What If The Prohibition Had *fast* Bootleggers?

[Daryl J.]

Rum running picks up speed.
The 21st Amendment failed in a dry Congress and continued to do so for some time.

Curtiss R3C-2 with external rum tank and added fuel capacity.
Ryan PT-20 on floats similarly outfitted.
Macchi MC-72, one engine removed, ballast and booze tankage added.

What sort of 1920's/30's aircraft could have flown in from say Moose Jaw, Sask. in the dead of winter down into the US with enough 90 proof to make it profitable?  Something like a Boeing Monomail might work but there are no kits.   I'd be looking for something in kit form already.


What could the Coasties get?
The Seneca and CG-100 75 footers were sea-to-sea based.
Hawk P-6E's perchance?   Could they be float equipped?



In real life, old Nick Reuter our next door neighbor had tons of money and plenty of treats for us kids.   As a little pre-kindergarten kid I'd heard he was rich and asked him once to tell me about it.   He got this funny look on his face and said "Well..............." and left it at that.  
Mom and Dad were/are teatotalers and Nick was a pretty good guy at heart and wished to respect that aspect of my folks.  But, he'd made his money bootlegging whiskey in from Canada and got quite good at it.  He even made his own and never, ever got caught.  It was said in the community that he'd been branded a bootlegger but really never was such was his character.  
However, our family knew him back then so Dad took me to one of Nick's moonshine stills which stands west of Reserve, MT to this day and got quite a chuckle about the whole thing.    
Dad's response at that time and Nick's answer to me always left me with a fond memory of a bygone era.    
So why not extend a 'what-if' and add an air fleet to the many wagons, high speed boats, revenoo-ers, church ladies in the speak-easys, coast guard crews, profits, fog, sand bars, blizzards on the Canadian line, and the like.

But for flying machines.......?


Daryl J., quite low on ruby Port

[Lawman]

Perhaps it would give the Royal Canadian Navy something profitable to do with their time? A line of Canadian warships doing 'port visits' down the Eastern seaboard? You even get the Canadian Air Force getting to practice precision airdrops, even helping develop accurate bombsights for precision alcohol bombing (whisky barrels with parachutes)!

[Jeffry Fontaine]

It does not necessarily have to be fast, sometimes slow and undetected can get you there more effectively.  Perhaps a lighter than air aircraft?  Something that flew across the border or rather coasted across the border with minimal lighting on a dark and stormy night?  I think the load carried would be greater and if need be the cargo could be carried onboard the dirigible in the trucks that were tasked to deliver the goods.  Flying across the border in Montana and landing in a secluded area in Central Nevada (in what is now known as "Area 51") where the vehicles would off load and proceed to their destinations.  Only a few trips would be needed each month to keep the supply of alcolhol up with the demand by consumption.  And the landing/off loading location would be changed often enough to preclude capture and loss of the contraband.  

[Daryl J.]

Jeffry,
That might work!   Dad and I used to fly into restricted airspace surrounding the Glasgow Air Force Base undetected just for fun.   It's quite doable actually.   That was in a Cessna 150 but that is a big open land out there and before radar.....well....



Some updated version of this perchance for the bulk jobs?   The smaller craft for the site-specific drops yes?   I like the S.21 idea for the Great Lakes too.  20% of gross to the Canadian Gov't whether by air or by sea.  


Daryl J.

[royabulgaf]

If you are looking for models to have some fun  with, how about the Lockheed Sirius floatplane that SpecialHobby does.  
Or, get an old Williams Bros. Northrop Gamma and put it on floats.  

Kim M

[famvburg]

    I'd look along the lines of marijuana & other drug runners of the '70s & '80s. What carried a good load & was fast. Cessna 210s & Beech King Air 200s were popular, so what would have been their counterparts back then? Heck, even Beech 18s/C-45s, DC-3s/C-47s & the like were all common grug runners, so look to those counterparts of the era.