Summation of Current Flight Path Understandings:
Would it be fair to say that there is growing confidence here that the Flight Path was further west than generally believed and much closer to Tina Bar? Additionally, Cooper jumped further south than originally believed and closer to T- Bar than Ariel?
If so, do folks believe that Scott's comments at Himms' retirement party that 305 was flying over Woodland - as relayed by Calame and Rhodes - are more accurate than Rataczak's alleged comments to Himms that 305 was over the Washougal?
Bruce, one again, I think you are looking for a consensus which doesn't exist! So lets back up and look at this again. Central fact: No matter how you parse the flight path, no matter which flight path theory you chose, Cooper probably bailed in the 2011 - 2013 period somewhere north of Vancouver. No body was found. The search in '72 along the NWA Search Map line A'-B' in the Ariel - Lake Merwin area found nothing. No body and no Cooper. And, so far as I know, there was no massive search for Cooper in the Vancouver-Portland area, for a number of reasons including a lack of manpower to conduct such a search, outside the prime landing zone area, where experts advised law enforcement Cooper had bailed ... and DIED! Law enforcement was looking for Cooper where all of the experts told them to look!
Then something unexpected happens in 1980. Cooper money is found at Tina Bar. There is a rush to bring in more experts. The Washougal Theory is born. An intense brief excavation is launched at Tina's Bar. Nothing of a defining nature is found! Once again no major effort to canvas Vancouver and Portland occurs, except perhaps to renew and review old area hospital DOA reports - and once again nothing comes of that.
Did anyone bother to look at a map? If they had they might have realised that 2011-2013 puts Cooper where?
It puts Cooper right in the effective operating zone of Vancouver-Portland and Tina's Bar. If Cooper survived the jump at 2011-2013 where would he go? All the way back to Seattle, or south with Vancouver-Portland close by?
And money is found where - just west of Vancouver, at a semi-isolated public fishing spot ! Do I dare say: "Duuuuuuh"?
To my eyes, the money was found right at the southern edge of the Effective Operating zone, just south of where all the experts say Cooper bailed ... whether you accept the NWA/FBI maps or a slightly western version of those maps as suggested by Robert99.
The eastern Washougal theory was never anything more than a guess and the experts that advised the FBI said that clearly. It was Rataczak and Himmelsbach who promoted the Washougal wash down theory and who knows why!
The fact is, the Tina Bar money was found in the effective operating zone of a Cooper who survived a jump in the 2011-2014 period just north of Vancouver (at or south of) Woodland-Ariel, or closer to Vancouver perhaps in the Tina Bar area itself as Robert99 thinks may have happened.
The money and the jump do fit together! See the attached. The money and the jump are in the same effective operating zone. There is Sluggo's "missing link".
