Is it fair to say Cooper wasn't a scientist either 

It's not know for certain if Cooper had the reserve chute attached to him in any manner when he jumped.  It is just a matter of one reserve chute being unaccounted for.  If he took the canopy out of it and replaced it with some of the money, then there is a good chance that the canopy (which was not a functional canopy) would have been found somewhere.  But it never has been.

When last seen by Tina, Cooper was tying some shroud lines around his waist with the other end of the shroud lines being tied to the money bag which was resting on the floor.  And that is not a good way to tie the money bag to himself. 

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It's not know for certain if Cooper had the reserve chute attached to him in any manner when he jumped.  It is just a matter of one reserve chute being unaccounted for.  If he took the canopy out of it and replaced it with some of the money, then there is a good chance that the canopy (which was not a functional canopy) would have been found somewhere.  But it never has been.

When last seen by Tina, Cooper was tying some shroud lines around his waist with the other end of the shroud lines being tied to the money bag which was resting on the floor.  And that is not a good way to tie the money bag to himself. 

The suitcase with the bomb, the non-functioning reserve and the money bag... That's a lot of stuff to hold on to jumping out of a jet.

Did a quick calculation, if that money bag weighed around ten kilos, it would have about 10,000 Joules of energy for the paracord to dissipate during a canopy deployment... I can't imagine Cooper keeping the money under those circumstances. If he did, the paracord would have broken his back.

9.52544 kg

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It's not know for certain if Cooper had the reserve chute attached to him in any manner when he jumped.  It is just a matter of one reserve chute being unaccounted for.  If he took the canopy out of it and replaced it with some of the money, then there is a good chance that the canopy (which was not a functional canopy) would have been found somewhere.  But it never has been.

When last seen by Tina, Cooper was tying some shroud lines around his waist with the other end of the shroud lines being tied to the money bag which was resting on the floor.  And that is not a good way to tie the money bag to himself. 

The suitcase with the bomb, the non-functioning reserve and the money bag... That's a lot of stuff to hold on to jumping out of a jet.

Did a quick calculation, if that money bag weighed around ten kilos, it would have about 10,000 Joules of energy for the paracord to dissipate during a canopy deployment... I can't imagine Cooper keeping the money under those circumstances. If he did, the paracord would have broken his back.

9.52544 kg

The only person who would risk A) getting blown up if the bomb's real B) going to jail for your entire life if caught C) jump blindly into the night isn't an adventurer, it's someone who's desparate. It means that for Cooper death was a risk he was willing to take for that immediate $200,000. Cooper skyjacked a plane, didn't invest $20/month. Cooper is not going through all that risk to lose that money in the jump.

Morey, what's your understanding of how you developed the preference for seeing DB Cooper as a guy like yourself, or people that you know.

It's clear from your comments that you would never hijack a plane and jump under the conditions and mind-set that you have described above. Hence, it seems you think Cooper was a guy like you.

I saw a documentary on Netflix last night called "Korengal," and it is a follow-up to "Restrepo."  "Korengal" specifically talked about how the troopers there loved combat, the "high" of shooting and hitting someone with a 50 cal. It shows me how different we can be.  I would never chose to go into the military and deploy to a place like the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. But the guys in the documentary did.

It seems we are very different.

So, do you think that Cooper could have been someone who didn't see the risks that you do, or he did and gravitated towards them because he likes that kind of action?

How do you think a trained commando would have approached the Norjak skyjacking?  Another day in the office?

What do you think Cooper's behavior tells us about the man?

Georger, I have learned very little about Cooper per se from my interviews. Tina and Flow are incommunicado, and Billy went belly-up just after contact. Alice, I've never found, and Galen is keeping her under wraps.

As for the feds, Himms only spoke with me for 20 minutes. Calame about the same, Rhodes zilch, O'Hara for 15, and these three were mostly about McCoy. Nichols won't talk, and Detlor only spoke in general terms, confirming stuff that I had written about the case. Sid Rubin was out to lunch as we were eating lunch, and Bob Sale deferred any direct input about Cooper, so we talked mostly about how the FBI does its business.

Larry was a different story, but he didn't get into details about what Cooper did, just mostly details of the case as it referred to Barb Dayton, DNA, and the actions of the FBI, such as what happened to Jeremy Blauser.

So, what I know about Cooper is from other people's writings, especially GG and Tosaw, and the transcripts.

The point I was trying to make with Morey is that we often think of Cooper as someone we know. Hence, some posters think Cooper must have been "desperate," or some such, because they would have been desperate to do what Cooper did. I don't think that is necessarily true. It's the "cultural goggles" that Sluggo attributes to sleuthing - we see things in certain way because of how we look, not how people actually act.

Thanks for the more indepth description of Cooper's actions. I didn't realize he was so active. I never thought that Cooper was a Zen-kind-of-guy. If anything, I thought he was more of a guy doing a job that he was well-prepared to do, and was comfortable doing.

I didn't know that Cooper tested the aft stairs after deployment, came back, and then wanted the aircraft slowed.

BTW: There is a considerable time lapse between the time Cooper sent Tina to the cockpit and the pressure bump - twenty minutes or so, or more.  But Cooper had already cut the cords when he sent Tina away, so what do you think Cooper did during that time?  He was already tying the bank bag, what else did he do, you think?