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Here's where I'm going with my concern over the actual dimensions of V-23.

Rataczak told me, eventually, that he thought 305 was east of V-23 by a couple of miles when Cooper jumped. The maps say that the center of V-23 was over Battleground, and V-23 would only extend four miles to the east. Tack on a couple more miles from Rataczak and that puts 305 six or seven miles east of Battleground at 8:13. That doesn't get you into the Washougal much.

Let's say he is accurate ? Then what does he mean by "east of V-23".  Is he saying 'east of the center line of V23', or 'east of the 4 mile boundary on the east side of V23'?  If it's the first then he is still inside the boundaries of V23. If it's the last then he is outside of V23, but still not in the Washougal.

He has made the remark: "I am the only living person who knows where we were when Cooper bailed". That remark is on record.

You do realise if Blevins is right then Rataczak had-has ptsd and all of his testimony is suspect ... based on Gray's quotes from Hancock, saying that Rat was "freaking out in the cockpit".   
 

When I read Vincent Bugliosi's book on the JFK assassination, one of the chapters on conspiracy theories talked about how many of the people with conspiracy theories told entirely different stories right after the assassination and didn't change those stories until years and years later.

Didn't the FBI talk to Rataczak right after they landed in Reno?   Wouldn't they have used that information to determine what area to search?  I think there's good reason to believe the search area was wrong (mostly because they didn't find anything in the search area and Tina Bar was far from the search area), but Rataczak's remark years later sounds like someone teasing the press.

Rataczak is basically within the time frame allowance and specific when he says "... and it was 5 to 10 minutes after (we had talked to Cooper) and we could see the lights of the suburbs of Portland/Vancouver? coming up..."

So they had a rough idea of where they were and the general time frame. They weren't anywhere in the Washougal and they sure as hell weren't north near Woodland or Lake Merwin. The problem is: when did he come to the realisation he states above?  Immediately after landing at Reno, or later. We have literally no immediate testimony from the crew except for what the FBI is telling the public and doing in it's ground searches into 1972 .... and the NWA search map has surfaced in 1971/72.

Surely NWA debriefed their own pilots! Surely the 1971-72 NWA map is based in part on Rataczak's testimony soon after the hijacking and is a fundamental part of the NWA search map. Something happened to change minds between the end of 1972 and the next public statement by Himmeslbach in 1976 moving the dropzone to "12 miles north of Portland",  which changes again in 1980 to "he landed near the Washougal"!

We have different people changing the dropzone through the years, depending on what events or fad was happening at the time.

One thing that makes me believe Rat's statement above is true-like saying, "we could see the lights of the suburbs coming up", is the simple fact that a short time later south of Portland R2 is talking to both 305 and the T33 pilot lining the two up for a rendevois near Lake Oswego south of Portland, in a fairly specific time frame which loosely agrees with 305 being just north of Vancouver just a few minutes earlier, almost exactly as Rataczak says they were.

This gives two points of reference, as it were, in a connected time frame - and the frames all seem to line up?  I am sure R99 has an opinion about this. And I am sure the Controller that brought the two together is not lying.
   

I'm not throwing out what Rataczack says, I just think the "Cooper had to land in Washougal in order for the money to get to Tina Bar" meme made him say "I guess it was possible we were over there". That Rataczak talk on DVD from the NWA museum sold on ebay has Rataczak basically endorsing the FBI flight path (he jokes about how erratic his flying was). Watching that talk, it's hard not to like Rataczak. It's just important to remember he was at the controls of the aircraft, not drawing a map. It's also important to remember how awful human memory is, especially after so many years.

As long as I'm defending people, let me defend Geof Gray and his book. Gray's work is a piece of creative non-fiction (aka literary non-fiction). He wasn't trying to produce "the definitive Cooper book" but instead was trying to communicate both the fascinating mystery that is the case, as well as express the zeitgeist of the fanatics still following and investigating the case (i.e. us). Bottom line, Gray and his editors are first and foremost trying to sell a lot of books, not satiate the desires of the fanatics. We should be lucky to have a commercially funded book, remember, Tosaw, Himmelsbach and most of the other Cooper books are self-published.

Zeitgeist ?  Gray and his editors are first and foremost trying to sell a lot of books. We should be lucky to have a commercially funded book.

A Cooper Hijacking Big Mac?   

R2 and others who were handling the flight say the east route Washoual theory - never happened!

No official map or account shows the Washougal route happened.

No official person has ever endorsed the Washougal route officially ... and no map of one exists!

 

 One thing that makes me believe Rat's statement above is true-like saying, "we could see the lights of the suburbs coming up", is the simple fact that a short time later south of Portland R2 is talking to both 305 and the T33 pilot lining the two up for a rendevois near Lake Oswego south of Portland, in a fairly specific time frame which loosely agrees with 305 being just north of Vancouver just a few minutes earlier, almost exactly as Rataczak says they were.

This gives two points of reference, as it were, in a connected time frame - and the frames all seem to line up?  I am sure R99 has an opinion about this. And I am sure the Controller that brought the two together is not lying.

These two factual events which are true, and a longer Washougal route, are empirically incompatible.

From Georger:
"That, is my major criticism of Gray's book. He drops items of information apparently gleaned from FBI files, then makes no effort to explain or connect the new 'revelations' so they have any value. Then, he states technical and personal information that is not just wrong, but crazy (and even smarmy)! In terms of truth and a better understanding, his book may have zero value!"

Da Cuz says:

I agree with you Georger.  Geoffrey has a weakness - he doesn't share. As a result, his research and writing is not cross-pollinated, reviewed, or corrected through the heat of this forum and the DZ. His singularity can work against him.

Also, I don't trust his blind faith in the FBI documents. There are many factual errors in places, such as the parachute mess, and the snafu situation of who is sitting in Row 18. According to various FBI statements, Mitchell, Gregory and Cooper were all sitting in 18 C. On each other's laps??? C'mon!

As for Rataczak, initially he told me he didn't know where 305 was when Cooper jumped.  Then he said they drifted to the east in the wind, but he didn't say east of what. Then he said they were east of V-23.  Others say that Rataczak told them he was approaching the lights of Vancouver, putting him smack-dab in the middle of V-23 over Battleground.  Adding to the problem, Himms is adamant about the Washougal, and he says, point-blank, that Rataczak told him that's where they were. Why didn't he just tell me the Real Story instead of beating around the bush?  What's the big frigging deal? What are the pressures on these guys shifting the story this way and that?

Bottom Line: Did Rataczak deceive Himmelsbach? Or did Himmelsbach mis-interpret whatever Rataczak told him?  Or is Himmelsbach deceiving me?  Or is everyone just confused and wishes these questions would just go away???

You are not the issue - the issue is the official history of the flight path and suspected dropzone.

Nobody seems to have found any official reference to the Washougal until shortly after the money find in Feb 1980, and then everyone is talking about the Washougal in official quarters. The Washougal is named in both the Palmer and Bradley reports commissioned by the FBI. Palmer was a geologist. Bradley was a hydrologist.

The FBI supplied background case information to both Bradley and Palmer. Bradley asked and was given an area where the FBI felt Cooper had jumped.

That area was defined as: ' an area in the State of Washington bounded by the Lewis River on the north, by the Clark County-Skamania County line on the east, and the Columbia River on the south.' No western boundary was set. Palmer was given the same information. No specific dropzone was given.

[edit] It might be worth noting that when Himmelsbach and Jerry Thomas teamed up to search the Washougal, JT talked to Rataczak and neither Rataczak or Himmelsbach, or anyone else, was able to give JT definitive guidance on where to search for Cooper near the Washougal, including whether north or south or anywhere else! Isn't it reasonable to assume that if the FBI had had a reasonable idea of where to look near the Washougal, based on anything concrete from the Air Force, Rataczak, etal ... the FBI would have had that area searched? Dozens of people have searched all over the Washougal over the years and all came up empty handed. 






 

   



 

It's hard to say what they were doing in 1972 soon after the jump. the photo's below show them completely out of the jump zone searching. they are doing what appears to be a search east of the known flight path.

I am quite sure if the FBI had had confidence in a particular drop zone, they would have given that info to both Bradley and Palmer in 1980. They were asking these professionals to give their best estimate of how Cooper money might have arrived on Tina Bar - having precise drop zone data was vital to that task. Instead they are told to consider an area bounded by the Lewis River on the north, and the Columbia River on the south. That's a good sized piece of territory.    Had someone narrowed this large swath down to the lower third, both Bradley and Palmer might have eliminated the Washougal and come up with a different answer? Because in fact, Bradley says something like:

'Several streams feed the Columbia upstream of the Fazio farm. I am eliminating them due to size, or the degree of slope, or location due to the scope of the large swath of territory specified and the forces needed to move a small package a long distance to the Columbia (as the FBI seems to want) from the northern area of the defined drop zone all the way to the Columbia. It is also unlikely that the described package would have passed through Lacamas Lake to the Columbia due to structural obstacles there that affect flow.'

Bradley is focused on large streams with sufficient volume and power to move a money package a long distance with certainty all the way to the Columbia, and then to Tina Bar, vs. a scenario which starts closer to the Columbia and closer to Tina Bar itself. Bradley worked within the parameters given him by the FBI.

We have this discussed all of this over and over at Dropzone and now here. The NWA-FBI Search Map is about as good an estimate of any 'drop zone' as it got, it seems. If Bradley and Palmer had been given different parameters I am convinced they would have focused on different solutions and answered accordingly. If they had been told: 'We suspect that Cooper bailed somewhere south of Battleground, closer to the Columbia, I suspect Bradley and Palmer would have looked for a different solution. Smaller feeder streams would have received more serious consideration, areas which are dry but fill up and flow during high water periods might have been considered. Topography as well as active streams would have been considered. 

If the FBI had had good reason to say: 'We think 305 was clear over near the Washougal vs close to Battleground', then and only then would the Washougal have gained attention. If, Bradley had been told: '305 flew a straight line between Toledo and the tip of Hayden Island', then Bradley's focus would have changed to that looking for streams and flow opportunities which could supply money to the Fazio property from that flight path assumption.

The data people are given usually plays a role in the solutions people come up with.   

   

On the "Flight From Justice" video they had an undercover FBI agent (hidden from view) and he claims they had no idea where Cooper jumped.....


Just walked into the house, will catch up in a while. also have to download windows 7 onto this computer.....

I'm releasing the "Official Trailer" for the flight path video. many thanks to andrade1812 for helping with the script, and technical advice with the edit process. it took almost a week to put together, and about 12 edits to the video. this will be a "mini series' starting with a look at the Boeing 727, and it's functions inside, and out. following this will be a look at other possibilities in the flight path. basically east, and west. the final video will be of the flight path as it's seen on the FBI map. the transcripts will run with the flight.

Georger also viewed the video giving his input as well. thanks to both Georger, and andreade1812.

The date hasn't been set as of yet, but the process has started. it will be a lot of work, more than I've done with any video rendering before. I will be asking some of you questions along the way. I'm hoping to get the best known information for these video's in order to have something solid to work with, and use in the future. all the videos will be in 720, and 1080 HD formats.

Feel free to link the video to anyone you so desire.....

Nice.. thanks.