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of over 12 feet and an arched wingspan of 44 feet. Given its conventional (tailwheel) landing gear, the engines are well above head height. On the water, the aircraft takes on a more level attitude, drawing a mere 24 inches of draft at dockside.A Water Flying And Barnstorming TraditionCaptain Mohr is what you might call a veteran water pilot. His grandfather was an early-day barnstormer, who later operated a flying service at Crane Lake in northern Minnesota. John Mohr learned to fly while sitting on his father’s lap in a float-equipped Piper J-3 Cub, starting at about age 5; he unofficially soloed in that Cub at age 14. The airplane was bought new by his grandfather in 1946, and it’s still in the family.John Mohr worked through his growing up years at all manner of aviation jobs, flying Cessna floatplanes in his family’s operation, working for a charter operator flying Piper Aztecs and doing a stint in Twin Beech freighters. He also flew airshows for over 25 years in a stock Stearman PT-17, retiring after the 2013 season. He joined North Central Airlines in 1977, first flying the venerable “Blue Goose” Convair 580 turboprops, and he has moved through various acquisitions of the airline to his present seat in the company’s 757/767 international operations.He bought his Royal Gull in 1993 and has flown it for about 1,500 of its 3,500 total hours. Among its significant mods are the change to reversing Hartzell propellers and the installation of 295-hp GO-480-G2D6 engines, as used on the Beech Twin Bonanza D50. Mohr has the ability to install a 70-gallon ferry tank for long flights, giving him 7.5 hours of endurance. In the year 2000, he flew his Gull across the North Atlantic to Southampton,England for a special Y2K celebration, and in 2015 he flew another Gull, a P.136-L2 with 340-hpsupercharged GSO-480 engines, over to Italy, visiting the aircraft’s birthplace. Normally based in the Twin Cities, he’s had his airplane to the Bahamas and other Caribbean destinations, he’s gone as far south as El Salvador in Central America, and he based it in Alaska one summer, using it for fishing and exploring during airline layovers.The American ConnectionIn all, some 65 P.136 Gulls were built by the Piaggio company, about half of which were assembled and sold in North America by Milwaukee company Kearney & Trecker, an industrial machine tool supplier. President Francis Trecker was on a trip to Italy in the early 1950s and was impressed with the Piaggio airplane’s versatility, so he acquired the North American rights for his company. The airframes were shipped by container to Milwaukee and the engines, propellers and avionics were installed by Trecker Aircraft Company, which marketed it as the Trecker Royal Gull. The name “Royal Gull” was actually applied by Kearney & Trecker, which initially formed a subsidiary, Royal Aircraft Corporation, that later became Trecker Aircraft.The Piaggio P.136 is one of the few foreign airplanes to receive its own FAA (actually CAA Part 10.30) utility-category type certificate, #A-813, originally issued August 15, 1955, rather than being certificated under reciprocal agreement. The P.136-L had 260-hp GO-435-C2B engines, the –L1 was fitted with 270-hp GO-480-B1B engines and the –L2, certificated in normal category on March 7, 1957, carried the 340-hp GSO- A1A6 supercharged engines.Because of their size and weight, the first Gulls didn’t have outstanding single-engine performance. The factory specs for the – L1 showed a single-engine climb rate of 216 fpm at sea level and a 4,100-foot single-engine service ceiling, with a 5,000-foot absolute ceiling. Nevertheless, with two engines running it could take off in less than 1,000 foot of runway, and Mohr says it6 • TWIN & TURBINENOVEMBER 2016