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One of my favorite things about this forum is that it makes me look at things from other people's perspectives, which often go against my particular bias.  I had always believed strongly that Cooper did not have any accomplices, but seeing a number of posts from people who seem to believe that Cooper had a "ground man," made me decide to ask myself how one might plan the caper if a ground man was involved.  It made me think about the TBar find a little differently.  I'm wondering what people think about this angle:  If we were to try to pull off a skyjacking like this one, with 1971 technology, we'd have to figure out a way for the skyjacker to meet up with the ground man.  I feel like a plan that involves a step like "At 8:00, jump out of the plane and try to land on Main Street in Cinebar, where I'll be waiting." would be unrealistic.  The way I see it, the team would need to either agree on a primary meeting spot, and then a recurring meeting time, or they would need to agree on a range of meeting places, at a specific time.  For example, I feel like the first option would be to say something like: "After the landing, find a place to hide near Merwin Dam.  I'll drive on Lewis River Road and pass by Merwin Dam just as the sun is coming up each morning, and just as it is going down each day.  Make sure you can see Lewis River Road around sunup, and sunset, each day until we meet to flag me down."  The second option would be to say something like: "Make the jump when you can see the lights of Merwin Dam.  When you land, get to the I-5 as soon as you can.  I will keep driving up and down the stretch of the 1-5 between Rose Valley and Ridgefield.  When you see me, shoot off a flair."  The first option doesn't really allow much flexibility for jumping early / late.  The second option could allow for jumping earlier / later than expected, as long as the landmark is something that runs from North to South, like I-5 or the stretch of the Columbia River that runs north / south between Rainier and Vancouver.  If the plan was to do something like have Cooper get to that stretch of river as quickly as possible, while having a ground man travel north and south on it until the two meet up, that would provide a suitable way for the two to meet up.

The reason that I'm posting it here is that I feel like it also provides a possible explanation for why Cooper would be at TBar.  I know that still leaves the question of how the money ends up in shards several feet under the stacks.  My thought on that (and I would certainly welcome feedback from people who understand the science of this more than I do) is that Cooper may have wanted to stash the money until he could rendezvous with the ground man.  Digging a hole seems like a big risk, because of the time commitment.  Another option might be to weigh down the money bag, and put it in a somewhat shallow area of the river near some sort of landmark, with the goal of retrieving it later.  If that was what Cooper did, it seems like it would be easy to see how the team might have returned and not been able to find the money bag.  At some point in the nine years after that, the bag breaks open.  Most of the money ends up spilling out at some point.  The money that spills out gets broken up into shards by the elements, while the few packets that stay in the bank bag survive submerged in the dirt at the bottom of the river, until it gets scooped up for dredging.

I'm finishing up an absolutely brutal work week.  So, it's entirely possible that what I just typed makes no sense, or is full of holes.  If so, please let me know.

HAHA. no worries I spent a ton of time considering a ground accomplice. My conclusion, extremely unlikely.

My theories.. in order

#1 TBAR money was discarded (not planted) years later - not by Cooper

#2 Cooper landed in the Willamette Valley, some lost money came down the Willamette River.

#3 Cooper money came down the Lewis River to the Columbia, was clamshell dredged, barged up to Sauvie Island (half mile upstream of TBAR) for erosion mitigation in 1976/77, it came loose and crossed the river to TBAR.

I had originally thought that he definitely worked alone. I still think he did, but not with nearly as much certainty. I'd be interested to know your reasons for ruling out a ground man, though.

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One of my favorite things about this forum is that it makes me look at things from other people's perspectives, which often go against my particular bias.  I had always believed strongly that Cooper did not have any accomplices, but seeing a number of posts from people who seem to believe that Cooper had a "ground man," made me decide to ask myself how one might plan the caper if a ground man was involved.  It made me think about the TBar find a little differently.  I'm wondering what people think about this angle:  If we were to try to pull off a skyjacking like this one, with 1971 technology, we'd have to figure out a way for the skyjacker to meet up with the ground man.  I feel like a plan that involves a step like "At 8:00, jump out of the plane and try to land on Main Street in Cinebar, where I'll be waiting." would be unrealistic.  The way I see it, the team would need to either agree on a primary meeting spot, and then a recurring meeting time, or they would need to agree on a range of meeting places, at a specific time.  For example, I feel like the first option would be to say something like: "After the landing, find a place to hide near Merwin Dam.  I'll drive on Lewis River Road and pass by Merwin Dam just as the sun is coming up each morning, and just as it is going down each day.  Make sure you can see Lewis River Road around sunup, and sunset, each day until we meet to flag me down."  The second option would be to say something like: "Make the jump when you can see the lights of Merwin Dam.  When you land, get to the I-5 as soon as you can.  I will keep driving up and down the stretch of the 1-5 between Rose Valley and Ridgefield.  When you see me, shoot off a flair."  The first option doesn't really allow much flexibility for jumping early / late.  The second option could allow for jumping earlier / later than expected, as long as the landmark is something that runs from North to South, like I-5 or the stretch of the Columbia River that runs north / south between Rainier and Vancouver.  If the plan was to do something like have Cooper get to that stretch of river as quickly as possible, while having a ground man travel north and south on it until the two meet up, that would provide a suitable way for the two to meet up.

The reason that I'm posting it here is that I feel like it also provides a possible explanation for why Cooper would be at TBar.  I know that still leaves the question of how the money ends up in shards several feet under the stacks.  My thought on that (and I would certainly welcome feedback from people who understand the science of this more than I do) is that Cooper may have wanted to stash the money until he could rendezvous with the ground man.  Digging a hole seems like a big risk, because of the time commitment.  Another option might be to weigh down the money bag, and put it in a somewhat shallow area of the river near some sort of landmark, with the goal of retrieving it later.  If that was what Cooper did, it seems like it would be easy to see how the team might have returned and not been able to find the money bag.  At some point in the nine years after that, the bag breaks open.  Most of the money ends up spilling out at some point.  The money that spills out gets broken up into shards by the elements, while the few packets that stay in the bank bag survive submerged in the dirt at the bottom of the river, until it gets scooped up for dredging.

I'm finishing up an absolutely brutal work week.  So, it's entirely possible that what I just typed makes no sense, or is full of holes.  If so, please let me know.

HAHA. no worries I spent a ton of time considering a ground accomplice. My conclusion, extremely unlikely.

My theories.. in order

#1 TBAR money was discarded (not planted) years later - not by Cooper

#2 Cooper landed in the Willamette Valley, some lost money came down the Willamette River.

#3 Cooper money came down the Lewis River to the Columbia, was clamshell dredged, barged up to Sauvie Island (half mile upstream of TBAR) for erosion mitigation in 1976/77, it came loose and crossed the river to TBAR.

I had originally thought that he definitely worked alone. I still think he did, but not with nearly as much certainty. I'd be interested to know your reasons for ruling out a ground man, though.

The primary reason was Cooper didn't even attempt to dictate the flightpath, if he had a ground accomplice he would have had to coordinate the two.

I know virtually nothing about aviation, but my understanding was that Cooper's altitude demands meant that Victor 23 was one of only two flight path options. I always felt like that was a cleverly veiled way to choose the flight path.

Admittedly, it doubles the complexity. You have to have a plan for each flight path, but is that really insurmountable? I remember the interview with the guy who shot Bin Laden. Within like 30 seconds of them getting to the compund, they had crashed the helicopter that was supposed to drop SeALs on the roof to allow them to breach from two directions, and they had used explosives to try to open a fake door. They improvised, and made it work. If DBC was SOG, or Pararescue, or something similar; I feel like he would have had a plan, probably two contingency plans, and a comfort level with improvising.

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One of my favorite things about this forum is that it makes me look at things from other people's perspectives, which often go against my particular bias.  I had always believed strongly that Cooper did not have any accomplices, but seeing a number of posts from people who seem to believe that Cooper had a "ground man," made me decide to ask myself how one might plan the caper if a ground man was involved.  It made me think about the TBar find a little differently.  I'm wondering what people think about this angle:  If we were to try to pull off a skyjacking like this one, with 1971 technology, we'd have to figure out a way for the skyjacker to meet up with the ground man.  I feel like a plan that involves a step like "At 8:00, jump out of the plane and try to land on Main Street in Cinebar, where I'll be waiting." would be unrealistic.  The way I see it, the team would need to either agree on a primary meeting spot, and then a recurring meeting time, or they would need to agree on a range of meeting places, at a specific time.  For example, I feel like the first option would be to say something like: "After the landing, find a place to hide near Merwin Dam.  I'll drive on Lewis River Road and pass by Merwin Dam just as the sun is coming up each morning, and just as it is going down each day.  Make sure you can see Lewis River Road around sunup, and sunset, each day until we meet to flag me down."  The second option would be to say something like: "Make the jump when you can see the lights of Merwin Dam.  When you land, get to the I-5 as soon as you can.  I will keep driving up and down the stretch of the 1-5 between Rose Valley and Ridgefield.  When you see me, shoot off a flair."  The first option doesn't really allow much flexibility for jumping early / late.  The second option could allow for jumping earlier / later than expected, as long as the landmark is something that runs from North to South, like I-5 or the stretch of the Columbia River that runs north / south between Rainier and Vancouver.  If the plan was to do something like have Cooper get to that stretch of river as quickly as possible, while having a ground man travel north and south on it until the two meet up, that would provide a suitable way for the two to meet up.

The reason that I'm posting it here is that I feel like it also provides a possible explanation for why Cooper would be at TBar.  I know that still leaves the question of how the money ends up in shards several feet under the stacks.  My thought on that (and I would certainly welcome feedback from people who understand the science of this more than I do) is that Cooper may have wanted to stash the money until he could rendezvous with the ground man.  Digging a hole seems like a big risk, because of the time commitment.  Another option might be to weigh down the money bag, and put it in a somewhat shallow area of the river near some sort of landmark, with the goal of retrieving it later.  If that was what Cooper did, it seems like it would be easy to see how the team might have returned and not been able to find the money bag.  At some point in the nine years after that, the bag breaks open.  Most of the money ends up spilling out at some point.  The money that spills out gets broken up into shards by the elements, while the few packets that stay in the bank bag survive submerged in the dirt at the bottom of the river, until it gets scooped up for dredging.

I'm finishing up an absolutely brutal work week.  So, it's entirely possible that what I just typed makes no sense, or is full of holes.  If so, please let me know.

HAHA. no worries I spent a ton of time considering a ground accomplice. My conclusion, extremely unlikely.

My theories.. in order

#1 TBAR money was discarded (not planted) years later - not by Cooper

#2 Cooper landed in the Willamette Valley, some lost money came down the Willamette River.

#3 Cooper money came down the Lewis River to the Columbia, was clamshell dredged, barged up to Sauvie Island (half mile upstream of TBAR) for erosion mitigation in 1976/77, it came loose and crossed the river to TBAR.

I had originally thought that he definitely worked alone. I still think he did, but not with nearly as much certainty. I'd be interested to know your reasons for ruling out a ground man, though.

The primary reason was Cooper didn't even attempt to dictate the flightpath, if he had a ground accomplice he would have had to coordinate the two.

I know virtually nothing about aviation, but my understanding was that Cooper's altitude demands meant that Victor 23 was one of only two flight path options. I always felt like that was a cleverly veiled way to choose the flight path.

Admittedly, it doubles the complexity. You have to have a plan for each flight path, but is that really insurmountable? I remember the interview with the guy who shot Bin Laden. Within like 30 seconds of them getting to the compund, they had crashed the helicopter that was supposed to drop SeALs on the roof to allow them to breach from two directions, and they had used explosives to try to open a fake door. They improvised, and made it work. If DBC was SOG, or Pararescue, or something similar; I feel like he would have had a plan, probably two contingency plans, and a comfort level with improvising.

The airliner was not required to stay on any Victor airway and, in fact, was not on an airway during the time it left V-23 in northern California to head straight to Reno.  Nevertheless, it was a good idea to stay on an airway as long as possible since communications and ground clearance was shown on the flight charts for the airway.

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One of my favorite things about this forum is that it makes me look at things from other people's perspectives, which often go against my particular bias.  I had always believed strongly that Cooper did not have any accomplices, but seeing a number of posts from people who seem to believe that Cooper had a "ground man," made me decide to ask myself how one might plan the caper if a ground man was involved.  It made me think about the TBar find a little differently.  I'm wondering what people think about this angle:  If we were to try to pull off a skyjacking like this one, with 1971 technology, we'd have to figure out a way for the skyjacker to meet up with the ground man.  I feel like a plan that involves a step like "At 8:00, jump out of the plane and try to land on Main Street in Cinebar, where I'll be waiting." would be unrealistic.  The way I see it, the team would need to either agree on a primary meeting spot, and then a recurring meeting time, or they would need to agree on a range of meeting places, at a specific time.  For example, I feel like the first option would be to say something like: "After the landing, find a place to hide near Merwin Dam.  I'll drive on Lewis River Road and pass by Merwin Dam just as the sun is coming up each morning, and just as it is going down each day.  Make sure you can see Lewis River Road around sunup, and sunset, each day until we meet to flag me down."  The second option would be to say something like: "Make the jump when you can see the lights of Merwin Dam.  When you land, get to the I-5 as soon as you can.  I will keep driving up and down the stretch of the 1-5 between Rose Valley and Ridgefield.  When you see me, shoot off a flair."  The first option doesn't really allow much flexibility for jumping early / late.  The second option could allow for jumping earlier / later than expected, as long as the landmark is something that runs from North to South, like I-5 or the stretch of the Columbia River that runs north / south between Rainier and Vancouver.  If the plan was to do something like have Cooper get to that stretch of river as quickly as possible, while having a ground man travel north and south on it until the two meet up, that would provide a suitable way for the two to meet up.

The reason that I'm posting it here is that I feel like it also provides a possible explanation for why Cooper would be at TBar.  I know that still leaves the question of how the money ends up in shards several feet under the stacks.  My thought on that (and I would certainly welcome feedback from people who understand the science of this more than I do) is that Cooper may have wanted to stash the money until he could rendezvous with the ground man.  Digging a hole seems like a big risk, because of the time commitment.  Another option might be to weigh down the money bag, and put it in a somewhat shallow area of the river near some sort of landmark, with the goal of retrieving it later.  If that was what Cooper did, it seems like it would be easy to see how the team might have returned and not been able to find the money bag.  At some point in the nine years after that, the bag breaks open.  Most of the money ends up spilling out at some point.  The money that spills out gets broken up into shards by the elements, while the few packets that stay in the bank bag survive submerged in the dirt at the bottom of the river, until it gets scooped up for dredging.

I'm finishing up an absolutely brutal work week.  So, it's entirely possible that what I just typed makes no sense, or is full of holes.  If so, please let me know.

HAHA. no worries I spent a ton of time considering a ground accomplice. My conclusion, extremely unlikely.

My theories.. in order

#1 TBAR money was discarded (not planted) years later - not by Cooper

#2 Cooper landed in the Willamette Valley, some lost money came down the Willamette River.

#3 Cooper money came down the Lewis River to the Columbia, was clamshell dredged, barged up to Sauvie Island (half mile upstream of TBAR) for erosion mitigation in 1976/77, it came loose and crossed the river to TBAR.

I had originally thought that he definitely worked alone. I still think he did, but not with nearly as much certainty. I'd be interested to know your reasons for ruling out a ground man, though.

The primary reason was Cooper didn't even attempt to dictate the flightpath, if he had a ground accomplice he would have had to coordinate the two.

I know virtually nothing about aviation, but my understanding was that Cooper's altitude demands meant that Victor 23 was one of only two flight path options. I always felt like that was a cleverly veiled way to choose the flight path.

Admittedly, it doubles the complexity. You have to have a plan for each flight path, but is that really insurmountable? I remember the interview with the guy who shot Bin Laden. Within like 30 seconds of them getting to the compund, they had crashed the helicopter that was supposed to drop SeALs on the roof to allow them to breach from two directions, and they had used explosives to try to open a fake door. They improvised, and made it work. If DBC was SOG, or Pararescue, or something similar; I feel like he would have had a plan, probably two contingency plans, and a comfort level with improvising.

The airliner was not required to stay on any Victor airway and, in fact, was not on an airway during the time it left V-23 in northern California to head straight to Reno.  Nevertheless, it was a good idea to stay on an airway as long as possible since communications and ground clearance was shown on the flight charts for the airway.

I truncated my post a bit, because typing long posts from my phone isn't super convenient. My understanding has been that there were a finite number of corridors (or whatever the general term is for a pre-plotted flight path like V23), and that all but two of those corridors had at least one point at which flying at 10,000 would not be possible. So, if Cooper was operating under the assumption that the pilots would follow one of the designated flight paths...

If.  So many IF's so little time. Females are notoriously better at guessing and premonition than males; are you implying Cooper was a woman?

FYI, any altitude above 10,000 requires oxygen with a cabin that has not been pressurized. if you read the transcripts the sky marshal wanted them to slow increase altitude to make him drowsy. without any direction from Cooper the crew was basically given the sky to fly. altitude wasn't a problem until they were close to Reno..

Correct.  There is also a minimum communication altitude for each segment of an airway, meaning that you have to be at or above a certain altitude to receive the navigational aids signals and for two way VHF radio communications.  I believe that the highest minimum communication altitude on V23 was south of Portland and about 9000 feet ASL.

The NWA airliner apparently did have problems at some points communicating with the ARINC VHF radio network which had the phone patch to Seattle.  But according to the "FBI notes", when that happened other airliners relayed messages between the NWA airliner and Seattle.

The cockpit crew has its own oxygen system that is independent of the cabin oxygen system.  And I imagine that at least one of the pilots was using that system during the flight south.

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One of my favorite things about this forum is that it makes me look at things from other people's perspectives, which often go against my particular bias.  I had always believed strongly that Cooper did not have any accomplices, but seeing a number of posts from people who seem to believe that Cooper had a "ground man," made me decide to ask myself how one might plan the caper if a ground man was involved.  It made me think about the TBar find a little differently.  I'm wondering what people think about this angle:  If we were to try to pull off a skyjacking like this one, with 1971 technology, we'd have to figure out a way for the skyjacker to meet up with the ground man.  I feel like a plan that involves a step like "At 8:00, jump out of the plane and try to land on Main Street in Cinebar, where I'll be waiting." would be unrealistic.  The way I see it, the team would need to either agree on a primary meeting spot, and then a recurring meeting time, or they would need to agree on a range of meeting places, at a specific time.  For example, I feel like the first option would be to say something like: "After the landing, find a place to hide near Merwin Dam.  I'll drive on Lewis River Road and pass by Merwin Dam just as the sun is coming up each morning, and just as it is going down each day.  Make sure you can see Lewis River Road around sunup, and sunset, each day until we meet to flag me down."  The second option would be to say something like: "Make the jump when you can see the lights of Merwin Dam.  When you land, get to the I-5 as soon as you can.  I will keep driving up and down the stretch of the 1-5 between Rose Valley and Ridgefield.  When you see me, shoot off a flair."  The first option doesn't really allow much flexibility for jumping early / late.  The second option could allow for jumping earlier / later than expected, as long as the landmark is something that runs from North to South, like I-5 or the stretch of the Columbia River that runs north / south between Rainier and Vancouver.  If the plan was to do something like have Cooper get to that stretch of river as quickly as possible, while having a ground man travel north and south on it until the two meet up, that would provide a suitable way for the two to meet up.

The reason that I'm posting it here is that I feel like it also provides a possible explanation for why Cooper would be at TBar.  I know that still leaves the question of how the money ends up in shards several feet under the stacks.  My thought on that (and I would certainly welcome feedback from people who understand the science of this more than I do) is that Cooper may have wanted to stash the money until he could rendezvous with the ground man.  Digging a hole seems like a big risk, because of the time commitment.  Another option might be to weigh down the money bag, and put it in a somewhat shallow area of the river near some sort of landmark, with the goal of retrieving it later.  If that was what Cooper did, it seems like it would be easy to see how the team might have returned and not been able to find the money bag.  At some point in the nine years after that, the bag breaks open.  Most of the money ends up spilling out at some point.  The money that spills out gets broken up into shards by the elements, while the few packets that stay in the bank bag survive submerged in the dirt at the bottom of the river, until it gets scooped up for dredging.

I'm finishing up an absolutely brutal work week.  So, it's entirely possible that what I just typed makes no sense, or is full of holes.  If so, please let me know.

HAHA. no worries I spent a ton of time considering a ground accomplice. My conclusion, extremely unlikely.

My theories.. in order

#1 TBAR money was discarded (not planted) years later - not by Cooper

#2 Cooper landed in the Willamette Valley, some lost money came down the Willamette River.

#3 Cooper money came down the Lewis River to the Columbia, was clamshell dredged, barged up to Sauvie Island (half mile upstream of TBAR) for erosion mitigation in 1976/77, it came loose and crossed the river to TBAR.

I had originally thought that he definitely worked alone. I still think he did, but not with nearly as much certainty. I'd be interested to know your reasons for ruling out a ground man, though.

The primary reason was Cooper didn't even attempt to dictate the flightpath, if he had a ground accomplice he would have had to coordinate the two.

I know virtually nothing about aviation, but my understanding was that Cooper's altitude demands meant that Victor 23 was one of only two flight path options. I always felt like that was a cleverly veiled way to choose the flight path.

Admittedly, it doubles the complexity. You have to have a plan for each flight path, but is that really insurmountable? I remember the interview with the guy who shot Bin Laden. Within like 30 seconds of them getting to the compund, they had crashed the helicopter that was supposed to drop SeALs on the roof to allow them to breach from two directions, and they had used explosives to try to open a fake door. They improvised, and made it work. If DBC was SOG, or Pararescue, or something similar; I feel like he would have had a plan, probably two contingency plans, and a comfort level with improvising.

The airliner was not required to stay on any Victor airway and, in fact, was not on an airway during the time it left V-23 in northern California to head straight to Reno.  Nevertheless, it was a good idea to stay on an airway as long as possible since communications and ground clearance was shown on the flight charts for the airway.

I truncated my post a bit, because typing long posts from my phone isn't super convenient. My understanding has been that there were a finite number of corridors (or whatever the general term is for a pre-plotted flight path like V23), and that all but two of those corridors had at least one point at which flying at 10,000 would not be possible. So, if Cooper was operating under the assumption that the pilots would follow one of the designated flight paths...

If.  So many IF's so little time. Females are notoriously better at guessing and premonition than males; are you implying Cooper was a woman?

Sounds like you're moving into the Barb Dayton camp, Georger.

Hardly - perspective depends on the motion of the observer. I am stationary. 

Flyjacker, you are a cherry picker.

You use Tina's testimony when it suits you (packets of money) then you reject it when it doesn't suit you (height of suspect based on some order Rataczak gave for stews to take their shoes off ... early at SEA).

It's amazing how you pick and choose what pleases you and reject everything else. 

lets keep it civil guys...

one thing I can say is I too was troubled with the statement Tina made about the bands...I don't know if we have the full story or not but can agree it's troubling...