At the time I remember the news accounts said they knew when he opened the door but had no idea when he stepped out. Based on what I have heard about the vast search area I suspect that was true, they really didn't know. I used to know a bar named DB Coopers. They sold T shirts with a funny looking guy hanging in a parachute harness with $100's falling out of his pockets.
I have in the back of my head that the flight crew noticed a change in pitch trim and knew when he left. With no one else in the airplane and this guy way back in the tail, I think that this is entirely plausible.
This is what I was painting on 11-24-71. My first attempt with oils. Thanks for your comment. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Well, I'm not sure that is a good assessment but I appreciate it and thanks. At the time, I did not have an extensive scrap file like all the commercial artists and I relied on what I could find. I then worked-in my own experiences or found a story to attach to the image and painted what I thought it would look like. I added a mechanic working on the mag of the airplane in the foreground because an old pilot told me that occasionally the mag drive was problematical on the J-5. Then I showed the mail being transferred to the airplane in the background. It was a good teaching experience for me. Not really my best but it will forever remind me of DB Cooper. I think that my best is my third painting, that of the Ryan M-1 down in the snow. It was straight out of my head but it did rely on some pictures for the airplane details but it encompasses the beginning of commercial aviation in this country, primitive and struggling, but successful because of people. My being so old also could bring in some of the procedures that I remember as a little kid, straining fuel through a chamois skin as you put it into the airplane. I always have to explain to the uneducated what the pilot has over the funnel. It's always good stuff!
As far as I know, the lowering of the air stair in sort of a trail position is no big thing to the airplane. No disturbance to the air flowing up under that area and little affect on the horizontal tail. Easy to negotiate a departure there.
Lots of videos... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmImnArlghQ Although, it looks like the replaced the stairs with a sort of ramp, but I don't think that's too important.
