First, I need to explain how I got involved in the Cooper matter. I was flying as a passenger on the airlines myself on the evening of the hijacking but I was east of the Mississippi River. I heard about the hijacking that evening and over the next few days was surprised that he had not been found. That's the way things stood with my interest until the FBI asked for public help in early 2009. Since the Cooper hijacking did not involve brain surgery, and it wasn't rocket science either, I decided to answer the FBI's request for assistance although I had some difficulty understanding why they hadn't been able to find his jump point. Actually, any 16 year old boy or girl who is ready to take the written test for the FAA Private Pilot examination could determine the probable jump point if the flight path information is known. Sadly, the FBI decided to sit on the necessary information and this eliminates the possibility of accurately determining the very thing that the FBI presumably sought. To put it another way, the FBI has made it a point to waste the time of a lot of people. And I should add that the needed information is in the public domain regardless of any claims to the contrary. It is just simply being withheld for no logical reason.
I started checking into the Cooper hijacking and soon ended up in touch with Sluggo. Somewhere along the way, Sluggo told me about the Cooper thread at DropZone and I signed on there on March 9, 2009. In familiarizing myself with the hijacking, I made it a point to visit Tina Bar and Portland/Vancouver in November 2009 to view for myself the location and the local weather. The weather during my visit was apparently typical of November there. The weather was in the 40s both day and night and it rained off and on ever day.
I also obtained a copy of the same flight chart information that the airline crew would have been using during the hijacking from the NARA and a subcontractor of theirs. This was passed to Sluggo who posted it on his web site and mentioned it, along with my name, in a post to the DZ Cooper thread apparently in April 2010. My first post to the DZ thread was apparently on June 3, 2010, at least I haven't found one earlier. By June 16, 2010, I had posted information explaining that the FBI flight path information could not be correct and that Cooper probably jumped very near Tina Bar. The flight path I detailed then is now known as the Western Flight Path. So this Western Flight Path was put in writing 10 years ago and originated before that. It has been modified to some extent as new information developed and I have expanded on it at various times that are well documented online.
It should also be noted that I accidentally started a new thread, "727 Takeoff Climb Performance", in the "Skydiving and Trivia" forum on DropZone but soon discovered that everything related to the Cooper hijacking was suppose to be kept in the "DB Cooper" thread. I confessed to Quade and he locked the new thread. The information in that thread has apparently been merged into the "DZ Cooper" thread as it now exists on DropZone. It should also be noted the the present Cooper thread on DropZone does not have numbered posts at least for the oldest posts.
