The title of this thread is: Clues, Documents And Evidence About The Case. My concern is about Evidence In The Case.

Maybe its time to turn the Cooper case over to Unbiased Professionals, if any timely progress is actually going to be made in the Cooper case. For one thing professionals would have given aspects of this case a completely different treatment than the average public is even capable of. So far, Tom Kaye and a few others have attempted to give this case a professional, or semi-professional treatment. An example is the McCrone list and the treatment that list is being given ...... by amateurs! The results are obvious.

This is just my opinion and my stance in matters of this kind. Unbiased Management of cases of this kind is extremely important.

I think just about everyone understands this principle. Thats all I really have to say - - - 

 

The professionals stopped investigating this case in July of 2016. All that is left are amateur researchers.

That is who this forum (and others) are for:  amateur researchers looking at the evidence, evaluating it, and trying  to draw conclusions. It's inevitable that will lead to wrong ideas, mistakes, and prejudices. Like it or not, that's how the sausage is made.

Even the professionals are biased sometimes and force evidence to fit a particular theory of theirs. Sometimes, even the experts screw up and get it wrong. When this happens, it's best to point out any evidence to the contrary. It's how we all get better at examining and understanding the evidence. Hopefully, it will bring us closer to solving the case.

15 degree indent flap setting (and knowing the 727 was degrees and not percent)

Knowing a flight plan could be filed from the air after takeoff

Knew where the emergency O2 was in the passenger cabin

Knew terminology for airstairs and phone system

He asked specifically if airplane was a 727

Knew about how long refueling should take.

Knew how to position refueling truck.

Was worried about the potential risk of marshals.

Contraindications:

Apparently did *not* know maximum range for his flight configuration

Did not know how to actually lower stairs.

Believed the cockpit could lower stairs in flight.

(I just realized that Cooper might have been aware of the airline protocols for hijackings, will have to look into that)

Martin, I think you hit on the big one here "He asked specifically if airplane was a 727."  He obviously wanted a 727, so the question would be if he had knowledge of the 727 previously, or did he go about searching for it after he decided to do a hijack.  I wonder if Cooper maybe flew once and saw the stairs as he came on the plane, then saw the stairs being operated by a stewardess.  Or maybe he saw a 727 at a local airport.  There were thousands of these in service by 1971, so it was not like this was a super secret military plane like the SR-71.

There seems to be two camps here on his knowledge.  One is that he worked at a Boeing type company and had intimate knowledge of the 727. The other one is that he knew something about aviation, but studied up on the 727 using books, friends, visits to an airport, etc.  I'm in the second camp.  Plenty of military planes took off with stairs down, or landed under difficult circumstances, or opened up bomb bay doors.  However, taking off with stairs locked down and hitting the ground is a whole different operation.  It's possible Cooper knew that the stairs would not be locked, therefore would not drag on the ground.  Lots to consider.

Haggar, I think it was you who asked about stall speed.  Janes Aircraft from 1970 has the stall speed for the 727.  I've seen it in aviation magazines too.  I have not seen reference to how one would get to stall speed by using an exact flaps setting.  I guess someone could decide that stall speed is jumpable/survivable, and then ask a pilot what flaps setting would create that speed.  It's odd that he did not just tell the pilots to fly at a specific speed.  Towards the end he did tell them to slow the plane down, right before his jump.

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15 degree indent flap setting (and knowing the 727 was degrees and not percent)

Knowing a flight plan could be filed from the air after takeoff

Knew where the emergency O2 was in the passenger cabin

Knew terminology for airstairs and phone system

He asked specifically if airplane was a 727

Knew about how long refueling should take.

Knew how to position refueling truck.

Was worried about the potential risk of marshals.

Contraindications:

Apparently did *not* know maximum range for his flight configuration

Did not know how to actually lower stairs.

Believed the cockpit could lower stairs in flight.

(I just realized that Cooper might have been aware of the airline protocols for hijackings, will have to look into that)

Martin, I think you hit on the big one here "He asked specifically if airplane was a 727."  He obviously wanted a 727, so the question would be if he had knowledge of the 727 previously, or did he go about searching for it after he decided to do a hijack.  I wonder if Cooper maybe flew once and saw the stairs as he came on the plane, then saw the stairs being operated by a stewardess.  Or maybe he saw a 727 at a local airport.  There were thousands of these in service by 1971, so it was not like this was a super secret military plane like the SR-71.

There seems to be two camps here on his knowledge.  One is that he worked at a Boeing type company and had intimate knowledge of the 727. The other one is that he knew something about aviation, but studied up on the 727 using books, friends, visits to an airport, etc.  I'm in the second camp.  Plenty of military planes took off with stairs down, or landed under difficult circumstances, or opened up bomb bay doors.  However, taking off with stairs locked down and hitting the ground is a whole different operation.  It's possible Cooper knew that the stairs would not be locked, therefore would not drag on the ground.  Lots to consider.

Haggar, I think it was you who asked about stall speed.  Janes Aircraft from 1970 has the stall speed for the 727.  I've seen it in aviation magazines too.  I have not seen reference to how one would get to stall speed by using an exact flaps setting.  I guess someone could decide that stall speed is jumpable/survivable, and then ask a pilot what flaps setting would create that speed.  It's odd that he did not just tell the pilots to fly at a specific speed.  Towards the end he did tell them to slow the plane down, right before his jump.

Another variable to throw into the mix for consideration would be the Elsinore event where an unknown individual visited the Elsinore Sky Dive Center in the August of 1971 time frame and was asking questions on how to jump from a commercial air plane.   For the sake of this argument, pretend this was indeed Cooper -- the high level details of that conversation as documented in the 302s seem to me to be more like the second camp as described above.

Martin, I think you hit on the big one here "He asked specifically if airplane was a 727."  He obviously wanted a 727, so the question would be if he had knowledge of the 727 previously, or did he go about searching for it after he decided to do a hijack.

There seems to be some differences between different accounts as to whether he asked specifically whether the airplane was a 727. I think the book by Geoffrey Gray mentions that he did ask the question - the book also seems to differ from the 302 interviews in its account of the observations of the check in guy.

Phosphorus is an a common agricultural fertilizer and farm runoff frequently contaminated drinking water prior to the 1970s. The interaction of phosphorus with lead pipes (which were also common in the 1960s) can cause the formation of lead phosphate particles. Could Cooper have acquired the lead phosphate particulates simply from washing his face or brushing his teeth?

I have pictures and insight into the “flaps 15”.

Working on something right now, but will post more later.

Exterior from 2-40

..

The flaps are set depending on the weight added to the aircraft..it will differ. I would input weight and weather or wind direction and it would tell me flap settings. 10-15 used a lot.