"Private plane with weird tail lite was circling the area during the hijacking and landed in a clearing after being in the area (practicing) for several days."
These rotating beacons are mostly mfd by Grimes. I know a bit about Grimes lights and even have a few. It's not common to see oversized Grimes beacons on Cessnas but it's not super rare either. The Cessna 182 is a common small DZ jumpship and I have seen a few of them with big Grimes lights mounted on top of the vert stabilizer. The light pattern from the Grimes beacons is aimed horizontally, designed to give the brightest flash to aircraft at or near you own altitude, which makes sense for collision avoidance. Most models can be seen from above but not nearly as well as from the side. Some have opaque caps on top. Take a look here: You are not allowed to view links.
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Brand new Grimes lights are ridiculously expensive, costing over 1000 dollars. When an OE one fails, plane owners often find working used ones dirt cheap. Some of these are larger than the ones Cessna put on new planes and even though it isn't a drop in replacement it's cheaper to fair in a big used one than buy a drop in new one. It's legal if properly papered including a revised weight and balance sheet.
If someone wanted to be easily seen from above you'd mount a few (then Xenon now LED) strobes on top of the fuselage. A big Grimes beacon isn't the ideal signaling device for being seen from above.
TC has done us all a HUGE favor by tenaciously pursuing, at considerable expense, FBI FOIA requests with some interesting results. I don't think his recent fabric find came from an NB 8 but that's just me speculating based on its badly degraded condition which I wouldn't expect for buried mil spec chute gear. If his piece is from an NB 8 there should be a lot of unique metal rig pieces nearby and so far none have been found as far as I know.
His candidate still intrigues me. Rackstraw is the only one who has a history of aviation crime and he is an especially noteworthy sociopath according to a trial judge who has probably seen many hundreds. Rackstraw's age tells me he couldn't have been DBC, but eyewitnesses often err on age. He had a grudge, a big one. He needed money. He was a qualified aviator, jumper, explosives expert and con man. I've always doubted that Norjack was DBC's first rodeo and Rackstraw has a rich deep criminal history.
I have talked to TC. He is a smart guy. No way is he going to call a burlap strip as having originated from an NB 8. The weave looks too coarse for parachute gear but I am no expert on fabrics.
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Nobody is going to believe me (or accept what I say) , in any event! Part of that has to do with my neutrality which I told TC over and over again to the point of nausea, when he tried to recruit me as one of his 'experts', years ago! I helped TC find some of Ingram's relatives but beyond that, I stopped trying to assist in any manner.
I dont know what a NYLON parachute fabric looks like after 46 years in the ground, but I do note that every parachute fabric (container cloth or strap material) I have ever seen, has a rather close (tight) weave probably to give the fabric strength? My guess is that if parachute fabric was buried and exposed to the elements for a number of years, the cloth would not lose its inherent 'tight weave'? But thats just a guess. I base this to some degree on the fact that nylon is a synthetic fabric and not biodegradable. A fabric made from nylon does not degrade enough over time to lose the weave spacing that was inherent to that fabric in the beginning, compared with biodegradable fabrics like cotton etc. That's just my layman's thought given without further analysis.
I do not see a tight weave/wove in TC's specimen? Maybe others do. I wonder if they even have the fabric correctly identified as nylon? They must. TC abd his Experts are never wrong!
Look for yourself. I dont see close stitching and a tight weave/wove that I do see in all parachute fabrics, including parachute straps? In fact, if this is a strap, I dont see the thickness I see in most parachute straps. This specimen Colbert is showing is a "weak sister" for a strap! It doesn't look to me like it ever had any real strength if it is a "strap"! I wouldnt bet my life on this socalled "strap"! And! The dimensions look wrong for a strap! Where on any parachute does this strap fit?
Come on experts - get with the program! We need answers!