Photo: Platinum Fighter Sales
If you're used to how quickly cars and trucks get flipped on the used online market, you'll be surprised to know that the realm of used aircraft is quite the opposite. Vintage aircraft often spend years, sometimes even decades, strung up in hangars across the globe, waiting for someone to come along with enough cash to put it back in service. That's why this 1968 Grumman G-21 Goose flying boat is such a welcome sight.
Apart from being a new face on a Trade-a-Plane website that almost never gets new entries, it seems, this Grumman Goose is special because it's had the aeronautical equivalent of an LS swap performed on it. That's right, this Grumman's rocking twin turboprop engines instead of the standard radials. But for those not familiar with the Grumman Goose, a bit of a backstory. You might recognize the Grumman moniker as the latter half of the modern Northrop Grumman conglomerate. But others might conjure images of their iconic line of Navy fighters like the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, and the Top Gun star F-14 Tomcat.
But outside of iconic movie star fighter planes, Grumman's nautical theme extended into their other work. Their line of utility flying boats and sea-borne cargo aircraft, which started with the G-21 Goose in 1937 and was joined by the G-44 Wigeon and G-73 Mallard, was one of Grumman's less-appreciated aeronautical achievements. In their day, the G-21 served as a utility aircraft for the US Navy and the British Royal Air Force, with Australia, Canada, Cuba, France, Portugal, Sweden, and even Brazil during World War II.
After the war, handfuls of G-21s were retrofitted for civilian use; their cargo holds repurposed with economy-class airline seats for passengers to fly on. An even smaller handful had their Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior nine-cylinder radial engines swapped for something considerably more powerful. McKinnon Enterprises obtained this particular example in 1968, and it promptly replaced the old radials with a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turbine engines that might as well be the LS motor of the sky. More light-to-medium utility aircraft utilize the PT6 than just about any other engine in the world.
Depending on the configuration, these engines make anywhere from 580 to touching the brink of 2,000 shaft-horsepower. Given these are newer-spec PT6A-28 variants, chances are good this Goose is getting close to the high end of that figure. With a fully-trimmed cockpit and passenger compartment, plus a full suite of communication, navigation, and digital instrumentation hardware installed, this is a classic flying boat that you can purchase and fly right out of its hangar to your next yacht party, where you can promptly show everyone up by being the only one there whose yacht can fly.
But outside of iconic movie star fighter planes, Grumman's nautical theme extended into their other work. Their line of utility flying boats and sea-borne cargo aircraft, which started with the G-21 Goose in 1937 and was joined by the G-44 Wigeon and G-73 Mallard, was one of Grumman's less-appreciated aeronautical achievements. In their day, the G-21 served as a utility aircraft for the US Navy and the British Royal Air Force, with Australia, Canada, Cuba, France, Portugal, Sweden, and even Brazil during World War II.
After the war, handfuls of G-21s were retrofitted for civilian use; their cargo holds repurposed with economy-class airline seats for passengers to fly on. An even smaller handful had their Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior nine-cylinder radial engines swapped for something considerably more powerful. McKinnon Enterprises obtained this particular example in 1968, and it promptly replaced the old radials with a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turbine engines that might as well be the LS motor of the sky. More light-to-medium utility aircraft utilize the PT6 than just about any other engine in the world.
Depending on the configuration, these engines make anywhere from 580 to touching the brink of 2,000 shaft-horsepower. Given these are newer-spec PT6A-28 variants, chances are good this Goose is getting close to the high end of that figure. With a fully-trimmed cockpit and passenger compartment, plus a full suite of communication, navigation, and digital instrumentation hardware installed, this is a classic flying boat that you can purchase and fly right out of its hangar to your next yacht party, where you can promptly show everyone up by being the only one there whose yacht can fly.
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