A few posters have been aware I’ve contacted William Rataczak last August. I received a very nice response on Sept 11, 2019. I asked him only one question “ Did you see the lights of Portland/Vancouver on flight 305 ? “.
His direct answer was “ No, we did not see those lights that night; only their glow. The reason is that we were flying in heavy over and undercast skies. “ Since I was born about 25 miles from his present home, we exchanged a number of familiarities.
Hopefully, that puts that point to rest. Basically, this means that Cooper could not have known exactly (or to within 20 or 30 miles) where he was when he jumped.
No! I think you miss the POINT. Actually two or three or four points. (1) R saw the GLOW of Portland/Vancouver. That is his answer. (2) There is no other skyglow flying south from Seattle to Reno in the same position. Of the roughly 700 mile separation between Reno and Seattle, the skyglow R saw defines a less than 2% area on the whole trip, which can ONLY be Vancouver/Portland. To a person jumping from 10,000 feet on a 700 mile journey that sky glow puts Cooper to within only 14 miles of his target, if Vancouver/Portland was his target. (3) Cooper was able to identify cities from the air - there is direct evidence of that. Cooper knew where he was, from the air. (4) The fact of overcast and cloud layers is - IRRELEVANT. In fact the clouds might have created an advantage so far as identifying large areas of sky glow representing urban arreas, are concerned. !
Likewise, keep track of the fact that your colleague Galen Cook says that Cooper was timing the flight by burning matches in his match book - so Cooper had a clock according to Cook - match burning.
However, you will continue your narrative because you have no choice. That is the position you have put yourself in! So go back to talking about Cooper's 'psychology' and why he could not see sky glow from an airplane in clouds. Search for something in Thermodynamics, like water runs down hill, to bolster your narrative. West path vs FBI path is irrelevant. It's the place R saw the sky glow that matters. You might concentrate on how Cooper cannot see out of airplanes. Blevins claim optical physics changes in the cabins of airplanes might apply? It's your choice .... or your move. Good luck. Try arts & crafts. 
Kermit-thanks for that update, really good info.
Georger: I'm in general agreement with your post. I had not considered the matches before, and this is the first I've heard about it, but it does remind me of a survival manual I read once that showed airmen burning cigarettes, and that at the time it was suggested that a cigarette would burn 7 minutes or so (just lit, not smoked) and that someone could use a cigarette as a rudimentary timer. I tried it once on a firecracker set up and it worked as a delay. I can't picture a time though that Cooper had cigarettes lit from Seattle to Portland though. Maybe.
Robert99-We've "argued" this one before. I believe leaving Seattle, heading south towards Portland with flaps at 15 degrees and landing gear down, that Cooper would know the general speed of the plane, and he would have had some idea of the winds, and if he was an experienced flyer, then he could have had some general idea of his location aided by the fact that there are no lights south of Tacoma until he gets to Portland. I was not in the plane, but I have to imagine he knew when he was over the cities. Does this put him in an exact spot? No. Does it mean he knew where he was? No, but it could mean that he thought he knew where he was. If his plan was to jump just before Portland, then he only needed to have some basic timing and knowledge of the speed/wind, etc. This was not a long trip. Air speed vs ground speed with winds figured in is just not a whole lot of variance over 130 miles, so if he knew air speed, he should have had a general idea of where he was. Even if it was within 20 miles, it may have given him the advantage he needed to start his escape. At some point in his descent he should have been able to get some idea of his location while under the canopy.
Fcastle866, What is your basis for assuming that Cooper was an "experienced flyer"? There are plenty of lights south of Tacoma although the glow from them might not have been making it through the several cloud layers and overcast that were under the airliner that night.
Based on the information that was available to Cooper, what is your estimate of the true airspeed, winds aloft speed and direction, and ground speed of the airliner, plus the flight path of the airliner?
If under canopy, I doubt if Cooper could see much of anything until he was within a few hundred feet of the ground. It really was a "dark and stormy night".
Robert: Is it generally safe to say that ground speed is almost the same as air speed if there are no winds? If so, then Cooper had to know a general air speed given the flap configuration, and landing gear being down. We do know from the 302's that he had to tell the pilots to slow the plane down before he jumped, so he may have thought the plane was going slower than it actually was. There is no way to know for sure if Cooper had flying experience, but my opinion and many others is that he did have flight experience. Some think he had a lot, some not a lot. I'm of the belief that he was at least comfortable in the air.
I think he "winged it" on a lot of things, and luck was in his favor. Luck being preparation meeting opportunity. I hypothesize that Cooper planned for a best case scenario of knowing the time/distance/general winds, and the direction, as well as having a plan to jump before Portland, whether that was right after the plane took off or before it hit the Oregon border.
One big piece for me is the turn that V23 takes on the flight path. If he knew that the plane might take V23, then he would know to look or listen for a major turn north of Vancouver. The placard find lends some credence to this.
If it were me and I wanted to hit an exact spot (within a mile or two), I would have used a radio and pulled late. But we don't know if Cooper did either of these things. I still believe that one probable scenario is that Cooper planned using the distance and time, knowing that the longest he'd be in the air would be around 40 minutes, and the least around 35 minutes. He knew the general area where he would land, and planned for that. I totally concede that the had the plane taken off over the ocean or flew off course that Cooper's plan would have changed dramatically, just as it would have if the plane never landed in Seattle, or the snipers got him, or someone on the plane. A lot of things went his way that day from getting his seat to getting away.
I have not jumped at night in badly overcast weather, so I can't be sure what he would see while under canopy. But I think he would have seen something useful. I'll defer to 377 and others like yourself for commentary.
What lights would he see south of Tacoma? Lake Merwin Dam, Fort Lewis, an airport beacon. Etc. Could he not have planned to use these as landmarks?
