Curtiss-Wright ET-4 Mogul

Graphics by Jonas Petersson. There are also game counter images.

A product of recent financial success on the Empire State, the Mogul is an example of the armed civilian craft that are rapidly filling up the skies over New York and other affluent cities. Officially designated as an "executive transport", the Mogul was originally intended for rich industrialists and financiers to have as a moving office, that could fly them and their staff quickly and safely. Never as luxurious as a zeppelin, the Mogul had to compete with speed and safety, and it is indeed both well-armed and fast for a transport plane. This makes it very well-suited for it's secondary role, that of "light delivery", also known as smuggling. Though the cargo it can handle is insignificant next to that of an airship, it can be cost-effective flying over heavily patrolled borders. Finally, many pirate bands employ Moguls for boarding actions against zeppelins.

Design History

Built at Curtiss-Wright Buffalo plant, in factories previously dedicated to the Warhawk, the Mogul entered production in 1935. Designed by dr Jacopo Vitalini, a refugee from the italian fascists, the look of the plane is reminiscent of other italian designs, but also incorporate less-visible elements from the Warhawk. Learning from the older plane, the engines were placed as close to the centerline of the plane as possible. The plane uses the same relatively low-powered Wright R1350s radial engine as the Warhawk, mounting three engines in a triangular pattern on the nose and below the wings. This configuration allows the pilot to shut down the central engine, to conserve fuel and reduce noise on long flights. It also allowed the designers to simplify the aircraft's structure and engine mounts considerably, necessary to reduce production costs in the highly competitive Empire State market.

The large tail assembly has resulted in some planes being rotated by shifting winds when standing on the ground, with resultant damage to the landing struts, so the plane should be parked in a hangar whenever possible, and always rotated to face the wind when left in the open.

Though weapons are optional, most Mogul are fitted with guns. The standard weapon load is a rear turret with two 30-caliber guns and two 30-caliber guns mounted a long way out on the wings. This positioning is chosen to reduce cost: the guns don't fire through the propellers, and so need not be synched to the engines. It does make long-range fire with the wing guns wildly inaccurate, however. As for the actual guns selected, this depends on current market prices: the gun mounts are large, and can fit almost any gun. Some customers elect to upgrade the guns; traversing the rear turret with more than two thirties or a single forty is impossible, though.

Manufacturer

Intended to reopen Curtiss-Wright's line of civilian aircraft after the troubled years at the opening of the decade, planned large-scale manufacturing had to be reduced when sales figures didn't come up to expectations. Despite it's many merits, the Mogul never really caught on. The comfort and capacity of a zeppelin is superior, and it is generally though that heavier-than-air cargo plane development is at a dead end. Cheap engines and other cost-cutting measures have made this plane into something less than it could have been. Still, a total of ninety craft have been manufactured and sold, though often at discount prices. Production is currently scheduled to move to the Louisville plant, where production costs can be cut even further.

Many of the Moguls so far produced have ended up in the ISA through various middlemen, and it is believed that Curtiss-Wright intends to use Appalachia's more liberal export laws to circumvent the middlemen and explore this new market. Empire State intelligence officers seek to hinder this move, as the planes are suspected of being used for training the rumored new "Parachute Corps".

Role and Deployment

Most Moguls are owned by rich individuals, corporations or smuggling bands. Some are in regular passenger service, and a few are available under "pay by mile" conditions. Usually outfitted with ten passenger seats and carrying 250 lb of mail or cargo, the price of transport on board a spartan Mogul actually exceeds high-class passage on a zeppelin.

For such a large plane as the Mogul, zeppelin docking is not generally an option. Realizing that one of the main uses for a light transport craft would lie in ferrying late passengers, mail and supplies to faraway zeppelins, the designers at Curtiss-Wright figured out a unique way to solve this problem. Given the huge wing surface of the Mogul, the wings provide some of lift even at very slow speed. By docking the plane in a fully exposed position under a zeppelin moving at full speed, much of the weight of the plane is actually carried by the wings. A boarding ramp is then lowered from the zeppelin to the plane, and passengers and cargo can be exchanged. This style of docking requires the Mogul to keep it's engines running, and a very skilled trimsman on the zeppelin, so it is not maintained for long. It also looks precarious and feels unsafe, so it is rarely used for passenger transport, but it has many applications in military and smuggling operations.

The Mogul has had remarkable success in one area, piracy. Those pirates who board zeppelins prefer the Mogul over all other craft for boarding operations. No other transport is so easy to maneuver into position and can move so slowly relative to the zeppelin, and no other plane has such a high boarding-success-rate as the Mogul. Though not it's intended function, Curtiss-Wright has exploited this ability to find a market niche among parachutists and to the above-mentioned parachute corps of the ISA.

Pilots and Campaigns

As it is not a fighter, the Mogul has few glorious exploits to it's name. One of the pilots who have made a name for himself in it is Zacharias "Thruster" Griffin, a New Yorker who operates a small transport firm out of Jersey City, where costs are lower than in Manhattan. A ladies man and partygoer, Zach is also a good pilot, who can fly his Mogul through valleys, around buildings and inside clouds. Gifted with good navigational skills, he often takes of on "long hauls" at dusk, flies through the night, and lands safely with his cargo at dawn. As he is also known to host parties for his friends in the Jersey Jacks, his small-scale transport operations rarely come under investigation.

Curtiss-Wright ET-4 Mogul				Class: Light Transport (Tractor)
Manufacturer: Curtiss-Wright, Buffalo, New York, Empire State			Engine: (3) Wright R1350s (736 hp each)
Wing Span: 44' 6"	Length:        30' 3"	Height:        15' 8"	Loaded Weight:    13 250 lb	Service Ceiling: 21 000 feet	Range: 750 miles
			Max. Speed: 250 mph	Max Accel: 32.8 feet/second	Max Decel: 65.6 feet/second

Design