The Flying Boat Forum from www.seawings.co.uk

There have been lots of questions posted on other seaplane sites recently regarding the G-111 version of the Albatross. FYI, here is some relevant and interesting info that was posted elsewhere:

Grumman built 13 examples and all are still registered, but most have been in storage at Marana, AZ for years. Most have also recently been bought up by Marsh Aviation of Mesa, AZ. I'm guessing that they have a new turbine conversion fire bomber project in the works (NOTE: they in fact do; it's called the model G-111AT "Wildfire") It's strange to me that they neglected to snatch up N42MY and Billabong's N121FB. N42MY was the very last G-64/HU-16 that Grumman built (actually as a model UF-2) and its advertised price was recently dropped from $995,000 to only $795,000. Might be that there's some corrosion issues with it. It has been operated in South Florida for quite a while now; I think it went to Mirabella Yachts from Paragon Ranch in Colorado (when it was N26PR) in the early to mid-1990's.

From the TC (A22SO):

Type Certificate Holder:
Amphibian Aircraft International, Inc.
c/o Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, PLLC
199 Liberty Street, SW
Leesburg, Virginia 20175

Type Certificate Holder of record Flying Boat, Inc. transferred (i.e. sold) the type certificate to Amphibian Aircraft International, Inc. on July 1, 2010.

Serial Numbers Eligible:

Under Production Certificate No. 23:
148325
148327
148328*
148329

Under Production Certificate No. 1050:
51-7243
51-7244
51-7249
51-7168
137901
141282
148326
9304
9308

*Life-limited to 8,900 “flight” hours because it retained its original 7075-T6 wing center section spar caps instead of being upgraded to titanium. See NOTE 3.
Now, my question is, did they literally mean “flight time” or should it have been Time in Service? Usually pilots are concerned with logging flight time and aircraft maintenance is governed by TIS.

In any case, that’s a total of 13 aircraft that were converted and re-certified.

Certification Basis:

FAR 21.27, effective February 1, 1965; CAR 4b, effective December 31, 1953, including amendments 1 and 2; FAR 36, effective December 1, 1969, including amendments 1 through 3; and most importantly FAR 25.2 for Transport category operations.

Although it is no longer noted on the current revision to the TC (rev. 7), older versions of the TC (such as rev. 5, dated April 15, 1984) contained the following additional information:

Production Basis:
Production Certificate Number 23 issued to Grumman Aerospace Corp, Stuart, Florida, under licensing agreement, dated 9 March 1978.

Production Certificate Number 1050 issued to Grumman St. Augustine Corp, St. Augustine, Florida, under licensing agreement dated 22 December 1981.

The other thing that is f#$ked up about this TC is that all of the aircraft were identified by their former military serial numbers (a mix of USAF, USN, and USCG serial numbers) which actually changed over time as the aircraft were transferred from one branch of the service to another. They were not (and probably should have been) identified by either their original and theoretically “constant” Grumman civil serial or "construction" numbers - or better yet, since they were officially rebuilt and re-certified under FAR 25, with completely new serial numbers unique to the G-111 series.

Serial No. / Built for/model/service serial no. / Grumman c/n / Registration
148325 / USN UF-2 (148325) contract for JMSDF (9052) / G-460 / N116FB
148327 / USN UF-2 (148327) contract for JMSDF (9054) / G-462 / N115FB*
148328 / USN UF-2 (148328) contract for JMSDF (9055) / G-463 / N112FB
148329 / USN UF-2 (148329) contract for JMSDF (9056) / G-464 / N42MY
51-7243 / USAF SA-16B / USCG HU-16E (7243) / G-331 / N120FB
51-7244 / USAF SA-16B / USCG HU-16E (7244) / G-332 / N113FB*
51-7249 / USAF SA-16B / USCG HU-16E (7249) / G-339 / N121FB
51-7168 / USAF SA-16B / USCG HU-16E* / G-218 / N122FB*
137901 / USN UF-1 (137901) / G-374 / N51ZD
141282 / USN UF-1 (141282) / USCG HU-16E* / G-432 / N125FB*
148326 / USN UF-2 (148326) contract for JMSDF (9053) / G-461 / N117FB*
9304 / RCAF CSR-110 (9304) / G-452 / N118FB
9308 / RCAF CSR-110 (9308) / G-456 / N119FB

*These aircraft are currently (but incorrectly) registered as Grumman models “HU-16E” – while it may be that they each did in fact do service for the USCG as such models, that is technically incorrect; according to FAA TC A22SO, they are correctly identified only as Grumman models G-111.

I just found out that the same "entity" (i.e. Amphibian Aircraft International, Inc.) also bought up another type certificate that covers other Albatrosses. FAA TC no. A33SO covers legacy Grumman HU-16 (A, B, C, D, & E) series Albatrosses and it was bought by AAI just a little over a month after it acquired TC A22SO for the G-111 series. They even have a rudimentary Web site http://www.amphibaircraft.com claiming that they are developing new turboprop versions of both the G-111 and the HU-16.

Seems like it's time to go into full research mode - they have seriously piqued my curiosity and I now want to find out just exactly who is really behind it all. The first clue may be the law firm representing AAI and listed as their official contact on each TC:

Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, PLLC
199 Liberty Street, SW
Leesburg, Virginia 20175

Seems that website hasn't been updated since 2010, I wonder if they're still in business.
Sic 'em Big Dog.

Sounds to good, to be true

This may just serve to further confuse some of the inherently more "confused" folks out there, but another little tidbit of information that I recently came across in my Albatross research is that solely in terms of original Grumman design/model numbers, ALL long-wing (model SA-16B, UF-2, HU-16B, HU-16D, and HU-16E) Albatrosses were G-111's (as opposed to the original short-wing G-64's.)

Of course in terms of formal FAA identifications, only the 13 specific airframes identified above (and on TC A22SO) were officially "certified" as Grumman model G-111 aircraft.

Other specific sub-types of the Albatross carried different Grumman design / model numbers too:

G-191: Albatross for Germany (serials G-444 through G-448)
G-231: Albatross (CSR-110) for Canada (serials G-449 through G-458)
G-234: Albatross for USCG (UF-2G) and Argentina (unknown as of yet whether any of these were actually built as such)
G-251: ASW (SHU-16B) Albatross (serials G-55, G-57, G-58, G-120, G-124, G-149, G-250, and maybe others as well)
G-262: Albatross for Japan (serials G-459 through G-464)