The Lake Titicaca Seaplane Squadron

Lake Titicaca is the largest freshwater lake in South America, and lies on the border between Peru and Bolivia, high up in the Andes Mountains.

The Bolivian armed forces maintains a sizeable presence on the lake; although landlocked following the War of the Pacific, the Bolivian Navy still exists as a river and lake patrol force. In addition, the Servicio Aéreo Naval based at Guaqui patrols the lake and surrounding regions using fixed wing aircraft. To avoid the expense of building runways and hardstanding areas, these aircraft are all seaplanes or flying boats and are kept permanently on the water. The largest vessel is the Garza flying boat, a sesquiplane with significant armament in trainable gun mounts. Although these Garza has long range and considerable endurance, for a fixed wing aircraft it’s relatively slow and ponderous (and a remarkably ugly plane at that !) – but one will put up a good fight against a frigate or even a small destroyer.

The Garzas are supported by squadrons of Arpía Seaplane Fighters, single-seat biplanes with landing floats. Relative to the Garza the Arpía is quite fast and manoeuvrable, although the drag of the floats means that it can’t quite keep up with conventional land or carrier based aircraft.

VANFP-3011 – Lake Titicaca Seaplane Squadron – £11.50
VAN-3006 – Garza Flying Boat – £2.50
VAN-3007 – Arpía Seaplane Fighters (x6) – £1.50