Albatross and Giant Albatross stats

[Icelander]

In a fantasy setting, my PCs acquired the services of an eccentric character by the name of Spike McGurk and his Flotilla of DEATH*. This consist of three long flush-decked boats/barges crewed by thirty tasloi** each and carrying 20 gooney birds / albatrosses.

It's been established that these are extremely strong giant albatrosses that can, with great difficulty, take off with a running start carrying a load of up to 100 lbs. This, however, makes them clumsy and awkward in flight and landings with that load are flat-out hazardous.

This means either that the albatrosses have ST 13 and can fly at Medium Encumbrance or that they have ST 8 and can fly at Heavy. I think the latter is preferable, but I worry that flying at Heavy encumbrance may be less realistic than super-strong birds.

I'd like to get a better idea of the stats of real albatrosses before statting these fantasy ones more fully.

What is the ST of a real albatross of a given weight and wingspan? Say a big one weighing 25 lbs.?

Can real birds fly at Light encumbrance or heavier?

How smart are albatrosses?

How maneuverable in flight and how do I represent that in GURPS?

*DEATH is always pronounced with maximum emphasis, ideally followed by a dramatic pause.
**Slender, goblin-like beings less than 3' tall and weighing around 30 lbs.

[Purple Haze]

Ah Tasloi, fond memories of Dwellers of the Forbidden City.

Chicks take a long time to fledge and the parents return from their foraging expeditions carrying 12% of their body mass. While they could probaly carry more breifly you are talking about some monstrous birds.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

Ah Tasloi, fond memories of Dwellers of the Forbidden City.

These are rather less sociopathic than usual Tasloi, being curious, fairly friendly and social, rather than xenophobic man-eating monsters. They've lived in isolation for fairly long, with no humanoid prey, and developed ritual contests of athleticism in place of inter-tribal war.

They still take gleefully to aerial warfare and raining rocks down on Big 'Uns, now that they're back in contact with the outer world. The PCs are probably setting their culture back centuries by bringing war back into their lives. :)

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

Chicks take a long time to fledge and the parents return from their foraging expeditions carrying 12% of their body mass. While they could probaly carry more breifly you are talking about some monstrous birds.

Of course they are monstrous! They lived on a lost island in a sea where some islands are portals to other worlds or lost periods of time.

I fully expect they will be stronger than any real birds. I just want them to be superior to normal birds in a fairly plausible way, i.e. not make them live and breathe magic quite as much as dragons, who couldn't even breathe without it.

I'm prepared to accept unusual muscular adaptations to background magical radiation, leading to them being stronger for their weight than they've any right to be, but I'd prefer if they were at least within nodding distance of reality.

Their wingspans are listed as being 12' in the source I stole them from, which is as much as the largest albatrosses in the real world, and it's possible to take that as a minimum.

Combine that with being maybe twice as strong for their weight...

I'm still an order of magnitude short.

On the other hand, what birds willingly carry and how much they could carry offers me some wiggle room. And these birds do take off from a ramp and are slow and clumsy in flight, so clearly they are carrying more than Earth birds like to carry.

[Dalillama]

Real life Harpy Eagles weighing ~20 lbs are known to snatch 20 lb sloths and monkeys straight off of branches without stopping.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Real life Harpy Eagles weighing ~20 lbs are known to snatch 20 lb sloths and monkeys straight off of branches without stopping.

Nice! That sounds like something that could help me.

Do you know how long they can fly with one?

[Dalillama]

This video seems to show it flying a considerable distance, but I don't know the specifics.