I think the reason for the lack of discussion with the configuration of the plane is the fact of it being accepted. the stairs were a different story. they switch to 30 degree's to slow the plane down further while he fumbles with the stairs. the flaps set at 30 only last about five minutes after they realize it will burn even more fuel. I believe they switch back to 15 when they start climbing to 10,000.
A wild guess could be Cooper watching the stairs come down from the tarmac thinking the they were lowered from the cockpit when it's actually the stew lowering them. this of course would mean Cooper has never been inside a 727 for any flights in the past.
was he smart enough to cover all these angles, or was he dumb enough to get himself killed over the crime? criminals always make critical error's, that's how they get caught. some work years preparing for it only to be caught with the critical error, or oversight.
Cooper could of easily asked for the cloud levels, or to drop the altitude if he was really looking for the key position to jump. why do it half ass, or did he screw up missing his original jump location? you would think a pilot would ask these types of questions..life saving questions.
I have always felt that the most concrete actual evidence left behind by Coop is the placard find and location. I believe we can identify the location of Aircraft pretty accurately! What figures do we need to do a fairly simple Mathematical solution.
1. We need the exact altitude of Placard find.
2. We need exact location of placard find.
3 we need altitude of aircraft at time of placard being dislodged from stairs.
4. We need wind speed to help determine drift of placard.
5. We need to know weight of placard approximated.
According to above post it appears the aircraft was at an elevation below 10,000 feet as Shutter mentions the stairs being already down and pilots realizing the extra drag will,cause fuel problem so they change flaps to 30 as they climb to 10,000 ft. I am curious what math figures were used when Simulations were done to try to locate flight location at time of placard find ! All of these figures are important to come to an relatively accurate conclusion. I have noticed in a earlier post that Robert 99 answers a question about the placard location as being just a few miles from Tina Bar ? Really ? I’ve been close to the placard find location and I’m curious as to what a few miles means to R99.
My main point is let’s try to agree on some accurate figures that I listed above and we can fairly accurately estimate where the aircraft was at 8:05 IF I’m reading correctly.
