Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

J.R. Kessler, the ubiquitous centenarian billionaire Patron for a network of occult investigators and Monster Hunters (including the PCs), is mostly concerned with supernatural threats in the Caribbean, US Gulf Coast and neighbouring regions.

I've mentioned him in threads such as Caribbean by Night, Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats, Study of Folklore and Magic in Texas and the Gulf Coast, Self-designation Terms for Different Monster Hunter Teams in the World and the recent Scientific Specializations for Exploring Unknown Island.

Now, Kessler himself lives on a 220' superyacht, the Penemue, and even back when he was still young enough to do any traveling off his mobile palace, he tended to prefer high-performance yachts, fast tenders, powerful boat transports and sleek go-fast boats to airplanes.

However, the logistics of dispatching occult investigators and small teams of armed Monster Hunters* around the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean quickly enough so that they are able to actually respond to events, not just investigate the aftermath, requires a way to reach almost any spot in the Caribbean without having to worry about flight schedules or available passenger service to the more out of the way places.

In classic Caribbean fashion, it calls for amphibious aircraft, seaplanes or flying boats. Certainly, Kessler will have interests in numerous international companies with access to more conventional private jets, but for Night Riding, sometimes you just need a seaplane.

I'm looking for suggestions on makes and models for a variety of potential tasks. The basic requirement is a compromise between performance as a transport (good crusing speed and range) and the ability to operate with minimal support.

Later on, Kessler will determine that for certain special locations or times, what is required are aircraft that are rugged, reliable and able to still function if computers and high-tech electronics start to fail. In the year 2018, he'll own several rugged and simple early TL8 aircraft, a few TL7 ones and maybe even some TL6 relics that can still fly eighty years or so after introduction. Most likely, the aircraft that his people have access to will be a mixture of such older planes, able to function inside Vile Vortices with significant paranormal activity, and more modern, more capable aircraft made in the 1990s and later.

Some tasks I was considering:

1) A high-end, modern amphibious aircraft available in 1995, to explore the Mysterious Unknown Island 250 miles north of Puerto Rico. Needs at least a 1,000 mile range and the ahility to carry at least four, as well as being able to operate for at least a few days with only a boat as a tender. I was considering the Wilson Global Explorer.

2) Small, but high-quality aircraft that would be good for transporting individuals or small teams of about four to places without landing places for private jets. Enough range to potentially cover fairly wide geographic areas with each one would be a nice bonus. Ideally, maintainable without massive infrastructure. Finally, avoid unnecessary technological complexity; i.e. it can have modern avionics and navigation systems, but it can't be a design that will crash immediately if a computer chip in the fuel inection system or engine fails.

3) Much like type 2 above, but able to carry 8-12 passengers and some luggage. Longer range; ideally enough to get from Nassau in the Bahamas to St. Lucia or at least Dominica.

Edit: I've narrowed down the roles required for Kessler's anachronistic transport network of occult investigators in 2018, in post #20. Still looking for guidelines on which contenders to choose for each role and suggestions for any aircraft of which I might not have thought.

Edit Again: I've got a preliminary list of aircraft and home bases for the logistics network up. Still looking for comments, views and answers to a few questions.

*Kessler prefers the term 'Night Riders', but to most people born after the Civil Rights Movement, that term is going to carry some... unfortunate implications.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Not quite within your parameters, but a PBY might fill the bill for a low tech, reliable amphibian with long range. Seats ten in various positions, and is designed for good visibility--the gun sponsons are very useful. It has just over a 2000 mile range. Add in 4000 pounds in the bomb bay/cargo area and you're in good shape. Even now, some of them are working aircraft.

Then there's the ever-reliable DC-3. There were some floatplane versions, and a more reliable airplane never existed. The floats would cut into its speed and range, but once again, ye can carry plenty of people and stuff.

I happen to LIKE the PBY, and there's always the chance that it's not quite as demilitarized as anyone thought.

Both types are still flying as working aircraft in this day and age, especially the DC-3.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

DHC-3 Otter. Look through the rest of the DHC range for your other needs.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

If Kessler likes his personal comfort he can throw in a second PBY that's been refitted as a flying yacht. https://www.messynessychic.com/2014/...ht-circa-1950/

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

There's quite a list to choose from:

Cl-215: 2crew, 26seats, cruise 180mph, range 1300 miles
CL-415: 2crew, 18seats, cruise 200mph, range 1500 miles
Grumman HU-16 Albatross: 4-6crew, 10seats, cruise 120mph, range 2850
Consolidated PBY Catalina: 10crew, cruise 125mph, range 2520
de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter: 2crew, 19seats, cruise 210mph, range 920miles
de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter: 1crew, 9seats, cruise 120mph, range 940miles

Smaller aircraft:
Fairchild F-11 Husky
Noorduyn Norseman
Helio Courier
GippsAero GA8 Airvan

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

He does, but in 1995, he's somewhat too old for adventuring and in 2018, he's an invalid.

It's very plausible that Kessler actually owned a personal aircraft or two he bought in the 1960s and early 70s, unconnected to adventuring or the occult, which might have been upgraded as far as personal comfort goes as Kessler grew older and richer.

In the early to mid-60s, Kessler was a freewheeling buccaneer in petrochemicals and minerals, mostly based around Houston and Galveston, but with partners in France and various Francophone nations, as well as investments and business concerns in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. At that time, Kessler had about an order of magnitude less available cash than the image he liked to project, so while he owned a series of yachts and started building a superyacht in 1965, he'd have looked for a cost-effective solution for private planes at that time.

By 1969, Kessler's actual financial resources had caught up to his image, but he was still only a multi-millionaire. He didn't reach his first billion until some point in the 80s.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

My go-to amphibian for a typical party, the Grumman Goose. In your case, with the mcKinnon modification of replacing the radial engines with gas turbines.

Grumman Goose
 

Ah, yes, the Grumman Goose seems like a very good idea.

It seems fairly plausible that in the 1960s, J.R. Kessler bought one used or even as military surplus, and then had it upgraded as his resources grew.

Do you know what kind of improvement gas turbines give over the radial engines, in terms of cruising speed and range?

Wikipedia lists performance for the JRF-5 Goose, which is a TL6 version and I presume that the gas turbines upgrade the craft to TL7.

The listed performance is perfectly adequate for quick hops from Kessler's isolated seaside retreat near Rosalie, Dominica to the nearby islands of St. Lucia and Guadeloupe, both of which have proper airports as well as offices of companies controlled by Kessler.

The range is also enough to reach any of the Windward Islands where reports of something supernatural might emerge from and many of the Leeward Islands. If the upgraded engines add significant range, it ought to be sufficient for all of the Leeward Islands.

Enough range to reach Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Jamaica or the Bahamas in one trip would add significant utility, but as that would need to be up to 1,300 miles, I'm guessing that is a job reserved for larger craft.

PBY Catalina
 

There are a lot of things to like about the PBY Catalina for Kessler's purposes, i.e. as a seaplane or amphibious aircraft to transport a team of investigators or Monster Hunters into an area where advanced technology might be unreliable and airfields, runways and other support might not be available.

Googling, I can find that PBYs exist in a wide variety of configurations and models. The PBY-5A or other amphibious variants are the most interesting to me, as I imagine that Kessler uses airfields where they are available.

Important regional offices for Kessler's network of companies and connections exist, in 1995, in Galveston and Houston, TX; New Orleans, LA; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Nassau, Bahamas; and Roseau, St. Lucia.

In addition, there is also an isolated retreat near Rosalie, Dominica where several old friends of Kessler have retired and the families of some of his employees live.

Kessler wouldn't need the military configuration for the PBY Catalina, so no bombs or mounted guns and therefore the plane needs a smaller crew. I can find PBY Catalinas configured for fourteen passengers online, as well as a very tight fit for twenty eight people.

Assuming that you want to configure the PBY Catalina so that it can carry an eight to twelve man team, flight crew (and any necessary support staff) and maybe 100-150 lbs. in gear for each team member, how much extra fuel could you fit and therefore how much range could you squeeze from the aircraft?

Re: Grumman Goose
 

Found some info:

https://www.airliners.net/aircraft-d...g-21-goose/230

While top speed only increases about 25%, range (over 2500 km on standard fuel) and payload (2000 kg or up to 12 passengers) significantly increase.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

There was a proposal a few years ago for an amphibious bizjet; the target market was people doing business in e.g. Africa. Alas, not only did the company fail before producing a prototype, but it seems to have vanished entirely from the memory of the net – and I can no longer even recall the project name.

DHC-3 Otter
 

Canadian, but that's not necessarily a negative from Kessler's point of view. In 2018, it's been established that he buys several varieties of night vision devices from Canadian vendors, to avoid issues with ITAR legislation in the US for gears meant for use in the Caribbean.*

So Kessler clearly has some commercial contacts in Canada, whether as a result of Caribbean connections (plenty of Canadian cooperation with Commonwealth realns there, public and private) or through some Francophone connection with Quebec.

Compared to the Grumman Goose (as the smaller planes) and the PBY Catalina (as the larger), what are some important strengths and weaknesses of the DHC-3 Otter?

Which of the three are most likely to have been bought as Kessler's private amphibious aircraft in the 1960s?

What are their approximate relative Cost in 1995 on one hand and 2018 on the other?

And setting aside supernatural effects on technology**, are any of the three practical for direct trips from Galveston to Caribbean destinations like the Caymans, the Bahamas, St. Lucia or Dominica?

Or, for a long trip like that, would you always use a faster private jet for a first leg to a proper airport and only from there take an amphibious plane to a destination without a runway?

*Not that Canada doesn't have export restrictions on modern NVDs, but in real life, I can find websites that cater to US buyers for Canadian tactical gear, complete with an assisted approval process. And unlike the US, Canada is apparently not infamous for draconian penalties for allowing non-citizens to look through export-restricted NVDs.
**Because in the 1970s the supernatural didn't exist; in the 1980s neither Kessler nor others knew enough about it to predict a correlation between increased technological sophistication and failure rates in areas of high magic; and even in the early 1990s, Kessler's logistical network would mostly be designed without paranoid consideration for performance during a major paranormal catastrophe. The loss of the 1995 expedition had a powerful effect on people and reinforced the lesson that modern, cutting-edge TL8 technology is all too prone to fail during significant thaumatological events inside a Vile Vortex.

Re: Grumman Goose
 

Ah, very good!

That's quite an impressive range.

A wide variety of Caribbean destinations are practical from Rosalie, Dominica, without needing to refuel. Not just the nearby airports on the islands of Guadaloupe and St. Lucia, but you could actually fly direct to Nassau. Granted, it would probably be a terribly slow way to travel and a short hop from Dominica to the next airfield where you can switch to a jet is probably faster and more comfortable, but it's nice to have the option.

Hell, you can even reach Nassau and other Caribbean destinations (not as far as the Lesser Antilles, though) from Galveston, if required.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Ah, an excellent summary, smurf!

Thanks.

Now, are any of these more or less capable of operating without extensive facilities at either the starting point or the destination?

Does the size and massive fuel capacities of the larger aircraft, like the Catalinas or Albatrosses, mean you need significantly more infrastructure to dock or refuel them than you need for a DCH-3 Otter, Grumman Goose or any of the smaller aircraft you list?

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

It means you need more fuel and possibly more time pumping it but you don't need infrastructure. You need a place the PBY can dock at and a long enough hose to reach from a 55 gallon drum(or drums) of aviation fuel but plenty of PBYs were refuelled during WWII exactly that way.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

The Twin Otter has a few very useful features. In addition to being generally very flexible, it can operate from very short runways, clearings, and open ground, and it's common enough basically everywhere in the world that nobody would bat an eye if they saw one.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Most of these aircraft are 20m long and 30m wing span with the Twin Otter being a bit smaller. All of the have 1000+ litre fuel tanks and may require a bowser. The CL-415 is an improve 215 with a Turbo Prop where the others are piston engines.

Cl-215: 2crew, 26seats, cruise 180mph, range 1300 miles
CL-415: 2crew, 18seats, cruise 200mph, range 1500 miles
Grumman HU-16 Albatross: 4-6crew, 10seats, cruise 120mph, range 2850
Consolidated PBY Catalina: 10crew, cruise 125mph, range 2520
de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter: 2crew, 19seats, cruise 210mph, range 920miles

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

In the 1980s, Kessler might well be in the market for a personal business jet. For most of the eighties, Kessler spent a fair amount of time doing business in various African countries (as indeed he'd done since the sixties), which often included travelling to the sites of remote mining concessions. It's even remotely possibly the he'd buy a new jet in 1990-1995, if the one he was using was unsatisfactory or a new aircraft which added significant capabilities came on the market, but considering other priorities at that time, it's not all that likely.

After 1995, Kessler has not shown any inclination to travel by a modern jet. Some of his staff still do, of course, but in general, among those closest to J.R. Kessler and most familiar with the occult, there is a marked tendency toward the use of simple, robust and even anachronistic technology.

As an example, none of the four PCs in the campaign set in 2018 will step onto a modern airliner or helicopter. So far, they've not been forced to make a decision on whether to fly on a TL6 or TL7 propeller plane, but I expect them to regard the prospect with trepidation.

See, all four PC make use of ritual magic in some way and they know electronics and even mechanical devices are less reliable around them; correlating by the TL8 of the device and the level of thaumatological energy emitted by the PC's gear or recent actions. I've told them that even on a new jet airliner, while the odds of a catastrophic plane crash is undoubtedly greater for them than mundane people, perhaps by orders of magnitude, the risk is still minuscule compared to the risks they run in an adventuring career. Still, the risk of dying in a plane crash they have no control over seems much scarier to them than the much greater risks of dying doing PC stuff.

So, for now, the PCs emulate their Patron, J.R. Kessler, and travel by means of yacht or classic cars. Still, being PCs, the eventuality will assuredly arise when they have to be somewhere 1,000+ miles away, now. At that point, their options will be anachronistic TL6-7 aircraft like the Douglas DC-3 or some of the models of amphibious aicraft or seaplanes suggested in this thread; or more modern aircraft available from some of their Patron's legitimate business activities (like offshore oil companies), such as TL8 business jets and helicopters.

The Douglas DC-3
 

Ah!

I was already planning for Kessler to own at least one working Douglas DC-3, specifically in order so that a team of 'Night Riders' (Monster Hunters), complete with occultists and magicians who do not trust modern machines, could travel from Galveston to the Caribbean faster than a yacht will take them.

I had no idea that the DC-3 could be converted to amphibious operations.

I wonder how much that would degrade performance. For example, would you lose so much cruising speed that it would take longer to fly an amphibious DC-3 a single leg of maybe 1,000 miles than it would do to fly it 800 miles, land on an airfield and then use a smaller seaplane to get to the destination?

More Narrowly Defined Routes and Required Ranges
 

I've done some checking of maps.

I can spot several different roles for aircraft designed to carry around people in Kessler's network. These are all for TL6-7 designs, i.e. not jets, with only the last option retaining the possibility of an older, tested, very reliable jet of some sort, but being more likely to be a more anachronistic aircraft (if we want PCs to ever consider flying in it).

I'm assuming that there are plenty of options for those in Kessler's network who are comfortable with modern aircraft and expect them to fly commercial or charter flights to places like Nassau, Guadeloupe or St. Lucia and then, if necessary, be picked up there in a smaller amphibious aircraft.

A) Short range amphibious craft
Amphibious: Yes --- Range Required: 350 miles --- Extended Range (if practical): 500+ miles
Designed to take off from just north of Rosalie, Dominica (the airport on Dominica is well over an hour of travel away from Kessler's retreat there) and to be able to reach pretty much any destination in the Lesser Antilles. In order to reach Puerto Rico, the range needs to be at least 400-500 miles, depending on where it will land in Puerto Rico.
Obviously, I'd prefer that it be as fast as possible out to the required range, but given the short distances, I'm thinking that the selection here will be based more on what is simplest, most robust, easiest to maintain and operate without much in the way of infrastructure.
Contenders: Antonov An-2 (w/floats), de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter, Grumman Goose, Grumman Widgeon, Helio Courier, Noorduyn Norseman or Republic RC-3 Seabee.
Am I leaving any obvious choices out?

B) Medium Transport
Amphibious: Ideally --- Range Required: 850 miles --- Extended Range (if practical): 1,300 miles
Able to transport an 8-12 men team anywhere in the Greater Antilles from a base somewhere in the Bahamas. Would be very nice if it could get to Galveston and/or the islands of the Lesser Antilles, especially Guadeloupe, Dominica and St. Lucia, in a pinch.
The less infrastructure needed, the better, but also needs to be fast enough to make it practical for 500+ mile flights without wasting too much time; i.e. must not take more time to get you to your destination than using a larger, faster (but still propeller-driven) plane to reach the closest airport and then using a small amphibious craft.
Contenders: Beriev Be-6, Consolidated PBY Catalina, de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, Grumman Goose (w/turboprop conversion).
What else could do this well?

C) Do-Everything Transport
Amphibious: Maybe --- Range Required: 1,250-1,350 miles --- Extended Range (if practical): 2,400 miles
Designed to travel between Galveston and Caribbean destinations, as well as reaching most of the Caribbean from the Bahamas or the Lesser Antilles. At minimum being able to travel between Galveston and Nassau without refueling, and at best, being able to fly directly from Galveston to Rosalie, Dominica.
If not amphibious, at least needs to be able to land nearly anywhere there is any sort of runway.
Contenders: Antonov An-24, Antonov An-26, Beriev Be-6, Beriev Be-12 Chayka, Canadair CL-215, Canadair/Bombardier CL-415, Consolidated PBY Catalina, Douglas DC-3, Grumman HU-16 Albatross, Nord N.1402 Noroit or Short Sunderland/Sandringham.
Anything I'm missing?

D) Long-Range Transport
Amphibious: No --- Range Required: 2,400+ miles --- Extended Range (if practical): 3,000?
The best transport plane available for travelling from airports as far apart as the US Gulf Coast (e.g. Galveston or New Orleans) to destinations anywhere in the Caribbean, like the Lesser Antilles. Doesn't need amphibious capacity, which would likely make it slower and reduce fuel efficiency, but does need to be able to land on small regional airports, like those on Caribbean islands without international airports, and would ideally be able to land on quite short runways.
Will not usually have to carry more than eight to fifteen people, but we want the option of carrying up to twenty or so in reasonable comfort, as well as equipment for a scientific expedition and/or a tactical team.
Needs to have a cruise speed over 200 mph, the faster the better, but can't be too advanced; i.e. it can't be considered a TL8 aircraft, based on design, materials, method of construction and time of construction (stuff with history and emotional connections with humans tends to play better with magical auras).
Is ideally either a very simple, robust Western design of pre-1980s vintage or a simple Soviet design of anywhere up to their fall. That is, we're probably looking at propeller planes like the Douglas DC-3 or similar options, unless there is a TL7 jet of legendary simplicity and robustness.
Also, can't cost anything too ridiculous. I'll allow a budget of several million dollars, maybe even up to 20-30 millions if that gets me something absolutely great and not comparable to cheaper options, but we're not going to be considering anything that costs even close to a real airliner (100 millions dollars). And if I can get a good option for just a $1,000,000; that would leave that much more for several smaller planes for local destinations.
Contenders: Antonov An-10, Antonov An-12, Antonov An-72, Douglas DC-3 (with extra fuel tanks) and probably a lot of options of which I haven't thought.

Airfields: For any non-amphibious transports, they'd have to be able to operate out of the Douglas-Charles Airport on Dominica. Since the 2010s or so, its one asphalt runway was lengthened by 300 m, to 1,756 m (5,761'), at about 70' altitude and facilities for night landings added. The previous length of the runway was enough for regular service by C-47 Dakotas with plenty of room to spare, but I'm not sure about jets.

Airfield facilities at Galveston, Nassau, Fort Lauderdale, Guadeloupe and St. Lucia all offer more modern amenities, so while greater logistical flexibility would be nice, it isn't vital for the long-range transport.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

If you're looking at an An-10 or An-12, you're in the C-130 Hercules class, and should look at it as well.

C-130 Hercules
 

Sure, if one can be found for a reasonable price.

The An-10 and An-12 were included because it is canonically established that NPC Contacts of the Patron were involved in obtaining all sorts of ex-Soviet 'surplus' military hardware after the fall of the Soviet Union and I figured these might have been available at some point before 1995 at much more affordable prices than the equivalent Western aircraft.

This size category might be too big, at any rate, for my requirements. Granted, the high cruise speeds and long ranges are nice, but given that I don't expect any need to ever transport more than 30 people with light equipment (i.e. not actual platoon-level firepower), it's probably more important to be able to use shorter runways and need less infrastructure.

In case there is no more practical way to get this sort of range combined with this sort of cruising speed; are C-130 aircraft available at prices more reasonable than four times or more the cost of a former Soviet aircraft of a similar role?

Or, if not, is the C-130 so much more capable, reliable and/or otherwise suitable that it's worth buying it even for many times the price of the rough Soviet equivalent?

Re: C-130 Hercules
 

I really don't know. After the Soviet Union falls An-12s are going to be dirt cheap, just like all the other ex-Soviet kit. Their downside is the high maintenance hours and higher fuel costs. OTOH, they don't require as skilled workers as US kit usually does.

Another option, and they were in use in the area as civilian passenger aircraft until the 70s, is civilianised versions of the Short Sunderland. Big, long range, huge endurance. Without all the military hardware (guns, turrets, bomb racks, etc.) and the normal flight crew of 'only' five they should have plenty of capacity for 10-15 guys and their kit. They'd want a collapsible/inflatable dingy for wilderness craft to shore work, given the size of a Sunderland, to make things a bit easier, but again - plenty of room for that.

EDIT: And now that I re-read your post, I see that you mention this option.

Re: C-130 Hercules/An-12/Short Sunderland
 

Requiring less skilled workers is somewhat of a benefit, as that might allow crew and security who have mechanical inclinations or prior job experience (several established NPCs had some relevant MOS/Rating in the USCG, Navy or other militaries) to do some of the work. The fewer dedicated aircraft mechanics needed as full-time staff, the better, especially as there are rather a lot of crew and security who spend most of their time training or on alert, and might well be able to pitch in with maintenance at times.

That could work, especially if they do not require vast runways.

In general, aside from amphibious aircraft or seaplanes, what are good TL7 transport aircraft that are simple, robust and capable of operating from modest airfields?

Because I'll need at least one type that can take PCs (and other occultists afraid of machines that are too modern) distances of 1,000+ miles without spending an eternity in the air.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

The basic late-TL6/early-TL7 choice is the DC-3/C-47. 1,600 miles useful range cruising at about 200 mph, and still a couple of thousand in use today.

A later, larger, option is the Fairchild C-119 which can carry about three times the passengers, or up to 12 tons of cargo (though that much load would cut range by quite a bit), with about the same speed and range. A similar sized aircraft was the Hawker Siddeley Andover (a bit smaller, cruises at 270 mph, so a bit faster).

The next size up is dominated by the C-130, and it's about as big as you'll get onto a poor runway unless you go for the An-22 (but that seems excessive for Kessler's needs). A C-130 cruises at over 300 mph, and can carry 60+ soldiers and their kit (and twice that if you pack them in like sardines, but they won't be exiting the craft quickly). The French-German Transall is similar, but just not quite as good (a bit slower, a bit less payload, a bit shorter ranged). The An-12 cruises at about 400 mph, but is otherwise much the same as the C-130 (though with its higher wing-loading I expect it probably requires a longer take-off and landing run).

The Ilyushin Il-76 is probably the biggest sensible option - it has rough-landing capability, is late TL7 (went into production 1974), and there are plenty around in a wide range of types. Experience in Afghanistan shows them to be a robust aircraft that's hard to shoot down and which can be landed safely even when damaged. They can lift over 50 tons (much more in the newer versions, but they are definitely TL8 builds, so not in consideration), fly ~2,500 miles with a 50 ton payload or ~4,500 miles with a 20 ton payload, and cruise at 470+ mph. It's probably too much plane, but it certainly delivers.

There are also a range of ex-Soviet small to medium airliners from the 50s onwards that are grass strip capable, and for moving people and some cargo from airfield to airfield with no expectation of hostile activity they are probably the better bets - they'll be faster and cheaper to run than 'tactical' transports.

D) Long-Range Transport
 

Also very reasonably priced; for an aircraft capable of transporting that many.

Kessler will inevitably have acquired one at some point, probably as he and people around him started to better understand the ramification of magical interference with technology correlating with increased technological sophistication.

It's not ideal as the longest ranged transport, the one that would handle flights from Galveston to Caribbean destinations, mostly because of the slow cruising speed compared to actual TL7 transport aircraft, but it will do very well as a non-amphibious Do-Everything Transport for taking people from the Bahamas to the Lesser Antilles or vice versa.

I don't really need more useful load capacity, than a DC-3, but I do want to have something with longer range and greater cruising speed. This was especially vital to Kessler in the early stages of his operations, about 1987-1995, as back then he'd have looked for the best plane for the money he was prepared to spend (and which could land on Dominica) without paying as much attention to the threat of a modern airplane malfunctioning in high-magic areas.

Magic interfering with technology was a concern once they'd studied it for a few years, yes, but it didn't assume the importance it would later until after the disaster in 1995. After all, using TL6 designs in preference to something newer and better is a pretty strange thing to do and there was a natural reluctance to shift wholesale over to less effective aircraft just because of a theoretical threat that hadn't actually killed anyone.

The C-130 is a pretty great plane for Kessler's purposes, but it suffers from a high price tag and might be difficult to even acquire.

Are there even many C-130 in private hands?

It's still in service, so there won't surplus aircraft (least not ones still airworthy) and I can't see that they make any civilian equivalent offered for commercial sale.

Kessler's right hand man is a former French Former Legion paratrooper who mostly jumped from C-160s and later a few C-130s. As were, I believe, about five of the security personnel working for Kessler in 1995. So Jean-Michel Alexandre would certainly be familiar with the strengths of these two designs and would probably have recommended them... if they would be bought for reasonable sums around 1987-192 or so.

The An-12 appeared to me to tick every box for the long-range role, but unfortunately, I've discovered that at full load, it's unsafe for the Douglas-Charles Airport on Dominica, even after the runway was extended by 300 meters. Before that extension, the An-12 would not have been allowed to land there at all. So, unfortunately, it's out.

Leaving, perhaps...

The Ilyushin Il-76 is very fast compared to the earlier propeller planes I'm considering and can land on tiny runways, much shorter than that required by far smaller planes. If Kessler was able to buy one in the early 1990s for less than $30,000,000 (in modern US dollars, adjusted for inflation), he would have jumped at the chance, too much plane or not.

An Il-76 costs about $50 to $66 million new, but those are improved variants compared to what would be available in 1990 or 1991. Also, one would hope that it would be possible to get bargains at this time, from Colonels who weren't being paid and didn't have any idea what would happen to their countries.

Anything that would still have been flying and useful in the early 1990s, at the fall of the Soviet Union, available at bargain prices?

I want some of the more warlike inventory available to Kessler to reflect the fact that just as he was preparing a secret paramilitary organization to fight supernatural threats, something that might have been the greatest glut of surplus military equipment in history hit the world market.

As Kessler canonically has a close relationship with several arms dealers who were heavily involved in post-1990 events in former Soviet countries, he'd have snapped up anything he could get for reasonable prices which he thought would be helpful for his occult operations.

Smuggling in heavy weapons to the US was too risky*, but Eastern Bloc transport or passenger aircraft without weaponry could have been legally imported almost anywhere.

*But Kessler absolutely has access to former Soviet machine guns and perhaps other military equipment stored on Caribbean islands where the authorities are very inclined towards him.

Re: D) Long-Range Transport
 

Yes, there are. Quite a few countries have sold off older models.
Lockheed have sold them, as the Lockheed L-100. This is basically a C-130E with no pylon tanks or military equipment. They haven't sold in huge quantities, but they definitely exist.

Re: D) Long-Range Transport
 

Ah, ok, thanks.

Is the ca $34-50 million for a used C-130H and the $4-5 million for a used C-100-30 purely a reflection of some very expensive military hardware not present in the civilian-ised aircraft or are the C-130H really better aircraft in some way that could matter to Kessler?

Also, if he were to use an C-130 or C-100, they'd have to be able to make a direct Galveston to Douglas-Charles Airport (Dominica) flight in a reasonable timeframe. So he'd need extra fuel tanks, which I imagine could be arranged, especially as he'd usually be carrying a much lighter load of passengers and equipment than typical military transport use.

Re: D) Long-Range Transport
 

The C-130Hs are newer and have more fatigue lift left, as well as better engines, military equipment, and being on the military aircraft price scale. Air forces seem willing to pay more for aircraft than civilian freight operators.

The L-100 has never been a commercially successful aircraft. It costs too much to run, and it's rather large for most of the civilian freight work that needs to go to short rough fields. It's very cool, but that doesn't pay the bills.

Kessler's essentially paramilitary requirements are rather different from a civilian freight line. An L-100 would seem to suit him rather well.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

For what it's worth, civilian transport model IL-76TDs seem to go for about $5 million. New models run at something like $30 million.

Many military and civilian Il-76s were disposed of after the breakup of the USSR, so they would've been available through both legit and dodgy channels. I think if one wanted a muscular transport, with lots of capacity and range, it's the one to get. Still in service, with quite a few made and in use for such a large aircraft, parts and general servicing will be easy to arrange.

I do like the way it's still got a glazed lower nose for the navigator, so if all the fancy instruments fail they can get down there with a map, and find landmarks by eye, the old-fashioned way.

Long-Range Transport
 

Sounds like both the L-100-30 and the Il-76 were options when Kessler was buying a transport plane to take people from Galveston to Dominica faster than yachts could steam or any seaplane would go.

That would be before anyone around Kessler was as nervous about modern aircraft failing and he'd have bought the aircraft based on performance, measured against the cost of acquiring it and operating it.

If they were available at similar prices around the fall of the Soviet Union, I get the feeling that the Il-76 is a much more capable plane and while a fully-loaded C-130 (it's possible, I guess that the C-100-30 requires less runway) could theoretically land at Douglas-Charles Airport in Dominica, it still requires more than three times the runway length that an Il-76TD requires.

Actually, before the mid-2000s extension to the runway at Douglas-Charles, a C-130 would be operating outside of safety margins if they landed there fully loaded. So the Il-76TD, acquired at the fall of the Soviet Union, seems like a logical possession.

Ironically, of course, now in 2018, some of his employees, like the PCs, will probably consider that old plane far too modern to ever get into.

Edit: The Il-76TD costs about $8,500 per hour to operate, with 55% of that being the 7.5 tons of jet fuel it burns per hour. This is a lot, obviously, but note that it can fly from Scholes International Airport in Galveston to Douglas-Charles Airport on Dominica in about five hours, which means that if it should ever prove necessary, the entire crew of the Penemue, including the 'Night Riders' and some additional support personnel, can be airlifted between those two main theatres of Kessler's influence for about $42,500, which is competitive with the cost of buying everyone economy class flight tickets on a commercial flight and will take significantly less time.

Re: Long-Range Transport
 

Worth noting here that in the 1960's the US Navy ran some tests and successfully landed and launched a C-130 from an aircraft carrier deck, without aid of a catapult or arrestor gear. They tested it up to a 25,000 lb load.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM5AI3YSV3M

Re: Long-Range Transport
 

Yes, I recall that.

That means that a lightly loaded C-130 can land on a much shorter runway than published safety guidelines suggest for fully loaded aircraft. However, that might well, in GURPS terms, require a risky Piloting roll. Worth noting is that the pilot was specially selected and decorated for courage after the experiment.

If available for a similar price, the Il-76, with its thrust reversers for STOL performance, would seem like an advance over the C-130/C-100. It only needs 450 m (1,476') of runway to land, and can handle landing or taking off on grass or rough ground, as well as being faster and having longer range.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

There are also floatplane versions of many light civilian aircraft. If anonymity is a priority, Cessnas and Pipers would disappear into the background just about anywhere tourism and water combine.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

A400M Atlas is a new cargo plane from Europe. In production from 2013, the price tag may be a bit high. But it does have a shorter take off than a Hercules, 980m as opposed to 1090m.

It's a bit of a beast.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

After 1995, Kessler's people would worry a lot more about modern, cutting-edge technology failing around magicians and supernatural phenomena. After that, they'd be more likely to buy WWII vintage equipment than late TL8 new aircraft.

Also, the price is literally high enough so that you could buy dozens of Il-76TD aircraft instead. Not that there will be dozens of planes in use, more like twelve in all. I'm thinking one or two long-range transports, a couple of do-everything transports, 2-3 medium amphibious transports and at most six short-range amphibious aircraft. Total budget for acquiring them less than fifty million dollars, which is maybe a third to a quarter of what one Airbus A400M Atlas would go for.

And the Il-76 is still better at STOL, requiring only 450 meters of runway.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

That's a good point.

To supplement more anachronistic aircraft (meant for magicians who fear flying in anything even remotely advanced), what would be the most common, cost-effective and anonymous TL7 amphibious aircraft?

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

For small flostplanes pick a Cessna of the right size, basically. Alternatively, the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver or DHC-6 Twin Otter would be a common choice. The DHCs have features that'd be useful to monster hunters and the like, being rugged, having excellent STOL capabilities, and large doors so you can load and unload quickly and stuff awkward and bulky objects into them. I think the Beaver is probably what you'd be recommended to get as a 'working' plane in its class, over everything else.

While they weren't common in the west until the this century, there's always the An-2V (or An-2M or An-2W if Polish-built), the floatplane variant of the An-2 (which you listed up-thread as an option). It's probably about as primitive as you can get and still claim something is TL7.

Grumman Goose
 

I've decided that Kessler's first seaplane and his personal favorite is the Grumman Goose.

In the spring of 1961, the French Navy retired fourteen JRF-5 models that had been used in WWII (by the US), Indochina and Algeria (by the French). This was done after the fifteenth aircraft in the squadron crashed, killing an admiral and several others.

At this time, Kessler had a great need for a seaplane for his Caribbean business interests and pleasure expedition slash sales pitches with various oilmen, investors and government functionaries. He was also only seven years out of the French Foreign Legion and his backstory established him as a talented scrounger and fixer in the military, who cultivated relationships with people in various transport arms to enable him to smuggle luxuries that soldiers craved into warzones and all sorts of things out of them.*

It's entirely in character for Kessler to have known a senior NCO involved in retiring the fourteen aircraft who'd shade the inspection of one of them so that it was rated as less airworthy than it was, enabling Kessler to buy it even cheaper than ordinary military surplus.

With a minimal refurbishing in 1961 and then gradual improvements of furnishings and comfort, this Grumman Goose JRF-5 would have served as his primary personal seaplane. He'd even learn to fly it himself and it would eventually come to have a luxurious late 1960s slash early 1970s Swinging Sixties, silk-and-satin, Hugh Hefner-esque interior.

Even when Kessler added a new McKinnon conversion G-21G turboprop Goose in the 1970s sometime as his new personal island transport, he still kept his old warhorse, lovingly maintained, the veteran of the same wars as he was.

So that old JRF-5 Grumman Goose is still airworthy and after 1995, was pressed back into service as a deliberately anachronistic short-range transport, mostly in the Lesser Antilles. It's usually based on Dominica or St. Lucia, where it's kept indoors in nice hangars part of Kessler's private retreats on both islands.

The newer Grumman/McKinnon G-21G 'Turbo Goose' might be based in the Bahamas, depending on whether any other seaplanes I determine Kessler owns are more suitable. Given that it's bought in the 1970s by a company owned by Kessler since then, with no attempt to keep his ownership secret, maybe it would be best used somewhere Kessler is openly associated with things, as opposed to a cover company for clandestine and occult activities.

Yeah, the G-21G should actually be home-based in Galveston. It can make quick trips to a lot of Texas locations from there, as well as reaching New Orleans, Biloxi-Gulfport, Mobile and plenty of other Gulf Coast destinations. And if needed, it can easily reach many Caribbean destinations, like the Bahamas.

*When Kessler came home to the US from serving in Indochina, he wasn't a relatively penniless former soldier, he had enough money to present himself as a flash cove driving fanncy cars, with contacts among a certain set of people in Texas and Havana who frequented nightclubs, lounges and casinos, and who backed him in setting up a fancy casino in Havana, the Hotel Metropole Havana. Legend holds that Kessler smuggled WWII and other war souveniers, Middle Eastern and SE Asian artwork and other collectibles to rich Texans, which while illegal is not considered all that morally culpable. However, at the time, there was also another rumour, not impossible on the face of it, that Kessler was supplying some old friends he knew back in Galveston (say, friends of the Maceo brothers) with heroin from Indochina.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Ok, say if we were in the market for four shorter range, smaller seaplanes (350-500 miles) and a couple of medium amphibious transports at some point between 1987-1994, what are plausible buys?

We're explicitly setting up logistics for occult investigators, research expeditions and even paramilitary teams, but we don't yet reject anything more modern than WWII (because fears of technology failing in the presence of magic only developed gradually, with experience, and then with the painful lessons of 1995).

What about a couple DHC-2 Beavers bought in the 80s and two An-2V or An-2M/W acquired dirt cheap in the early 90s as the smaller short-range transports?

Would it seem too odd compared to just buying the most common Beechcrafts, Cessnas or Pipers on the market at the time and fitting them with floats?

How about a DHC-6 Twin Otter as a medium amphibious transport bought in 1987-1988 or so? Is that a mundane purchase, something a person unaware of the supernatural might consider a good corporate plane for shuttling people involved in offshore oil between Caribbean islands lacking airports?

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

It's necessary to think about the image you're projecting by the apparent purpose of the aircraft. DHCs and Antonovs are supremely practical aircraft for getting people to places with equipment. But they aren't what a typical corporate executive would want to be seen in: they're aircraft as industrial equipment.

Float-equipped Beechcraft, Cessnas or Pipers aren't so industrial. They're more the aircraft equivalent of nice saloon cars.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Quite right.

Let's say that corporate jets and appropriately appointed Cessna-adjacent utility craft, chartered, leased or owned as was most economical, handled and continue to handle the actual transport of executives and VIPs connected to Kessler's legitimate businesses.

The two DHC-2s and An-2Vs would be owned and operated by apparent fly-by-night charter companies, skillfully concealing any overt connection to Kessler through the use of numerous shell corporations, offshore holdings and/or actual proxy owners, such as trusted 'ex' employees given funds to start these cover companies.

They'd pretend their business model was transporting a variety of scientific expeditions, middle-class tourists, offshore oil geologists and oceanographers and the like, while actually exclusively serving Kessler's network of occult investigators.

The DHC-2s and An-2Vs should be economical enough aircraft that Kessler can afford to essentially fund them out of the 'expenses' for his clandestine activities and not need to use the resources of a larger legitimate corporation to own and operate them, where accountants unaware of the supernatural would question their unprofitable and unprestigious natures.

Edit: Holy *beep*, there is a significant price difference between even well-used DHC-2s and perfectly operational An-2Vs or other float-equipped An-2s. As in, you can get the An-2s for $30,000-$50,000, while the DHC-2 Beavers tend to cost $500,000+. This tells me that while Kessler is happy to arrange for as many fly-by-night operators flying An-2s as the logistics require, even if he'll have to finance it personally out of pocket, he'll want to have some ostensibly legitimate reason for a slightly more legitimate company to own the DHC-2s, so they count as business expenses and don't drain his personal assets.

In the same way, the DHC-6 Twin Otter is a fairly pricey plane and not one Kessler wants to have draining his clandestine cash reserves if he can have a legitimate business fund it or an equivalent, without mundane accountants picking at it.

Are the DHC-2s and the DHC-6 hopelessly utilitarian and gauche for roles as planes that take engineers, oceanographers, geologists and other employees of a Texas-based offshore oil and gas company around the Caribbean, as well as being available for VIP and executive junkets, and adventure vacations combining boating, parachuting and diving, etc.?

While offshore oil and gas wasn't huge in the Caribbean in the 1980s or 1990s (it's mostly just Trinidad and Tobago), it's not that implausible that oil companies might prospect there, especially given that in the last few years (in real life as well as the campaign), there have been major discoveries of offshore oil and gas in the Caribbean and oil companies are setting up shop on many islands there.

I imagine that this Texas oil and gas company might have some legitimate business interests in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as maybe set up a small regional office somewhere in the Greater Antilles, e.g. Bahamas or anywhere nearby that offshore prospecting might seem plausible in the 1990s.

If the DHC-6 seems weird for this role, what could be a good plane that could do what Kessler wants, but which unaware accountants wouldn't question as a luxury adventure seaplane for senior staff and VIPs being courted, with space for more people than a small plane and at least 850 miles of range?

To be bought in 1987-1994 sometime, ideally not over $5 million and not requiring obscene upkeep costs.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

The DHC-2 is/was well-known as being an extremely reliable and capable plane in its class, and it's pretty much the plane everyone had or wanted for wilderness work in places like Canada. While there were a fair number made, it's nothing like the number of An-2s of all kinds that were made and are still flying. FWIW, a DHC-2 probably has lower operational costs, but the repair bills if it breaks will be higher. An-2s are not particularly economical on fuel (or oil, for that matter). Also, the An-2 is not a quiet aircraft - you're never going to be selling luxury rides in it, no matter how nice the seating is.

The DHC-6 is probably good for all of that, the DPC-2 might look a bit low-rent for the VIP junkets. It depends on what the interior decor is, I expect - real leather seats, nice carpet, and a mini-bar go a long way in selling an aircraft as 'executive' rather than 'bush plane'.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

From a real-world economics point of view, Kessler's requirements are low on flying time and work, high on time spent being on call for an immediate alert (well, within an hour / six hours). They won't be doing anything close to a regular passenger service; in the air all day for as many days a year as possible.

So it's probably fine if the An-2s are wasteful of fuel when they are in actual use, as the low cost of surplus aircraft allows keeping several spare craft near potential trouble spots, which seems like a fair tradeoff.

From a scene-setting RPG point of view, the loud and primitive nature of the An-2 is truly excellent.

Edit: Ballpark figures for operating costs; ca $400/hour for An-2s and ca $725/ hour for DHC-2 Beavers. Yeah, the Beavers are really expensive and also more expensive to operate... but, on the other hand, can be certified for commercial operation by the FAA, unlike the An-2.

Now, I'm not going to state outright that pressure from US aircraft manufacturers led to the An-2 being restricted to 'Experimental' FAA certification in the US, to avoid flooding the market in the 90s with dirt-cheap competition, but I'll just note that I found a lot of discussion on that subject online and a lot of people who do believe it.

In any case, for registration as a charter aircraft in a Caribbean nation where An-2s can be certified for that sort of thing, the An-2 seems hard to beat. But as Kessler needs to base some shoort-range amphibious transport planes in the US, without having them be easily tracable to him, he also needs the DHC-2 Beavers.

Again, this makes sense both in in-setting terms and RPG meta terms. If you're spending $500,000+ on a DHC-6 Twin Otter, leather seats, nice carpets and a swanky bar aren't all that expensive extras in comparison. And for me as a GM, I want the available aircrafts to be as distinct and full of character as possible.

The loud Soviet transport vs. the Golden Age of Travel old-school elegance of a well-appointed DHC-6 suits me just fine.

That being said, the aircraft fleet of Antilles Air Boats was in storage in the mid-80s, just as Kessler was setting up his logistics. A few Grumman Goose G21As or JRFs and even potentially a Short S.25 Sandringham 4 might have been available cheap from a failing airline operating on the islands where Kessler spent at least a third of the year.

So I think he'd have purchased a couple, at least.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

FWIW, there's mention that the big Short flying boats were phased out of service in the Pacific because they were incredibly expensive to run (presumably compared to the new modern liners of the post-war period) in the 50s. While think they're a great plane and would look awesome, etc., I think that if Kessler was to have bought one it would have to have been as a talking point. However, he might have leased it for a while.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

It was a combination of bigger is better (more economical) and airport building with tarmac, concrete, and terminals. Without the infrastructure the heaviest aircraft could realistically only use water. World War 2 also produced heavier aircraft (Lancaster and B-17) and developed purpose built airfields that required the land to allow these aircraft to take off and land.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

I know they were used for the Sydney-London route. Both ends probably had good airports at the time, but they had to make lots of intermediate stops to get there.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Well, in 1981, Antilles Air Boats ceased operations and their fleet of aircraft, including numerous Grumman Goose G21A and JRF-5 models, a Beechcraft RC-45J and one or both of a Short S.25 Sandringham 4 and Mk5, were put into inadequate storage.

In real life, the company failed to sell more than a couple of Grumman Goose models and the fleet of aircraft deteriorated slowly until most of them were destroyed in Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

In my campaign, even if Kessler has no interest in buying the aircraft in 1981*, as by that time he is 'merely' an ordinary billionaire, without knowing about the supernatural, that fleet would still be available dirt cheap in 1986, just as Kessler decides to set up an organization to investigate the paranormal, which includes sending expeditions to places where reports of oddness originate.

As Kessler probably doesn't know that the Soviet Union will fall in a couple of years, he doesn't know that soon he'll have the opportunity to purchase more surplus aircraft than he could ever use, and the Antilles Air Boat fleet would appear a quite convenient windfall.

That is, if there is any utility in them. Obtaining them would be as close to 'free' as buying an aircraft could be, but while they were airworthy in 1981, they might require some refurbishing in 1987 if they are to be accepted as playthings for tourists.

We know from real life that by this time, they were no longer economical to run as commercial passenger aircraft. Indeed, the 1970s were the decade where many of the airlines that ran regular passenger service between Caribbean islands with seaplanes switched to other types of aircraft or went bankrupt.**

I'm assuming that Kessler bought a DHC-6 Twin Otter or two for his purposes at this time, but given the special circumstances of a defunct airline unable to find buyers for their aircraft, Kessler could probably get the entire grounded fleet of Antilles Air Boats for what it would cost him to buy a second Twin Otter. Edit: Scratch 'probably', the entire fleet of Grumman Geese + a Short S.25 Sandringham bought from the defunct airline would most likely cost him under a million dollars, while a DHC-6 Twin Otter is from $3 million to $6.5 million, depending on whether you get the 300 or the 400 model.

Even if he didn't ultimately end up using them heavily, due to better options becoming available after 1990 (I'm having him obtain a Be-12 Chayka and Il-76TD after the Soviet Union fell), they remain owned by him as interesting options for anachronistic aircraft, in case he's transporting tech-averse occultists or sending another expedition into a heavily magical area.

*Not entirely a foregone conclusion, as at that time he already owns two Grumman Goose aircraft, enjoys piloting his personally owned one and may safely be considered an enthusiast of WWII vintage airplanes.
**Interesting aversions are the operations of Air Antilles, Carib Aviation, LIAT and Winair, all of which operated de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters to some degree, some apparently still doing so, in pretty much the exact area where Kessler needed to move his people around. From which I gather that in the 1980s, DHC-6 Twin Otters were still economical for passenger service in that area, but that older seaplane designs were probably not.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

I presume that's the price in the present day? In the 1980s, DHC-2s might well have been cheaper, and An-2s were certainly less available. An-2s are very cheap now because they're being replaced in many of their former uses, but that doesn't seem to have been the case until about the turn of the century.

Indeed, if you were flying an An-2 in the Western hemisphere before 1990, swapping the engine for an American-made one would have been a good idea simply so that you could get parts.

A) Short-Range Transports
 

Well, those are modern prices for a heavily used DHC-2. However, the Internet assures me that they were $575,000 new in 1953 and that they would be $1.5 to $2 million if sold new now.

Which is ridiculous for this size range, certainly, at least compared to the older aircraft which Kessler could obtain instead. A couple of hundred thousand for a small seaplane in good condition is reasonable (the An-2 and their dirt cheap price being somewhat of an exception), but Kessler is not going to be paying millions for the smallest size range when fairly capable older planes that are bigger and suit his purposes just fine are available for $500,000 or less.

Edit: I can find several 1950s vintage DHC-2 Beavers without expensive upgrades and with heavily used airframes available for sale at $200,000 to $350,000, which is at least more acceptable than $500,000+. As DHC-2 production ended in the late sixties, I have no idea whether used aircraft of the type would have been relatively more or less expensive in 1987-1989 than they are now. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that their value has held pretty steady if well maintained and periodically refurbished. So, it makes sense to me that Kessler might have acquired two DHC-2 Beavers before 1990, in order to clandestinely handle logistics for some of his occult researchers.

/endEdit

---

I realize that An-2s and other Soviet aircraft will not be among the first aircraft Kessler buys in 1987-1990, but his operation didn't just spring into being fully made. He didn't really have enough trusted agents, investigators, scientists or paramilitary operators in 1987 to require as many aircraft as he'd be using in 1995 or 2018.

So he bought a few planes in 1987, maybe a couple in 1988-1989 and then took advantage of the enormous stockpiles of ex-Soviet stuff when they became available after that, probably because he recognized the value for the next few years, rather than him actually having a need for so many aircraft immediately.

It looks like Kessler will own several Grumman Geese, both JRF-5, G21A and a newer McKinnon turboprop conversion. One bought in the 60s, one in the 70s and a couple to a few acquired from the defunct Antilles Air Boats in the 1980s. Of course, these will not be all that clandestine, in that many local people will know these planes and know that they are owned by J.R. Kessler (technically a holding company owned by him, but not important).

This means that the Grumman Geese are probably used to shuttle his household and important employees around the Antilles, but it would be pretty bad operational security to use them for any op which was not meant to be traced to Kessler.

So when 'research into the paranormal' turned in the early 1990s to 'covert investigations of occult crimes' and even later, around 1994 or so, to 'paramilitary hunting of supernatural threats', Kessler would have required other aircraft not associated with him or any company publicly linked to him.

Particularly important for the smallest transport type, as that would be the ones most often carrying operatives to places where law enforcement might later on be asking questions. Best for them to be registered to fly-by-night charter operators, in such situations.

Grumman Geese
 

As noted earlier, J.R. Kessler's first seaplane and his personal transport throughout 1961-1978(?) was the 'Dominique', a Grumman Goose JRF-5, formerly flown by the French Navy in Indochina and Algeria. Kessler obtained a private pilot license and enjoyed flying his own plane when he had time, although he'd have employed a pilot as well.

Now, in 1975-1979 or so (approximate years, subject to change if appropriate), Kessler wanted/needed a faster and longer-ranged seaplane for his personal use and to shuttle around the members of his inner circle. I thought that a McKinnon conversion of a Grumman Goose to a turboprop plane might be appropriate.

First of all, was McKinnon still doing new conversions in the 1970s or would Kessler have needed to look for a second-hand turboprop plane converted in the sixties?

Second, what is the most plausible variant that Kessler would opt for in the mid- to late-seventies; a McKinnon G21C (likely 'hybrids'), a G21G or some alternative conversion?

Third, if Kessler was certified to fly a piston JRF-5 Goose, how much trouble would it have been to become familiar with a turboprop conversion of the same aircraft and certified to fly it as a private pilot?*

Fourth, Dominique's interior is decorated in a very Swinging Sixties way, but more lavish and decadent boudoir than carefree hippie playground. I'm not very au fait with styles of interior decoration during the sixties (or any decade), but I'm thinking something mostly red and black, in any combination of leather, silk, satin or velvet most appropriate for the period.

Obviously, I want the newer 'Turbo Goose' to be decorated in an iconic 70s fashion, albeit the middle-aged libertine version. Any suggestions for colours, materials, special touches to make it more reflective of the period?

Kessler wasn't technically a billionaire when he had his new 'Turbo Goose' built, but he still owned hundreds of millions of dollars and he hadn't bought a new toy since the end of the Sixties (the early 70s weren't good for his various business affairs). So there's no need to stint on the decor.

Left to his own devices, Kessler probably preferred somewhat more old-fashioned surroundings (his personal style is best described as 'elegant decadence'), but for this plane, his new personal secretary, Mary Abigail Marchant (b. January 27, 1948; Austin, TX), so aged thirty or slightly less at the time, would have been influential in making it 'fab', 'fun' and 'far out'.

Oh, and I'm thinking of naming the 'Turbo Goose' Angélique. Comments? Alternate suggestions?

Edit: Also, in the mid-80s, Kessler started to set up the logistics for his occult research and investigations. In 1987-1988, he would therefore have obtained several Grumman Geese from the defunct airline Antilles Air Boats, which were put into storage in 1981, when the airline ceased operations.

I imagine that the aircraft required some refurbishing before being flown again, after at least five years and possibly seven, in mothballs. During that process, the possibility existed of sprucing up the cabins and interiors. Any ideas as to what these less-luxurious Grumman Geese might be furnished in, starting from the appointments for an airline that operated the planes from 1974-1981?

Edit Again: Several notes. First of all, it's apparently some kind of aviation nerd faux pas to refer to more than one Grumman Goose as 'Geese'. They prefer 'Gooses', strange as that is.

Second, while I couldn't find an exact source for operation costs for Grumman Gooses in the 2010s, I did find out that a rare Grumman G-111 Albatross averages out to a $1,200/hour operating cost, including having to custom-build spares. As the JRF-5 or G-21A Goose expends half the fuel the larger plane does and Kessler will own a fleet of five, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that his operating costs will be lower, maybe around $1,000/hour.

This is very high compared to modern propeller aircraft, like Beechcraft and Cessnas, so the Gooses are mostly pampered hangar queens, flown fairly rarely and only used for transport when absolutely necessary (e.g. when transporting occultists afraid of modern technology).

*At the time Kessler got his new seaplane, he'd have been around sixty, vigorous and adventurous, nowhere near considering retirement, and still fond of sporting pursuits as his relaxation. But if it's a bureaucratic nuisance or involves a lot of make-work to be certified for the turboprop conversion, Kessler would likely have been happy enough to continue flying Dominique from time to time and have a hired pilot shuttle him around in the newer aircraft when needed.

Re: Grumman Geese
 

Well, the last type (the G-21G) was FAA approved in 1969. I don't have reregistration dates, though; if one could get at the history of type certificate 4A24 that ought to have the best information on manufacturing dates.

G-21G has the most powerful engines…

It's a separate type certificate so legally it's a separate aircraft to qualify on. I understand there's some additional power lag (i.e. you can't get out of trouble with a quick blip on the throttle the way you can with a piston engine) but in terms of cockpit activities only the engine management will be very different. I would imagine a week or two of conversion course would be sufficient.

Re: Grumman Geese
 

Last McKinnon conversion of a Grumman Goose was completed in May, 1970.

McKinnon Enterprises Inc. was declared bankrupt on December 28, 1971, and its assets, including N558, a G21G 'Turbo Goose' which McKinnon had until then used as a personal airplane, were sold at auction in Oregon on January 3, 1972.

So, we're either looking at Kessler acquiring one of the eight or so turboprop conversions that had been made up to then from a previous buyer or him finding someone else to perform a functionally identical conversion as the McKinnon one. Of course, it's not implausible that Kessler bought it from Peyton Hawes in 1977 or so, as in real life, he did sell it before 1980.

Yeah, you know, I think I'll declare it so. Kessler buys N558 in 1977 or thereabouts.

Bonus points for all four of my grandparents actually having flown on that actual plane...

Well, technically, the N780 (which despite being type registered as a G21G and referred to as a McKinnon Goose, was actually neither) had the most powerful engines. Modified by the Fish and Wildlife Service to match the many aspects of the McKinnon conversion, it had two Garrett/Honeywell TPE331 engines (715-shp) instead of the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-27 engines (680-shp). It should have been type certified as a G21F, but the FWS actually told the FAA that it was a G21G and nobody bothered to check up on it for the entire service life of the aircraft.

However, the N780 was, in reality, not declared surplus to requirements until 1992 and thus Kessler could not have obtained it any earlier than that. As he as looking for a 'Turbo Goose' in the latter part of the 70s, he'd have had to look elsewhere than with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The History of the Aleutian Goose, Part 1
The History of the Aleutian Goose, Part 2
The History of the Aleutian Goose, Part 3

Whether Kessler, for sentimental reasons or practical ones, decided to add yet another Goose to his fleet at some point in 1992-2011, however, is an open question. Kessler would have known of it, as it was owned by Texans from 1998, and its last owner was even part of the Commemorative Air Force in Texas, which I had already decided is an organization which Kessler belongs to, supports and uses as cover for some of his more anachronistic aircraft. As the 'Aleutian Goose' went down in the UAE in 2011 in real life (carrying its last owner and three others), it seems like it would be a nice gesture for our fictional billionaire to rescue the old girl before it came to that untimely end and perhaps use it for an entirely different kind of 'wildlife management'.

In that case, Kessler was certainly certified to fly Angélique and Dominique both, at least in the 70s and 80s. As he's literally a hundred years old in 2018, it's possible that he has not maintained currency, which I understand he'd have to do biannually.

If he had, it would make him the oldest licensed pilot in the US (by two years), which seems undesirable.

Mounting Weapons to Old Warbirds
 

Something tells me that US and Caribbean laws, as well as FAA regulations, probably prohibit mounting rifles or machine guns to turrets of WWII aircraft, even if you may legally own the weapons.

I must confess, though, that I don't exactly know the state of the law on the matter.

Does anyone know what the rules are for flying WWII vintage aircraft with their period accurate defensive armaments, assuming you happen to own registered machine guns of WWII vintage as well?

My guess is that FAA regulations require a pretty comprehensive listing of what parts constitute the aircraft and you most likely would get funny looks and polite refusals if you tried to include two .30 cal and two .50 cal Browning machine guns.

But I figure I better have good answers for my PCs, because if I feature a WWII warplane for them to use, they'll want to know what obstacles exist in the way of them arming it...

Edit: Apparently you can mount the guns, as this guy did, but the FAA takes a real dim view of civilian aircraft leaving the ground with anything designed to drop from it (e.g. cartridge cases) without the appropriate waivers. Which they are somewhat reluctant to grant for warbirds armed with machine guns.

Re: Mounting Weapons to Old Warbirds
 

Well, if the guns are inboard, like a Catalina's (for example), the shell casing s will stay in the aircraft. Just to make sure you might have to mount a collection bag or chute on the gun, which would undoubtedly be a minor annoyance when using the gun.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Falling shell casings from 20,000 feet should be as harmless as fallen coins from a skyscraper and for the same reason (low mass, low sectional density). The linked article does not say that Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco's issue is with falling shell casings though, and knife and firearms regulations are definitely a subject where its wise to consult a lawyer not strangers on the Internet.

Armed Aircraft
 

The ATF has no jurisdiction over aircraft equipment (if the guns are otherwise legal). It's the FAA that has been concerned with the issue. Until October 5, 2018, there was no law that specifically forbade mounting a weapon to a drone, for example, which caused the FAA much heartache when people started doing that.

From reading various Warbird forum discussions on this subject*, I get the feeling that this is an area where legislation is weak and the FAA is using its particular interpretation so that they have something to use to control armed airplanes. No one actually worries about the shell casings being dangerous, it's just an effective legal pretext to regulate a field where adequate legislation doesn't really exist.

That being said, I can find Texas companies selling tours where you shoot at wild hogs from helicopters, with NVDs, and can even use an M60, so for a given value of 'mounting', there is some wiggle room. And, fortunately, I've already established Kessler as being a silent partner in such a company (to explain buying lots of ITAR-controlled NVDs) and even have one part-time PC acting as CEO of the company as his cover job.

I can be pretty sure that the FAA wouldn't like it if the PCs ever armed a historically-correct PBY-5A with real machine guns in place of the mock-ups, but assuming that the weapons were only used for 'self-defence', the legal grey areas involved allow for their billionaire Patron possibly preventing them from going to prison.

Still, best not to get into a multi-year legal battle with the federal government if it can be avoided.

*Blank-adapted machine guns are still legally machine guns, so this happens more often than you'd think, for movies and air shows. It's far from impossible to get the waiver, but it's not general-purpose, it seems to be state-specific and might even be more specific than that. Specifically, this would be the FAA 'Restricted' category (which I believe is a sub-category of the 'Experimental' aircraft category, which all Warbirds fall under): "Operation of restricted category aircraft is limited to special purposes identified in the applicable type design." Hollywood and some influential or persistent pilots that show off Warbirds at air shows do get these, but it's subject to an FAA inspector approving the specific set-up.

Re: Armed Aircraft
 

Note that if they only mount the weapon when outside the US, the FAA has no jurisdiction anyway. On the other hand, if they fly round international waters so armed, and then go and annoy some FAA (or other law enforcement) official, they might find themselves labelled 'pirates' and locked up. Getting permission to have guns mounted in the Antilles in general will be a nightmare, given how many different countries' hold territory there.

PBY Catalina
 

Assuming that Kessler has access to a Short S.25 Sandringham*, what, if anything, would be the utility of a Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina aircraft for him?

The Sandringham has a faster cruising speed than the PBY-5A and both have enough range to fly directly between the island of Dominica and Galveston. Of course, both also cruise slowly enough so that this would take forever, around 14 hours for the Sandringham and around 20 hours for the Catalina.

Are there any tasks which Kessler might need which the PBY-5A will handle better than the Sandringham?

Does the Catalina require less upkeep or can it operate with less infrastructure?

How about operating in poor weather conditions? Would the Catalina be in any way superior for that?

I understand the Sandringham is not economical for passenger service even in the 1980s, let alone the 2010s, and I very much doubt that the PBY-5A is competitive with modern airliners either. The only reason to use these ancient aircraft for transport would be because you are transporting magicians or supernatural beings/objects that either refuse to get on a proper TL7 aircraft, let alone TL8 designs, or genuinely could pose a risk if they did (because they'd reduce the Malf. of most technological devices aboard, including, in a more modern aircraft, computer chips that are necessary for the engines to function).

With that being said, if Kessler opted to own a PBY-5A Catalina instead of or in addition to a Sandringham, what should he do with it?

I can see two fun things he might do. One would be to keep it as close to the historical WWII configuration as legally possible and exhibit it at the Lone Star Flight Museum and/or as part of the Texas Wing of the Commemorative Air Force.

The second would be to spend quite a lot of money (at least $2 million in addition to buying the plane) to replicate the feel of a Landseaire luxury Flying Yacht.

Which sounds more interesting and more likely to find the PCs aboard the aircraft at some point?

*He could buy a Sandringham 4 or Sandringham 5, according to preference, from the estate of the defunct airline Antilles Air Boats, in 1981. The price would likely be very reasonable, given that in real life, they were sold to enthusiasts that apparently had no thought of profiting from them and ended up in a museum and private collection, respectively.

Re: PBY Catalina
 

I doubt it would in be better for much of anything, except where the Short is too big (and then you'd use a Goose or Otter or some such) unless a large amphibious flying boat was needed. I just mentioned it because it has those big, obvious gun blisters.

The thing about the Sandringham is that it's spacious enough that lots of kit can be carried (it's weight, not bulk limited), and it could be fitted out with bunks and kitchen facilities allowing both very long flights in some comfort and using it as a base when exploring remote locations. On the other hand, having one of those things pull up to the island you've put your secret cultists' temple on is going to be a fairly unmissable event, as they are not at all subtle (though neither is a Catalina).

Re: PBY Catalina
 

Yep.

I'd think that formally getting permission was far too difficult. Now, having law enforcement on Dominica and St. Lucia tacitly agree not to make trouble is another matter...

In the continental United States, owning and operating vintage WWII 'Warbirds' is a pretty accepted hobby for well-off enthusiasts, complete with air shows and a thriving subculture around it.

I wonder if there would be any interest in that sort of thing in the Caribbean?

For example, if Kessler acquired and refurbished a PBY-5A Catalina that was once a part of VP-92, stationed in the Antilles or some other part of the Caribbean, could he plausibly have a local equivalent to the Commemorative Air Force?

How about on Puerto Rico, which is under US authority, but culturally distinct from most of CONUS?

So, to you, the Catalina would be more interesting in its wartime configuration than in the classy-as-copulation Landseaire Golden Age of Travel luxury get-up?

If you need subtle and don't mind slow, you probably want to use a mid-sized yacht as your base.

The Sandringham is pretty good for Kessler's purposes in that it can take a whole team of 'Night Riders' (Monster Hunters) from the US to a Caribbean island (or vice versa) in about half a day (rather than 4+ days on a fast yacht) while still being anachronistic enough so that there is some chance that he might get those of his men who are magicians (e.g. the PCs) to step foot on it.

It can deliver the team somewhere close to the target destination, without actually being at it, and maybe rendezvous with a boat or small yacht that has been locally chartered (or that Kessler happened to have access to nearby).

I imagine that outside of situations where Kessler needs to get 12+ guys with serious occult leanings between the Antilles and the Gulf Coast relatively quickly, the Sandringham spends its time being pampered in a hangar and probably being displayed alongside some Grumman Geese as a living history exhibit, dedicated to aviation in the Antilles.

Hell, let's say Kessler bought more than just the planes from the estate of Antilles Air Boats. He can have bought the livery and rights too, to use as cover, and because he is genuinely interested in the history of seaplanes in the Caribbean. So he can operate Antilles Air Boats (having bought four Grumman Geese and one Sandringham) as a fairly exclusive, reservations required, living history museum, mostly kept on St. Lucia and Dominica, but visiting other Antillean destinations periodically.

It will lose money, obviously, but it's not all that implausible an endeavour for a billionaire who has had a home on these islands since the airline actually was in operation. Especially given that real people have tried to do this (but not being billionaires, are still stuck at the fund-raising stage).

Edit: This reveals a pretty obvious role for a PBY-5A Catalina even if Kessler also owns a Short S.25 Sandringham. The Sandringham is stored on the islands in the Antilles where Kessler has retreats and many allies living locally while the Catalina lives in Galveston/Houston. So if necessary, occultists in his employ can always travel between them in less than 24 hours, without needing to wait to be picked up.

Re: PBY Catalina
 

Conveniently, both aircraft have been run on the R-1830 Twin Wasp (sfc 0.49 lb/(hp•h)) at 1200hp, so that makes the calculation easier; each engine burns about 588lb of fuel per hour. But the Sandringham has two more engines, so it's burning an extra 1176lb every hour.

The Sandringham's faster cruise speed compensates a bit; the Sandringham is burning 1335lb of fuel per 100 miles while the Cat gets away with 941.

The Sandringham also has a higher wing load (35.6 vs 25.3 lb/ft²) – so slightly lower manoeuvreability, slightly higher stall speed, slightly longer takeoff and landing runs. In a tactical context that may make a difference.

Moving away from hard data, Cats have a reputation for solidity and reliability whereas the various Short flying-boats don't; on the other hand in the real world there are three surviving Sandringhams out of 51, none flyable but that's about 6%, versus 80 surviving Cats including 20 flyable out of 3305, about 2.5%.

(And of course if you want spare parts for a Cat now it has the advantage that there are 19 other flying Cats out there and that's enough to make it worth someone's while to build them.)

Re: PBY Catalina
 

They're both cool. I do like the use of the nacelles as drinking/snuggling nooks with a view.
So the PCs that aren't tech level-limited wizards will be 'enjoying' a 8+ hour trip in an an old flying boat, only to transfer to another old flying boat for another 8-12 journey... Well, it'll have them pining for a ride in a nice 'modern' TL-7 jet transport (the Il-76), at least (those things aren't internally quiet in their standard configuration either).

Re: PBY Catalina
 

Those are good points.

I was already convinced that it was plausible enough that Kessler could own both a Sandringham and a Catalina, so this just reinforces that.

If a PBY-5A Catalina is maintained as close to the historical WWII look, how many passengers can it carry?

By which I mean that if it appeared externally the same and didn't mount anything that couldn't be removed fairly easily, how many people could travel by the aircraft (instead of bombs and other cargo)?

Re: PBY Catalina
 

The Sunderlands seemed to be pretty reliable and quite robust. As for their take-off runs, on a dead clam day sometimes they needed someone to take a motor boat out and make some wake to allow them to unstick. Other times 'maximum takeoff weight' was just a guideline if you had a long enough run available.

Re: PBY Catalina
 

I know, right!

Hmm... back in the early 1980s, Kessler didn't have any kind of urgent mission to spend his wealth on (not having yet found about the supernatural), so maybe he set out to replicate a Landseaire luxury flying yacht at that time just for fun. It is very much in character, not to mention that in the early 50s he's likely to have heard about these things, wanted one, but not been rich enough for it at that time.

Actually, out of three 'full-time' PCs and two 'part-time', everyone has some kind of magical ability or gift. It's been established that at least one player is adamantly opposed to having his PC fly and two others have so far not done so (but then, there has been no pressing reason to do so yet). Only one part-time PC has been on an airplane in the past year and it's probably not a coincidence that that is the character whose background is the most 'mundane' (a USMC Recon officer).

Basically, the non-magic using 'Night Riders' (Monster Hunters) who are former special operators or the like are NPCs, with the PCs filling the occult expert roles.

Granted, the PCs exist in a continuum of tech-trouble, with some of them still managing to live a TL8 life (which still tends to involve being on a first-name basis with a lot of tech support guys) and others, e.g. 'Nonc' Morel, essentially living a TL5 existence (he lives in a cabin without electricity in the Atchafalaya Basin).

Still, barring the one exception, all of the players seem to have taken my warning that their tech-trouble could also add to the Malf. of devices around them... such as on airplanes, as a hard bar to them flying at all.

That being said, if and when the PCs and their allies need to make a quick trip covering hundreds or thousands of miles, they'll probably be offered a choice of a) modern helicopter + charter jet (if the hurry justifies it), b) Commercial flight, c) Il-76 (late TL7) or d) A museum piece kept by Kessler, like a C-47 Dakota, Short S.25 Sandringham or PBY-5A Catalina.

Even if they have to take a private flight in order to be able to take various gear that can only pass customs inspection if it goes through a private airport or docking facilities where Kessler has a lot of influence, the mundane members of the 'Night Rider' team will still probably have the option of flying to the nearest airport to the destination in a modern jet and then pick up their anachronistic occult experts by the time they finally arrive in the WWII plane.

Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
 

Assuming that a team of 'Night Riders' was established in 2011 in Florida, based around the Gainesville campus of the University of Florida, what would be good transportation options for them?

We're talking 4-6 full-time members, with a rotating cast of experts and support staff, but it will be very rare that they'll deploy with more than eight people, as they'll usually meet a local expert and any support network on site.

The Florida 'Night Rider' team are responsible for all of Florida and might have to travel to Georgia and the Carolinas. In addition, they might be asked to provide Spanish-speaking support for expeditions to Cuba, the Dominican Republic or similar.

One trip that I can see them taking quite often might be from Gainesville to Polk City, where they have access to a Be-12 aircraft that can take them to Caribbean destinations if needed. On the other hand, if that's an unnecessary complication, they can just fly a less noteworthy plane from Gainesville directly to whereever they are going.

There are also offices of people with whom they work in Fort Lauderdale, so they visit there fairly often, and Kessler has a compound in Key West where they might deploy by yacht or other transport, but they'd have to have a way to get from Gainesville to Key West pretty quick.

None of the full-time members of the team are ritual magicians, but they might work from time to time with consulting specialists who have some magical abilities. All the same, it's not necessary for them to be so anachronistic as to use only WWII vintage transport. Just avoiding stuff that will go down immediately if a computer chip stops working should be fine (so, late TL7 to the first half of TL8 might be okay, especially if it's robust and simple designs).

Gainesville to Polk City is 116 miles by road (ca 106 mile straight line), so fast cars might do for that, but if they're already using a private plane or helicopter for longer trips, they might be able to use it for emergencies.
Gainesville to Fort Lauderdale is 277 miles in a direct line.
Gainesville to Key West is 352 miles in a straight line.

So, couple of questions:

Assuming they are flying from the Gainesville Regional Airport, would they want a helicopter or a private plane?

If a helicopter, what is the best bang for the buck for this role?

If a private plane, same question?

Kessler is fine spending some millions of dollars on their logistics (they are, ofter all, about 20% of his 'Night Rider' complement), but the money should be spent relatively shrewdly and without undue waste. If nothing else, the magicians around Kessler contribute to enough waste in the form of complex logistical requirements so it's best to avoid it for more mundane folk.

Edit: On the subject of helicopters, it's already been established that companies Kessler controls own at least one Mil Mi-8/Mi-17 Hip (obtained shortly after 1990) and a couple of Alouette III helicopters (bought in the 1980s). These have to be based somewhere, so it's not implausible that one of them could be devoted to the Florida team. Would they want a private plane as well, given that the Alouette III is not particularly fast?

Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
 

As a pedantic note, unless they've opened a secondary campus since I wnet there, Gainesville is the only campus of the Unversity of Florida. It's not like California where you have U of C:Los Angeles, U of C: San Diego etc. Other major (and even not-so-major) Universities in Florida are separate entities.

You might as well say you're based in Gainesville. UF was a diverse entity with degree programs including a Masters in Ornamnetal Horticlture but there was no covert supernatural commando team during my time there. Or at least not in the catalog.

For secrete tansportation you want a Cessna 172, simple reliable and common to the point of invisibility. There will be very few palces within it's range where you can't land quite close to your destination. For example: where I live now was 3 hours by road to Gainesville but there's an "air park" close enough to my house that I'd hear you coming in for a landing. If you have knowledge of the mostly abandoned strips used by the drug trade there are even fewer limits than that. If the single-engined 172 is ust too small a Beechcraft twin engine would be alsmot as invisible.

Most of the aircraft you've been talking about would be extremely conspicuous unless there was an air show nearby. Flying over KSC or Patrick Air Base in an ex-Soviet aircraft might be a particularly bad idea. Patrick _does_ have a commando team or two handy. Spooky too, it's the home field for USAF special ops.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

An-2s are quite popular with sky-diving companies and clubs, so if there are any in the area that shouldn't stand out too much.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Somewhere maybe but I've never seen one around here.

Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
 

By now, there are satellite campuses in Jacksonville and Orlando, as well as elsewhere, I think. But you're right, just saying University of Florida conveys Gainesville.

The 'Night Rider' team consists mainly of former US military or even current Reserve or National Guard service people, with at least one of them belonging to the Florida battalion of the 20th Special Forces Group.

They're based around Gainesville because several of the experts that support it are faculty staff or graduate students at UF and several operators of the team have been graduate students there as well, including the team leader 2015-2017.

When researching for NPC background, I found that UF has a reputation for providing good support for active duty military members who want to obtain a degree while serving, so Gerardo 'Lalo' Calderon studied there while serving as a Navy SEAL and after retiring from the teams, became a full-time graduate student there. As he was studying anthropology, he was able to combine his studies with investigating the occult and hunting monsters.

Ah, that's a great suggestion!

Even if they also have access to a helicopter, the operational costs of the Aloutte III are high enough so that if they can use the Cessna for twenty hours in preference to the helicopter, it will pay for itself. Not to mention the anonymity, which is extremely vital for this particular team, as they are operating on US territory, without the kind of friendly law enforcement that Kessler can arrange in Galveston.*

*Not that Kessler doesn't try to cultivate good relations with authorities in Florida, but we're talking about only a couple of million a year in consulting fees to influential locals, charitable donations, community relations and other strategic investments designed to spread influence. That buys some goodwill, but nothing like what many times that buys in the much smaller geographic area around Galveston or on Dominica and St. Lucia.

We wouldn't want to be conspicuous, no.

The Cessna 172 is great because of how anonymous it is, but only being able to carry three passengers is a bit limiting.

The Beechcraft G36 Bonanza is also pretty common, doesn't actually cost any more to run and while more expensive to buy, is still easily within a reasonable budget for the Florida team. Maybe it would be better to buy a used older model, like an A36, as long as it can fit six seats and has enough range to reach Key West at a reasonable pace.

I'll have a Beechcraft Bonanza of whatever model is most appropriate bought by a shell company owned by the pilot, established as a fly-by-night charter operation, with any links to Kessler carefully concealed. The pilot will be a USAF reservist who was active duty at some point prior to 2011. I'll need to name him and come up with a more detailed background, so if anyone would like to have their (or somebody else's) name, biographical details or other identifying characteristics fictionalized for an intrepid pilot NPC, by all means speak out.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

I should think that people living around the Fantasy of Flight, Polk City, should be pretty used to exotic airplanes flying around.

And there is actually an An-2 there in real life, along with some 139 other aircraft.

Edit: I found out why An-2s aren't used by sky-diving companies in the US. It's because the FAA will only certify them as Experimental aircraft there, which prohibits 'for hire' operation.

They apparently climb slowly and guzzle fuel and oil (which makes them more expensive to operate than more efficient and modern craft, at ca $400 an hour vs. maybe $200 for the Beechcraft Bonanza), but the fact you can buy at least three An-2s for the price of a cheap Cessna 172 and eight or more An-2 for the price of the Beechcraft Bonanza goes a long way toward making up for that inefficiency. Also, the An-2 is allegedly super easy to maintain.

Basically, for an aircraft meant to make money through heavy use, you want an efficient Western design, but for an airplane that spends most of its time on standby rather than flight operations, the An-2 is perfectly adequate and a much cheaper alternative. But Kessler is going to have to register his An-2s in Caribbean nations where they can legally be used as charter planes and use aircraft that can get FAA certification as other than 'Experimental' for clandestine operations in the US.

Happily, however, France certifies An-2 aircraft for commercial use, meaning that Kessler can establish charter companies with no obvious connection to him on the Antillean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique that can operate his An-2 floatplanes.

Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
 

I looked that up but those are facilities run by one of the University's "College of Medicine" and not really satelite campuses of UF as a whole. Other states have Universities with satelite campuses but Florida's model doesn't work that way.

It's probably finer detail than your players will ever need.

Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
 

True.

Quite likely, but it's not more detail than I need.

I like to know where NPCs have lived, how they're potentially connected to other NPCs, etc. That makes it pretty useful to know where they went to school, what they studied and where they stayed during.

So if an NPC who in 2018 is on the Penemue team of 'Night Riders' with the PCs took classes in Materials Science and Engineering at UF while he was serving in the Navy and then became a full-time graduate student at the University of Florida after he got out of the service (Caribbean Studies Specialization in the Master of Arts in Latin American Studies and then a PhD program in Anthropology), I know that he was living in Gainesville at the time.

From that fact and a couple of other NPCs with connections to UF I get that the Florida 'Night Rider' team should probably be based around Gainesville, as that's a central place in Florida and at least a third of the people on the team need to live there anyway, to attend the university, do research and/or lecture.

It's... I guess, world-building for its own sake, but that's fun to me.

Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
 

At least the way the campus map was oriented when I attended the Engineering stuff would have been up in the north-east quadrant across from the bookstore but not all the way to the athletic dorms or the law school. The later things would probably have been under the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and clustered in the south-east quadrant where 13th Street and University Avenue crossed.

That intersection pretty much marked the heart of G'ville with UF filling one quadrant and the heart of old downtown going down those 2 streets. The later the development was the farther out from there it was.

There were only about 7000 beds worth of dormitories in the late 70s so most of the student body had to live off-campus with a significant amount of off-campus housing just across from those 2 streets mixed in msotly with places to eat but newer apartments complexes a good bit farther out.

One of those 2 streets and I think it was 13th was just the local re-naming of State Road 441. That's mentioned in the Tom Petty song "American Girl" where "you could hear the cars roll by on 441 like waves crashing on the beach". That's one of the things that would tell you he was from G'ville.

Oh dear, I'm afraid i could go like this for a while but my info is 40 years old now and probably quite dated.

Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
 

Polish-built models can be used for commercial purposes, as there's a reciprocal certification agreement in place with Poland (and it doesn't apply to non-Polish ones, even if they are identical), and apparently recently the issue with Russian made ones was (at least somewhat) cleared up. The big limitation of 'experimental' certification for Kessler would be that planes so certified aren't allowed far from their airfield of registration.

Apparently they empty their oil tank at about the same time as they empty their fuel tank, making it 'easy' to remember when to top up the oil. While they climb slowly and fly slowly, they also don't really have a stall speed, so much as have a point where they refuse to hold altitude and start losing altitude (fast enough you don't want to land that way, but slow enough that you'll be able to walk away). In a strong wind they can just about take off standing still, which makes landing in strong cross-winds 'interesting'.

Standard Soviet design in that respect - easy to maintain, doesn't take sophisticated skills or equipment to maintain, but maintenance hours per hour of flight are poor.

An-2
 

Yes, I saw that. Unfortunately, I also found that in the early 90s, the Polish manufacturer was selling new An-2s at an order of magnitude more than what you could buy a Russian-made one for from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.

So, at least for the first two that Kessler obtained, they are not Polish-made. Which is fine, though, because as noted upthread, they don't need to be, given that Kessler has a need for aircraft based at Guadeloupe and Martinique, and France really does type certify Russian-made An-2s for normal commercial operations.

If, during the procese of assigning aircraft to home bases throughout Kessler's operations, I discover a need for more short-range transport aircraft, I'll certainly consider having Kessler add Polish An-2s, weighing their pros and cons versus a more conventional Western design for the purpose.

This all sounds amazing, strength and weaknesses both, from a GMing perspective. Also, from a practical perspective, very few aerial craft can transport a twelve man team and deliver them pretty much anywhere (even being noted as a popular parachuting platform) as easily and relatively affordably.

Indeed. Also, it takes a long-time to pre-flight, which is certainly a negative, albeit not one that precludes the use which the two on Gadeloupe and Martinique will be put.

Reply in 'Study of Folklore and Magic in Texas and the Gulf Coast'
 

Fred, I replied in the Study of Folklore and Magic in Texas and the Gulf Coast thread (specifically this post), as that's more appropriate for discussions of how the University of Florida fits into the background of people around Kessler.

Continued discussion of the logistics of transporting academics, investigators, monster hunters, paramilitary security, scientists and support personnel around the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean is very welcomed.

Re: An-2
 

I liked the bit where it was noted by one pilot that after you'd done your pre-flight, and turned the engine over a few times, you had a 5-10 minute wait for the oil to flow through the engine properly, so that was when you went in and logged your flight plan with the tower. They also noted that if you took too long, all the oil would have flowed into the bottom cylinders, and if you started the engine you'd bend all the valves and the engine would have to be torn apart and rebuilt. As the cure was to drain the engine, re-oil it and start over, I expect An-2 pilots to not tarry to chat with people in the tower when filing their plight plans.

For people who might need to leave a beach in a hurry, this means you give the pilot a departure window no more than 15 minutes wide and make damned sure you're there, or you accept that final pre-flight will take 10 minutes and you give that much warning of your impending arrival.

I also expect that these sorts of foibles were common to aircraft of the similar or older vintage, as most of them stem from using simple equipment with basic designs dating from WWII or earlier.

Re: An-2
 

That all sounds very conductive to fun adventure situations.

Yeah.

TL6 aircraft are, obviously, less capable and convenient than TL7 and TL8 ones. On the other hand, given that some powerful magicians or paranormal phenomena can reduce the Malf. of late TL8 devices by 4, earlier TL8 by 2-3 and late TL7 devices by 1, it can be worthwhile in certain situations to put up with the less user-friendly TL6 or early TL7 aircraft.

The fact that at least one PC is a powerful enough magician to impose this penalty, as well as another PC having aspected Unluckiness around technological devices of at least early TL8, means that the PCs will make much more use of anachronistic transport than most other people in the setting.