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Old 02-02-2020, 09:27 AM   #42
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
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.
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.
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Last edited by Icelander; 02-02-2020 at 09:46 AM.
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