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Old 01-28-2020, 02:09 PM   #12
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default DHC-3 Otter

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
DHC-3 Otter. Look through the rest of the DHC range for your other needs.
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.
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Last edited by Icelander; 01-28-2020 at 03:26 PM.
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