Seeing the Spruce Goose sitting in Long Beach harbor is one of my memories of a vacation in LA a long time ago.

No Flyjack. The interviews in the recent FOIA memos confirm that the stew (Tina) interviews said that Cooper wanted to take off with "the ladder down" ...now whether Cooper said "ladder" or whether the stew used that word...Don't know.
Both of the snips I've attached are from the FBI interview of Tina Mucklow and confirm that Cooper wanted to take off with the stairs (ladder) down.

Note in one of the snip that Tina later found out secondhand that Boeing knew you could take off with stairs down. Not sure who told her that post-hijack.

The text from one doc:
About one hour had passed since landing, and TINA was taking information for the hijacker from  the pilot and she told the other stewardesses to go ahead and she would be with them in a second and they went forward to the cockpit. She told the hijacker that the plane couldn't take off with the ladder down and he said in a low tone, "Yes they can, but the cockpit can put it down after they got airborne.  She told him that the stairs had to be let down from the rear and at this point he appeared disturbed because of the duration of time of refueling and he told her to stay.

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Snowmman is a friend of mine. I have confirmed that this is really him posting. I couldn't be happier that he has joined us. He will add a lot to the discussion here.

I have always thought it was very significant that Cooper told the crew that they actually could take off with the stairs deployed after they told him it wasn't possible. Snowmman has uncovered evidence of a "Boeing 1963-1964 Airstairs Test". The title suggests this Airstairs Test was distinct from Boeing's 727 drop tests which appear to have been flown with the stairs removed. 

Did this Airstairs Test involve taking off with deployed stairs? Might Cooper have had access to the test documents? Look at the dates. We do have one candidate who was employed at Boeing during this time and working in tech documentation. It's miles away from proving the candidate was Cooper, but it is interesting.

377

I don't believe this is true.. Cooper originally asked for Airstairs to be lowered in flight. not down.

The crew wanted to attempt an escape but Tina was stuck on the plane to lower the Airstairs, the crew was trying to get Cooper to let her off the plane so they could jump out the front. The rear Airstairs down on takeoff idea came about through the negotiation to get Tina off the plane.

I am a student of SAGE. I have studied SAGE manuals and had extensive conversations with SAGE engineers and techs. I had hoped that the SAGE system would have displayed Cooper's exit as a weak echo separating from the 727 and falling further behind it as time passed. It turns out SAGE displayed target data in a blocked out field surrounding the aircraft echo. This would have hidden presentation of a nearby Cooper echo.

There is zero doubt that FAA ATC radar can detect falling skydivers at significant distances. I have talked with a skydiver air traffic controller who could accurately count the number of skydivers exiting jumpships on his screen. If the raw radar tapes (containing unprocessed echo signals) had been preserved we would know beyond a doubt where Cooper exited.

377

Flyjack
after that point in the transcript you mention there is another relevant exchange from the pilot where he says he's still trying to convince Cooper to let them lower the stairs after takeoff

6:38 PM, PST

305    HAV NOXXX    NEGOTD RLS OF 2 GIRLS LVG ANY MOMENT     3RD GIRL TO STAY ITH ACFT WANTS HER TO MANIPULATE STAIRS FOR HIM AFTR PLANE AIRBORNE     HAVE TRIED TO TELL HIM INXXX UNAM OPRTE STAIRS TO LWRD AFTR TKOFF         TRYING TO GET HIM TO LET US LWR STAIRS PARTLLY FOR TKOFF

MSP FLT OPNS    DONT KNOW OF ANY WAY TO LOCK STAIRS IN INTMTDE POSN

305     R WIL TALK TO HIM AGAIN
KC0238CK

Guys ... this is the TENA BAR MONEY THREAD - NOT THE FLIGHT PATH THREAD ETC.

and you arent Snowmman either !

 

...Interestingly, there was a memo talking about hiring Cossey to recreate the jump. They decided it was too risky.

If you distrust Cossey, then his role in "ruling out" found parachutes, could be suspect. Unsure. I believe the only place that info about the 28' canopy in a NB6 comes from, is Cossey's packing notes (since he packed both of Hayden's rigs around May 1971). Maybe Cossey mistakenly wrote down 28' instead of 26'? 377 has said a 28' wouldn't fit in a NB6 without closing flap modifications. The rig was bought at a surplus store, not from Cossey, so it's unlikely it would have a non-standard 28' canopy in it. The FBI memos do maintain that it's 28' canopy in a NB6. Hayden would have been unlikely to know canopy diameter. So I'm guessing only Cossey's packing notes gave the 28' info.

Yet another confusing detail.

Well, it's like old times here, Snow. Welcome Back to the Action.

Teasing out what is truthful from Earl Cossey is difficult. He told me multiple stories about the back chutes. To his death he always insisted that he owned them, and was more than just a rigger of the ones that went aboard Flight 305.

On several occasions he told me that Cooper jumped with an NB-6 container that had a 28-foot canopy inside, making it over stuffed and a tough pull. Then he reversed himself and said it was an NB-8 with a standard 28-footer.

I was laughing to myself about how georger thinks he can id fact/fiction with respect to cooper trivia, yet he doesn't seem to be able to come up with an acid test to decide if I'm me. It's quite a metaphysical feeling, to be told "you're not you". ...I mean what makes "me", "me"?

I guess, as 377 has pointed out..the new angle for me is the "airstairs experiment" at Boeing. In the '63/'64 timeframe. And I was psyched to see you guys found a pic of the box drop that they did with a 727 prototype. I got a better pic of that from a paper early in '65..it was distributed to many smalltown papers as part of a syndicated set of photos. I think it was taken in '64

The plane is either the 727 E1 or E2. Most people don't know there was more than one 727 prototype. E1 was sold to United at the end of '64. It'd be good to find out if E1 or E2 was used in that box drop test.

Separately: the FBI FOIA docs talk about looking for overlap between the "airstairs experiment" and the Boeing Skydiving Club. Wrongly though, they seem to say that the Club didn't exist after '60-'61 and we know Sheridan started or restarted the club in the '62-'63 timeframe. I think they only looked at officers of the club.

The idea that they looked at overlapping membership of the "airstairs experiment" and the Skydiving Club, tells me that information could have been shared in the Club just by people talking. You get some skydivers together bullshitting, and who knows what information gets exchanged.

Geoffrey Grey has a one paragraph mention of the "airstairs experiment" adding that it happened in '63-'64. The initial first flight of 727 was '63. I think Grey saw a memo that's different from what I've seen. Be nice to get Grey to tell us what he saw.

I could post the FBI memos talking about when they found out about the "airstairs experiment" and the investigation they did (which I think was incomplete). I'm waiting for Shutter to start a topic on this, because it's a deep topic.

It's new to me, because while I posted the Air America air drop video a long time ago, I didn't know the date of that, just prior to '70-'71. And that air drop is a totally different setup from the '63 drop picture with the 727 E1 or E2

That picture shows airstairs removed. Surely there's people still alive that we can find that can give us detail about he "airstairs experiment" and the drop test in '63-'64. I don't know if the airstairs experiment covered flying with the stairs loose (in that case, probably taking off with them up, and lowering them in flight)  or taking off with stairs down (as Tena implied she found out) or was it just the drop test we have a photo of?

So there's still lots of info to get. The release of all the recent FOIA FBI memos has clarified a lot of things for me. Also, it's clarified how Ckret caused a lot of confusion with his deathgrip on memos, that he should have just gotten redacted and released.

I also gave Shutter all my OCR'ed FBI docs and critical extracted memos. I don't know why he's not made them available here yet. It would ease our discussion to be able to point to memos, rather than the small snips allowed in a post.

{updated}
attached pic is from The Millville Daily, Feb 26, 1965. Earlier than last pic, but same. I'm guessing they didn't test in winter, so thinking the pic is from late '64. Don't know.

Damn size restrictions force the-not-best pic.

yeah Flyjack. nice
I think that implies they took off with stairs up, and lowered them in flight. With the small number of prototypes I don't think they would be destroying the airstairs by taking off with them down? Don't know.