Pieces of material with very low weight and lots of flat surface area (e.g. 727 placard) don't necessarily follow the normal ballistic drop trajectories.

How do I know? I once saw a fluttering candy bar wrapper in the air several thousand feet up as I descended in my parachute. It didn't come from prior jumpers as I was the first out on the first load of the day. I think there was a good possibility that it started out as ground litter, was picked up by the wind, got into some thermals and had been up there for some time.

I wonder if glider pilots occasionally see ground litter when circling in thermals?

I don't think there were thermals at night when Cooper made his jump, but a fluttering placard could have a very long hang time which means that winds aloft could take it a lot farther than a simple ballistic fall would lead you to expect.

377

So, yes, considering the location of the placard find and winds aloft--32 knots at 10K feet from SW--this would seem to suggest that it would be very odd indeed for the placard to land west of where it left the jet.

Another interesting question:

If the FBI flight path is accurate, and their location/time plot is off by 6-minutes, and Cooper by some matter of grave misfortune ended up landing in the Columbia River, he would actually hit water about one mile from the airport--again, this according to the FBI flight path. Could a person, either no-pull or under canopy, descend that close to the airport and not be detected by their radar?

R2 says they werent looking at their radar when 305 crossed the Columbia!   (which is hard to believe)

BTW, you still have to explain the condition of the money if Cooper buried pristine bills as you claim. What explains all of the cuts, tatters, and abraded bills that look like they were blasted with high pressure water or sand? 

Another interesting question:

If the FBI flight path is accurate, and their location/time plot is off by 6-minutes, and Cooper by some matter of grave misfortune ended up landing in the Columbia River, he would actually hit water about one mile from the airport--again, this according to the FBI flight path. Could a person, either no-pull or under canopy, descend that close to the airport and not be detected by their radar?

Some ATC radars have MTI (Moving Target Indication) filters that suppress echos from stationary or very slow targets (e.g. birds) that are not of interest to controllers. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

If the radar in question had MTI enabled, it would not have displayed Cooper descending under a canopy. if it did not have MTI enabled, then Cooper might have been visible but would have been of little interest as it would have been interpreted as a weak slow moving target (like a bird) and obviously not a powered aircraft that could pose a serious collision risk to other aircraft.

Most MTI systems in the Cooper era depended on a coherent radar transmitter using a Klystron instead of a Magnetron output tube. To perform Doppler Shift speed analysis one needs a coherent radar signal. More modern systems can figure out speed using incoherent radar signals and digital target tracking algorithms.

The placard find location had to be downwind of the jet's flight path. 

377

How did they get so far off as to not knowing the plane was 8 miles west?

Is this accurate?

What I mean is this. Does the controller watching the blip on the screen have anything on the screen that shows precisely where the blip is in relation to other landmarks.. in other words, if there was a satellite image of the ground below the blip super-imposed on the radar screen that would be a good guide. However, if the radar screen is just black with a blip on it how does the controller known precisely where the jet is in relation to certain things?

Also, wasn't this information, and subsequent flight path, super-imposed on a map after the fact? Perhaps in real time the controller didn't know precisely where the jet was relative to other locations so as to be able to judge if the jet was close to Tena Bar.

For your consumption and critique the following link will bring you to a page where I have posted my just completed The 8:12 Arc Theory which describes where I think DB Cooper jumped and landed.

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Cheers!

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For your consumption and critique the following link will bring you to a page where I have posted my just completed The 8:12 Arc Theory which describes where I think DB Cooper jumped and landed.

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Cheers!

It’s a theory with a lot of presumptions that have no FACTS to back it up ! It would be great if we knew for a fact that Cooper jumped at exactly 8:12 ! Also when did Tina Bar become an “ Island “ ? Also why would it be necessary for Cooper to swim across the Columbia IF he survived the jump ? There are two bridges that cross the Columbia on nearby Hayden Island ! Also I asked you many months ago why would Cooper bury the equivalent of 1.2 Million dollars in the sand on a public beach frequently occupied by local fishermen when there was plenty of unoccupied wooded area all around Tina Bar ? You replied it was easy to bury the loot in the sand along the beach ! It was at this point I tuned you out as obviously you didn’t have any clue as the texture of Columbia river sand on a wet rainy day in November ! This is NOT soft beach sand in Newport Beach, California! Cooper would need a shovel and we know he didn’t have a shovel ! Sorry but I can’t get past the preposterous idea of anyone working out all the details involved in this hyjacking and them burying all his loot on a public beach ! It’s your theory and it is whatever you care to believe.

I agree !  What EU has come up with is not a flight path but a movie script! Bring in Mothra, Modonna, and the Seven Gnomes of King Arthur.

Where to start???

First, the jet didn't go over the Maylay intersection and didn't go over Toledo...it went around the airport near both of them so that's what I mean.

Second, the arc is the line that represents where the jet would be at 8:12 PM (Cooper's jump time) depending upon the direction it headed from Malay.

Third, is it worth even commenting about the likelihood that Cooper would land on Sauvie Island 3 miles south of St. Helens and walk all the way down to I-5, cross the bridge to Vancouver, then walk all the way up to Tena Bar? That isn't likely just as swimming directly across the Columbia River from Sauvie Island isn't likely...hence, he didn't land in Oregon, he landed in Washington State.

Fourth, yes Tena Bar is on what is essentially an island, or peninsula, or whatever you want to call it. The point is DB Cooper would have to cross water to get to Tena Bar if coming from too far west, too far north, or too far east...which is...you got it, where the 8:12 arc is.

Fifth, in fact I'm very familiar with Tena Bar. It's a beach with sand on it. Perhaps you should refer back to the 1980 footage of the FBI agents digging up the beach. It is not made of some sort of special sand-concrete that is impossible to dig a hole without a shovel, yet lets paper currency bury itself three feet deep.

Finally, how do you not agree that the 8:12 jump time, location of the placard find, location of the money find, direction of the Columbia River's flow and the speed and direction from which the wind was blowing on November 24, 1971 are facts?

Eric, the wind direction is the only fact you have! the rest is pure speculation based on a flight path that might work but has no evidence to back it up. the placard is not enough based on no way to determine how it fell.

The theory is too far off IMO for calculation errors. that leaves a conspiracy. a very large one