Here's another round of questions. I accept Cooper was inspired by the failed Paul Cini hijacking and was able to engineer his heist in a relatively short period of time (11 days) using information he already had. So, he could easily put on a parachute harness before the Cini hijacking. He had to be familiar with air travel around SeaTac, and might have been a frequent flyer into the area. I also think he might have been a regular Northwest passenger. He would have flown an airline he was most comfortable with, as I believe he would have made many decisions based on personal comfort (which is why I believe he was wearing his typical wardrobe for the flight).

But what kind of piloting experience could he have had? When asked about flap settings, he said fifteen degrees. I'm not a pilot, so I had to look it up, flaps start creating more drag than lift at 10 degrees. Did Cooper guess at "15 degrees" because he knew this fact? Could he have learned the flap settings on a 727 without working at Boeing? Did he revert to knowledge from his own piloting lessons? Are there common contemporary private aircraft with similar flap settings? Same deal with having the landing gear down, he would have to have some knowledge of aeronautics before the Cini hijacking. What is the minimum amount of experience Cooper could have had based on these facts?

Cooper would need information specific to the 727 and the fact that the rear stairs could be lowered in flight was not widely known.  The CIA used 727s in Southeast Asia and was probably the reason that the stairs were capable of being lowered in flight.  There is no reason to believe that Cooper was a pilot although he appears to have had some experience as a crew member, but he did have specific information about the 727 capabilities including lowering the stairs in flight.  Consequently, it has been thought by a number of people (including myself) that Cooper spent some time in Southeast Asia and was involved in 727 operations there.   

I thought I read somewhere that the CIA link was a dead end. And also, that the Boeing link was investigated and ended up being a dead end. Ckret on DZ maybe?

Isn't it possible he got lucky with the stairs? It might not even be dumb luck, why would you design a lock for those stairs when only an idiot would try to use them during a flight?

Bruce: I accept that Cooper probably had some source of knowledge on the 727. As mentioned earlier, planning something like this in eleven days would require a lot of foreknowledge since it would take a long time for a layman to get all this information, or engineer it. I'm playing around. Devil's advocate; whatever. What I was really interested in was finding out if other aircraft had a 15 degree flap setting. As Cooper guys, we all ask the same questions, analyze the same fifteen data points, and circle around Tina's bar like it's Prometheus offering fire. [This is the reason I like having a conjecture/dumb question thread, it offers a rational place to throw stuff like this out there.]

Isn't it possible he got lucky with the stairs? It might not even be dumb luck, why would you design a lock for those stairs when only an idiot would try to use them during a flight?

Nevertheless, people have opened airliner doors in flight and committed suicide by jumping from the aircraft.  And remember that the 727 was the only airliner flying in 1971 where the aft stairs could be lowered to some extent in flight.  All the other designs with aft stairs had locks on them.

There is nothing magic about a 15 degree flap setting in general and I'll bet more than one Boeing design has used that setting.  With the advent of relatively complicated leading edge devices, such as Krueger flaps and moveable slats, the designers needed to coordinate those movements with the trailing edge flaps.  Thus the use of "Ident positions" for the flap lever rather than a setting based solely on the deflection of the trailing edge flaps.  A given "Ident position" determines the settings for both the leading and trailing edge devices.   

Are there any good books or documentaries about the clandestine 727 airdrops? Or the supersonic air transport program that was cancelled just before Cooper's hijacking?

Are there any good books or documentaries about the clandestine 727 airdrops? Or the supersonic air transport program that was cancelled just before Cooper's hijacking?

Here is a video from one of the past DZ posters. It is on the Youtube channel DBCooperXFiles.

Possibly the guy who removed the stairs for the military during those jumps? they were removed and sheet metal was put over the permanent steps.

Here is some more info

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I'd be more than happy to believe Cooper back-engineered the jump without a priori knowledge of the 727, (in fact, I would find that preferable) but I'd need evidence. Where could a laymen get information about the 727 stairs not having locking mechanisms when stairs on other aircraft had them? Where could a laymen get knowledge about the flight configuration (gears down, flaps at 15, unpressurized cabin)? Where could a laymen without jump experience learn the basics of parachuting (checking packing cards, easily strapping into a harness) without going to a skydiving school and asking a bunch of suspicious questions? [I would think any Cooper suspect who walked into a skydiving school, asked a bunch of questions, then disappeared, would have been reported to the FBI after the jump].

A bit of experience flying as a loadmaster, flight engineer, etc., would provide most of the information.  Inspecting and putting on a parachute and jumping with one during an emergency doesn't require more than about 5 to 10 minutes of instruction at most.  The information specific to the 727 could have been obtained by acting as a crew member on one operating in Southeast Asia or even by talking to someone who was familiar with the 727 operations there.  But Cooper knew the aft stairs on the 727 could be lowered in flight and he double checked with the ticket agent in Portland that the aircraft for his flight was a 727.