02-05-2020, 10:19 AM | #71 | ||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
Quote:
Quote:
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. Quote:
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. Quote:
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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-05-2020 at 12:25 PM. |
||||
02-05-2020, 11:30 AM | #72 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
Quote:
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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-05-2020 at 06:17 PM. |
|
02-05-2020, 01:00 PM | #73 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
|
Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
Quote:
It's probably finer detail than your players will ever need.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
|
02-05-2020, 01:46 PM | #74 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
Quote:
Quote:
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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-05-2020 at 06:15 PM. |
||
02-05-2020, 06:17 PM | #75 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
|
Re: Getting Around Florida Quickly and Discreetly
Quote:
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.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
|
02-05-2020, 08:00 PM | #76 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
|
Re: Seaplanes or Amphibious Aircraft for Caribbean Adventuring and Logistics
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
|||
02-06-2020, 05:57 AM | #77 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
An-2
Quote:
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. Quote:
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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
||
02-06-2020, 07:18 AM | #78 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
Reply in 'Study of Folklore and Magic in Texas and the Gulf Coast'
Quote:
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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
|
02-06-2020, 08:37 AM | #79 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
|
Re: An-2
Quote:
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.
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
|
02-06-2020, 11:02 AM | #80 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
Re: An-2
Quote:
Quote:
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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
||
Tags |
aircraft, caribbean, monster hunters, seaplane, vile vortices |
|
|