and speed (compare with the winds aloft symbols above them). Other numbers are the Zulu time and some whose meaning is not obvious. Some notes are also included with the above numbers. Note the "lt. ice" (light ice) in the second grouping from the right. This is probably a weather briefing chart prepared for this specific flight by the dispatcher and includes other information, such as the crew information, as mentioned above. There is a lot more flight related paperwork that the flight crew would prepare and update during the actual flight.

How do we know that for sure? He did mention Tacoma. As far as I know the hijacker never mentioned McChord AFB. Nothing about it in the transcripts, etc. 'We're over Tacoma now...' is supposedly what he said to Mucklow while they were circling over the Puget Sound area. agree on the first - where in the Transcript does he say 'We're over Tacoma now...' ? Why don't you check Tosaw's book?

Huh?

Looking at the two charts, in the Toutle area, it is obvious that the Toutle circle moved with respect to nearby landmarks, namely the river courses. You and I must not be looking at the same maps. Or maybe we just have different experience levels of what maps represent and how they are produced.

Which may be within the standard deviation for points on the maps themselves? True. And if anyone thinks they know the location of Cooper's jump zone, they need to specify where the information came from and who plotted the nonsense.

Fellows, stick to one thing at a time. If Cooper's seat number is never determined and the "fake crab angle" issue resolved, then this hijacking will never be solved. Right? Introducing all these new issues will overpower the capability of the people on the thread.

Farflung, Your attachment to this post (#32349) illustrates the problem perfectly. After further review (as the saying goes), I think your explanation can account for almost all of the discrepancy between the two maps. My eyeball estimate of the latitude and longitude for the map symbol that is labeled "Toutle" on both the FBI map and the 2009 Seattle sectional is as follows. FBI map: 46D 19.9M North Latitude and 122D 41.0M West Longitude. 2009 SEA sectional: 46D 19.1M North Latitude and 122D 44.0M West Longitude. Converting the FBI map from the NAD27 to the WGS84 reference system moves the Toutle symbol south about 19 meters and west about 94 meters. This is a move in the right direction but is ignored since these numbers would disappear in the "rounding off" of the numbers used above to calculate it. So just comparing the NAD27 and WGS84 Longitude and Latitudes, gives a shift of 0.8 Minutes of Latitude South and 3.0 Minutes of Longitude West just in going from the FBI map to the Seattle sectional. 0.8 Minutes of Latitude is equivalent to 0.8 nautical miles. 3.0 Minutes of Longitude at the Toutle latitude corresponds to a 2.07 nautical mile shift to the west. The discrepancy was 2.5 nautical miles when abeam of the Toutle symbol. The above numbers can explain about 2.0 to 2.25 nautical miles of the discrepancy. So it looks like the symbol for Toutle was wandering around between the two charts and not the PDX VORTAC. Apparently as the charts were updated for the WGS84 coordinate system, the area around Toutle was changed (expanded?) more than other areas on the FBI map and that gave the visual impression, when considering nearby landmarks, that things hadn't changed at all. But the longitude and latitude changes seems to be the source of the discrepancy.

Farflung, Thanks for the reply but I apparently didn't make myself clear enough. You are assuming that re-orienting the PDX/BTG VORTAC due to the normal change in magnetic variation is responsible for the error. However, the Mayfield/Malay Intersection gives ever appearance of being the same geographical point. And assuming the geographical position of the PDX/BTG VORTAC hasn't changed in the last 40 years or so, then it also should be one point. A straight line between these two points should have the same geographical track (that is, with respect to the grid lines). So if the 2009 line between these two points crosses directly over Toutle then the same line on the FBI map should also pass directly over Toutle. But it doesn't, it passes 2.5 nautical miles to the southwest of Toutle. The only logical explanation seems to be that the PDX/BTG VORTAC has been moved since the FBI map was published. And it would have been moved from the southwest (which is towards Tina Bar) about 3 nautical miles to the northeast. The present day location of the PDX/BTG VORTAC is about 8 nautical miles east-northeast of Tina Bar. Applying the above 3 nautical miles shift would indicate that it was only about 5 nautical miles from Tina Bar when the FBI map was published. I am attempting to get the siting history for the PDX/BTG VORTAC. But there is also now a PDX VOR/DME located on the Portland airport and it is used for the VOR Rwy 28R approach with the DME being used for step-down fixes on that approach.

Several map segments, presumably of the same map, related to the hijacked airliner's flight path are posted on Sluggo's web page and attributed to the FBI. There is nothing on the maps that definitely gives their date of publication or valid dates for use in navigation. However, the height of Mount St. Helens is shown as 9677 feet ASL which is its pre-blast height. So it is unlikely that the map was printed after late 1980 or early 1981, given the time required to get updated charts printed and circulated. The radials from the PDX (now BTG) VORTAC and the SEA VORTAC that are used to define the Mayfield Intersection on V-23 are the same as those on the IFR Enroute Low Altitude Chart that was in effect on November 24, 1971, the day of the hijacking. So it is very likely that the "FBI map" was printed by that date or perhaps a few years earlier. When compared to a 2009 FAA Seattle Sectional Chart, it appears that the Mayfield Intersection and the present day Malay Intersection are located at the very same geographical point. Also, the geographical positions of the PDX/BTG and SEA VORTACS appears to be the same on both the Sectional chart and the FBI map. Now comes the strange part. On the FBI map, the direct line between the PDX/BTG VORTAC and the Mayfield Intersection passes 2.5 nautical miles abeam Toutle on the southwest side. On the 2009 Seattle Sectional chart, the direct line between the Malay Intersection and the BTG/PDX VORTAC, what appears to be the same two points mentioned above, passes directly over Toutle. Changes in magnetic variation is not a factor here since the two points are defined geographically in this instance. Converting from the NAD27 to the WGS84 coordinate system is also not a factor since the maximum change in the Portland area is never more than 200 meters. Projecting the discrepancy at Toutle on to the Malay Intersection results in about a 3 nautical mile discrepancy. Looking from the Mayfield/Malay Intersection to the PDX/BTG VORTAC location indicates that at the time the FBI maps were charted, the PDX/BTG VORTAC was located about 3 nautical miles southwest of its present position. Does anyone have any further information on this?

Sluggo says the NWA 727-51 is a 727-100. So I guess the seating chart I posted would apply. I guess. I dont know anything about thes aircraft. One reson I thought Kaye's photo shows a seat at the very back of the aircraft, in a last row of seats?, is because behind the seat with the #6 sticker on it, is a space with a door, a closet or lav, but no more seats show behind that row of seats? I guess there could be more seats behind that door space ???? But I assume this seats are at the back of the plane. And I definately see only two seats -not three in the row. There is more than enough space in the photo for another seat, if one was there, in a row of three seats as per the 727-100 seating plan ??? There are THREE seats showing in that photograph. Note the three towels, or whatever they are, covering the tops of the seats and judge how wide each seat is from the towels.

Quade, Thanks for the link. It looks like the NOAA does have what I am looking for in their library.

Does anyone know where this information can be found? It undoubtedly exists somewhere, but where? I haven't been able to locate it by Internet searches.

BK, There will be more on the flight path but nothing to support your idea of a "fake wind crab". And nothing at all on Janet's location, or Janet herself, since I am not interested in writing humor or fiction, or both. Just remember that I am one of the few people on this thread that has passed psychological evaluations which were necessary to participate in various endeavors. As a result of that and other things, I do have a low tolerance for BS.

Perhaps my actions were also suspicious to some that Thanksgiving weekend. I got off an airliner on the evening of November 24, 1971, rented a car, drove across a good size river, and didn't come back until the following Sunday afternoon. But I wasn't the hijacker. In fact, the hijacking had already taken place before I got on the ground. Also, I was in the midwest and was headed to a family gathering for Thanksgiving.