Lifelong Amphibian | Bob and Kimberly Redner's Turbine Goose 

Why do you love the Goose?

Yes, there was cost.

Some crashed and at least one got converted back to the original radials (R985).

There were only ever 11 turbine Gooses - and only 6 of them were built actually by McKinnon. The "McKinnons" were N150M, his 1960 model G-21D turbine conversion done in 1965-1967, 2 supposed model G-21C turbine conversions done in July 1968, CF-BCI (later to become N660PA) and N642 that were really models G-21E that were built 1 year before that model was officially approved and added to the TC, 1 nominal model G-21E (N121H) built in 1970, and 2 models G-21G built in 1969 (N5558, later to become ZK-ERX and N77AQ) and 1970 (Bob's N70AL.) Then there were 2 Grumman G-21A's converted to turbines using McKinnon STC's (N640, s/n B-123, done actually by McKinnon in 1966-1968 and another one, G-ASXG (s/n 1083, later to be C-FAWH) done in England also in 1967-1968 using McKinnon "kits" but done actually by Marshall's of Cambridge.) There were 2 Grumman G-21A's converted to turbines using "one-time" STC's by ACE (Alaska Coastal Ellis Airlines.) They were N95431 (s/n 1164, now VH-MBA) and N4773C (s/n B-52, now N42GL.) They looked nothing like any of the McKinnons (never got the new "McKinnon" windshields or "radar" nose, etc.) and in fact mounted their PT6A engines right on the old R-985 radial engine firewalls and nacelles instead of the inboard, canted arrangement used by McKinnon. And finally there was the infamous "Aleutian Goose" (ex-N780, N86MT, CC-CTG, N92MT, and lastly as N221AG) that was designed and built by FWS in Anchorage to be a model G-21F, but they balked at the type certification requirements and essentially lied to the FAA claiming that it was converted instead as a "McKinnon G-21G" that was then modified per 2 additional "one-time" STC's to its original "G-21F" configuration with a 40-inch fuselage extension, 715 shp Garrett AiResearch (now Honeywell) TPE331-2UA-203D turbine engines, an extra fuel tank in the belly (giving it a 705 gal. capacity - and requiring rerouting of all of its control cables through a new, dorsal fairing, etc.) Except that it was not; it was not converted by McKinnon and never conformed as a model G-21G, and it was re-registered as such solely on the basis of a handwritten note from a FWS supervisor to the FAA without any valid or proper certification documentation - actually 3 years after McKinnon went out of business. *C-FAWH was both re-converted back to radials (in 1986) and crashed (in 1988) at Port Hardy, BC. *Both ACE turbines were re-converted back to radials, but both still exist although the current status regarding the "airworthiness" of VH-MBA is questionable. *McKinnon's G-21D Hybrid N150M was thought for many, many years to have been seized and scrapped in Haiti because of the alleged drug-smuggling activities of its last US owner, but it turned up still mostly intact as a static display in a children's playground in Cuba in 2018. *The 1st so-called model G-21C Hybrid was later converted by someone else to a supposed model G-21G configuration (which negates its status as a "McKinnon") but it was presumed lost at sea near Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands in August 1996 with a pilot and 1 passenger on board. It was never found. *The 2nd supposed model G-21C Hybrid, N642, recently went through and exhaustive 10 year restoration and "upgrade" also to a supposed model G-21G configuration, but again that conversion was done by its current owner and that also negates its status as a "McKinnon" built aircraft. *G-21E N121H went through a year-long restoration in 1994-1995 but crashed during a touch-and-go during a test flight at DuPage airport near Chicago in June 1995. The 2 pilots on board made the mistake of trying to "go around" with full power and full flaps; it pitched up, stalled, crashed, burned, and killed them both. *Both G-21G aircraft are still airworthy; the one besides Bob's used to "live" in Hillsboro, OR but its owner "retired" to a ranch in Montana and it is currently listed for sale. *After sitting derelict in Alaska for many years, N640 was bought by its current owner in Oregon from the Alaska Dept. of Public Safety in 1996 - still registered as "Grumman G-21A s/n B-123" albeit with the notation "turboprop" on its documentation. The current owner restored and upgraded between 2001 and 2005 to be equivalent to a model G-21G but his story about how he accomplished that changed 2 or 3 times along the way and I question its legitimacy. He now claims that McKinnon himself re-certified it as a supposed model G-21C Hybrid (just like N642) under TC no. 4A24 in 1967 but McKinnon did not do that (it was still a "Grumman" when he bought it in 1996!) He also now claims it to be McKinnon s/n 1201, but that serial number belonged to N150M (ex-JRF-6B, Grumman s/n 1147) when it was first converted into a 4-engine (piston) model G-21C by McKinnon in 1957-1958, and it ceased to exist as such when McKinnon re-converted N150M into G-21D s/n 1251 (with a longer nose and more seats) in June 1960. The current owner also has it registered as a supposed "Grumman-McKinnon" aircraft, but that is nonsense; it can't be both at the same time. Grumman-built Gooses were certified under TC no. 654 and McKinnon-built Gooses under TC no. 4A24 - it can't be certified under 2 separate TC's at the same time. And I have additional issues with its supposed "McKinnon" data tag too. *The so-called "Aleutian Goose" crashed on take-off from Al Ain International Airport in Abu Dhabi, UAE on Feb. 27, 2011, killing all 4 on board. The formal crash investigation concluded that the pilot made an unnecessary early turn out with an unnecessarily steep bank angle at something like only 600 feet of altitude that led to an accelerated stall and the airplane cartwheeled into a taxiway and burned. There was some inconclusive speculation that if they had filled the onboard aux ferry tank with fuel, they would have been overloaded past max. gross weight. There was also the fact that the 28-yo pilot/owner was not "current" in it, having not flown it in almost 6 months.