[Icelander]

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.