Lots of questions surround the flight path.

I hope Ron & Pat decide to join us here and discuss further about the person training jumpers. lots of question will come of this I'm sure.

I posted this at the DZ hoping to get some skydiver answers. Gonna post it here too in case we have any skydiver, aeronautical, or time/space continuum  experts here.. 

First, Not sure that this has been posted before, but here's an article talking about the Travel Channel's "America Declassified" Nice read. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Now....As we know there is a document out there signed by a NW official that possibly indicates how the probable landing zone was arrived at. I'm interested in trying to find out if there could be other factors that could influence the landing zone  that are not specifically talked about in that document.

So if we have any skydivers/experts who'd care to opine...

How far have you been blown from your dropzone due to wind or other factors?

What's the greatest unintended distance from a planned landing that you know of?
What influenced the distance in those cases?

Would the type of parachute that Dan Cooper was using make him more or less likely to be blown "off-course" by wind/weather?

Is there anything that Cooper could do before or after opening his chute (under the conditions as we know them) that would have increased his horizontal distance from a flight path? And I have no idea if horizontal distance is the right terminology so hoping you know what I mean.

I fished around trying to find a setting, or something that is causing the change problem after posting. let's see if the option you mentioned works.....


added....it works using that option. nice catch smokin....

If what Georger said is true, that pilot Andy Anderson didn't record the exact time of the "bump," then the case is totally reliant on the recollections of the pilots as to when they thought he bailed out.  And with all the confusion going on in the cockpit, the exact time will never be known.  The "missing minutes" are the key to Cooper's landing area.

I think it's all in the timing. I have flown the path from Seattle to Portland. it can be done in the time frame they give. other options are being looked at. the money location must be some sort of clue in the path of the plane, or the jump time. if they are off on the timing, lots of water is around the jump zone. Robert99 has a pretty good theory, but we need some more to go on. perhaps he will chime in and discuss it in his words.

Basically, there are no "missing" minutes.  I realize that one minute is not listed but it is not lost.  Whoever worked up the flight path in the so-called "FBI map" apparently found a radar blip while his clock read a certain time.  He then marked the blip on the estimated map location and attached a time to it.  If he did this for exactly one minute intervals, the distance between those radar blips would be the same distance since the aircraft's ground speed was essentially constant from the Mayfield/Malay Intersection as the airliner headed to the southeast (and it wasn't necessarily going to the Battleground VORTAC).

But the individual apparently didn't find a radar blip for the time his clock was reading the "missing" minute.  To put it even more plainly, the times and positions on that map are not believable.

Robert99 

About four years ago, I ordered digital copies of the FAA's Low Altitude Enroute IFR maps L1 and L2 through the National Archives and a contractor who actually made the disks.  The maps were in effect on November 24, 1971 and contained the navigational information that the NWA airliner would be using on it flight from Seattle to Reno.

When the contractor sent me the disks, they would not initially work on my computer.  After quite a bit of work between the contractor and myself, we finally got the problem resolved.  I made duplicate disks of both maps and sent them to Sluggo and he in turn posted them on his web page.

Recently, I tried to make duplicate copies of my "archive disks" in order to send the maps to the WSHM.  But I have not been able to get any of the disks, which have worked in the past, to open.  No reason for this can be determined.  I am using the very same computer as before and only the normal upgrades to Windows 7 and to Internet Explorer 11 have been made.

I took the disks to one commercial shop and they told me the disks were corrupted.  I have no idea how that could have happened and doubt if it did.

Do any of you computer wizards have a suggestion for correcting this problem?   

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

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If what Georger said is true, that pilot Andy Anderson didn't record the exact time of the "bump," then the case is totally reliant on the recollections of the pilots as to when they thought he bailed out.  And with all the confusion going on in the cockpit, the exact time will never be known.  The "missing minutes" are the key to Cooper's landing area.

I think it's all in the timing. I have flown the path from Seattle to Portland. it can be done in the time frame they give. other options are being looked at. the money location must be some sort of clue in the path of the plane, or the jump time. if they are off on the timing, lots of water is around the jump zone. Robert99 has a pretty good theory, but we need some more to go on. perhaps he will chime in and discuss it in his words.

The money find at Tina Bar is the key to solving what happened to Cooper.  If sufficiently accurate information on the flight path location becomes available, it will quite likely be possible to give a very small area for Cooper's landing (or impact).  By small area, I mean quite a bit less than one-half of a square mile.  It is also quite likely that a meaningful statement can be made on Cooper's condition immediately after he returns to earth (dead or alive?).

The unique geographical and topographical conditions that exist in the Tina Bar area are such that severe limitations exist on what the flight path had to be, and whether Cooper was a pull or no-pull, in order for the money to get to Tina Bar.  And if accurate flight path information, such as that in the un-redacted Seattle ATC transcripts, becomes available, I will be delighted to go out on a limb and amplify on the above.

Shutter is absolute right about the further south the airliner got from the Woodland area, the more water it would be flying over.  If the flight crew bypassed Portland on the west side, the airliner would essentially be almost directly over the Columbia River as it passed Tina Bar.

In addition, new tests on the money could be run to help verify a specific scenario. These are tests beyond the scope and capability of what Tom was able to do -