MrWidgeon wrote:Actually there are 3 Gooses there.
The first and forth are N70AL (c/n B-125 McK. s/n 1226),the second, third and last are N77AQ (c/n B-62 McK. s/n 1205) and the 2 Blue Gooses are the same airplane, N600SE (cn B-123 McK. s/n 1201) is the new registration.
NONE of them are new build Antilles airplanes, all were converted by McKinnon back in the 1960s and early 70s.
Antilles hasn't finished their first Goose yet that I know of and as far as I know it will be a piston powered airplane.
(They will be offering both versions though)
The two photos of the blue and yellow turbine Goose are indeed the very same aircraft. The "N600SE" registration is fake and "photo-shopped" - I know because I'm the one who did it. (I actually used Microsoft's very basic Paint program!) That turbine Goose is really N640. The registration "N600SE" belongs to a 1984 Thorp T-18 homebuilt in Arizona. We do like the way it looks on a Goose however and we may have to make that T-18 owner an "offer he can't refuse."
More importantly, although N640 is currently registered as "McKinnon G-21G s/n 1201", it is NOT a "McKinnon" G-21G and it is NOT serial no. "1201". McKinnon did not "build" it or ever re-certify it under his TC (4A24). He simply
modified it in 1967 for the Bureau of Land Management in Alaska using many of his STC's (including SA1589WE to install PT6A-20 turbines.) From 1967 until 2001, it remained formally identified and registered as "Grumman G-21A s/n B-123" albeit with the added notation "Turboprop" on all of its official documentation.
In 2001, the guy who bought it in 1996 as a surplus stripped-out hulk from the Alaska Dept of Public Safety wrote a letter to the FAA and declared that N640 "Grumman G-21A s/n B-123" had been "disassembled and scrapped". He then wrote a second letter (on the very same day) claiming to have built a "new" model G-21G aircraft from "spare parts" and asking to have the registration of "N640" transferred to that "new" aircraft. He then registered the "new" N640 as if it actually had been built by McKinnon, listing "McKinnon Enterprises" as the "assembler" instead of himself on a 14 CFR 47.33(d) affidavit and as "manufacturer" on the registration application. He also chose to use an invalid (i.e an
already previously used) serial number (1201) for the airplane that he claimed to have built from spare parts.
BTW: "
Scrap" parts are not the same thing as "
spare" parts and the regs for home or amateur-built copies of certified designs require the use of a serial number that specifically
cannot be confused with a factory-issued serial number. That is why most homebuilts have serial numbers in the format of the builder's initials with a sequence number (usually just "-01") added to them. In this case, instead of using "LT-01" for example, it seems that "1201" was chosen specifically in order to be confused with a previously issued but "retired" McKinnon factory-issued serial number.
It wasn't and isn't McKinnon serial number "1201" because that was the first G-21C (with four 340 hp Lycoming GSO-480 engines) built in 1958 and registered as N150M. McKinnon G-21C s/n 1201 completely ceased to exist as such in June 1960 because N150M was further modified to become the first and only McKinnon model G-21D and as such it was re-issued another new McKinnon serial number (1251) at that time. FYI: prior to its initial conversion by McKinnon, it had been Grumman JRF-6B s/n 1147 and it had been operated by the Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska as N709.
N640 as it is illustrated here therefore is NOT a McKinnon G-21G, but rather it is either still just a 9,200 lb. Grumman G-21A Turboprop or it is a 12,500 lb. amateur-built "Teufel" copy of a G-21G. Either way, all of the historical evidence is crystal clear (including the official "airworthiness" and "registration" records archived by the FAA Aircraft Registration Branch in Oklahoma City.) N640 was NOT built by McKinnon under TC 4A24 and should NOT be registered as such.
Finally, since I have talked to Bill (Mr. Widgeon) many times in the past year, I probably have already corrected him about one other thing; for the benefit of the rest of you, Antilles does not own the TC (654) for the original Grumman G-21A series Goose and has no rights much less plans to build piston versions of the Goose. All of the focus is on producing brand new 680 shp PT6A-powered Antilles G-21G
Super Gooses.