World Catalina News June 2017

Canso A C-FPQK at St Hubert before its recent acquisition by the Collings Foundation. The poor state of its fabric is evident via J-C Polet.

Catalina Island
Catalina Island

Canso A C-FPQK at St Hubert before its recent acquisition by the Collings Foundation. The poor state of its fabric is evident via J-C Polet.
Canso A C-FPQK at St Hubert before its recent acquisition by the Collings Foundation. The poor state of its fabric is evident via J-C Polet.

There has been a flurry of activity in the world of Catalina survivors, many of them actually Canadian-built, former RCAF Cansos, so here is the latest update by the Catalina Society.

Perhaps the most exciting news comes from Canada where, all being well, the world’s population of airworthy Catalinas and Cansos is about to be increased by one! At Fairview, Alberta the former Canso A C-FNJE has been under restoration by the ‘Canso Crew’ of the Fairview Aircraft Restoration Society since its accident and sinking in the wilds of the North West Territories in July 2001. The project to transport the damaged aircraft to Fairview was epic enough, but since then the team has been working to get ‘JE back in the air again and her first flight was scheduled for June 18th [Ed.which it did successfully!]. You can be sure that we will report on this event in our next edition.

More good news in Canada, albeit not so great for the Canadians themselves, is the ‘rescue’ of another Canso A C-FPQK. This former Government of Quebec Air Service water bomber has been stored in the open at St Hubert, Quebec since it was donated to the Fondation Aérovision Québéc museum by the Government in June, 1994. Its condition gradually deteriorated, the fabric control surfaces being particularly affected for the worse by exposure to the elements. In February, it appeared for sale on the Barnstormers.com website and it was quickly acquired by the Collings Foundation. It was duly cancelled from the Canadian register on March 8th, and received a new Certificate of Registration on the US register as N983CF on March 23rd. The US reg is a slightly cryptic reference to its former RCAF serial 9830, whilst even more cryptic is the registered owner – CCT of 1979 B-17 Series LLC PBY Series! Whilst it is sad that this Canso is leaving Canada – Canadian Vickers actually built this aircraft at St Hubert, so she is leaving her birthplace – it will hopefully benefit from the Collings Foundation resources and return to the air, possible even for passenger flights like the other bombers in its collection.

Another St Hubert-built Canso A, N249SB, was recently advertised for sale by Air Assets International. At one time stored at Nanaimo, British Columbia (with our own Miss Pick Up before we acquired it) it was made airworthy for a single flight to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum at McMinnville, Oregon and since arriving there on November 6th, 2011 it has been on outdoor display under the ownership of the Michael King Smith Foundation wearing US Navy colours as 44-P-4 of Patrol Squadron VP-44. On February 6th, it was re-registered to Falls At McMinnville LLC, Salt Lake City, Utah. This organisation, part of the Falls Events Centers company, acquired the aircraft following the Michael King Smith Foundation’s bankruptcy and it seems likely that it will remain at the McMinnville museum. Indeed, a recent report in Air Classics magazine suggests that it will be moved to internal display which can only be a good thing.

wcn-june-2017-Photo-22
The interior of N5PY, once the sole ‘Bird Innovator’, has been thoroughly restored as this photo shows Courtesy Aircraft Sales website

Yet another aircraft on the market is one-time Canso A N5PY. In its early civilian life, this was the famous four-engined ‘Bird Innovator’ conversion, destined to be a one-off. Acquired some years ago by Ron Ruble, it flew to Aurora, Oregon for a full restoration back to its original condition, with just the P&W Twin Wasps. The airframe and systems required a huge amount of work, and never made it to completion. According to Courtesy Aircraft Sales’ website, some $700,000 has been spent on the effort so far, and the advertised price is just $675,000! It will be very interesting to see who is willing to take this challenge on.

Yet another former RCAF Canso A is ZK-PBY, airworthy in New Zealand.  Following a long period of remedial work, we reported its ‘first flight’ in February, 2016 in our Summer 2016 issue of The Catalina News.  ZK-PBY has recently sported ‘Catalina Sounds’ artwork on its tail, thanks to sponsorship from the Marlborough-based wine company.  By the time this magazine goes out, the NZ display season will have ended but, all being well, ZK-PBY will have appeared on static display at the RNZAF Air Tattoo at Ohakea and in the air at the Classic Fighters Airshow at Blenheim as well as being on public view during the season at Ardmore and New Plymouth. Last October’s New Zealand Catalina Preservation Society Inc AGM saw the aircraft fly up to Taupo from Ohakea. It went out to operate on Lake Taupo for the occasion and took part in rescue exercises with the local coastguard unit. The Friends of the Catalina Flyer magazine that supports ZK-PBY has been put together by Marlene Gray since its inception 23 years ago, and she has just decided to retire.  Best wishes to her from the Catalina community.  Good job!

Sponsor logos currently adorn the tail of New Zealands’s ZK-PBY as seen here in Lawrence Acket’s photo
Sponsor logos currently adorn the tail of New Zealands’s ZK-PBY as seen here in Lawrence Acket’s photo

Miss Pick Up will be displaying at Sola-Stavanger in Norway this summer, and for a brief period there will be two Catalinas on the airfield. Sola is home to a former US Navy and Royal Danish Air Force PBY-5A ‘48382’.  Originally BuNo 08109 then 82-857/L-857 with the Danes, the Flyhistorisk Museum in Sola rescued her from dereliction and transported her by truck from Plejerup in Denmark to Norway. Over time, she has undergone a beautiful restoration to represent a PBY-5A 48382/KK-A of 333 Skv, Royal Norwegian Air Force. The museum has provided this update via Erik Thingbo, a Catalina Society member in Denmark: “A lot of work has been carried out on the Catalina, and it is becoming more and more fully restored with time. From the start, the priority has been to restore the exterior. One problem has been to find engine cowlings but we now have the starboard engine covered and the other open. We decided to have the ‘short’ engine exhausts in place and not the extended version used for wing de-icing. A recent gift from the Danish Dakota Friends organization was an oil cooler which is now installed. This donation was arranged by Erik Thingbo. The engine and cowling work has been carried out using professional working platforms that we now have in our inventory. Attention is now turning to internal painting and the re-installation of equipment. A good number of instruments and electrical items have been restored in our workshop and some of these will be installed in the navigator and radio operator stations although we are still working on the table and chair for the latter area. The flight engineer’s instrument panel has also been restored, and is ready to go into the pylon but at the moment we lack his seat and some valve handles.”

This photo from Erik Thingbo shows the restored Royal Danish Air Force PBY-5A Catalina L-857 painted as Royal Norwegian Air Force ‘48382’/KK-A at Sola-Stavanger
This photo from Erik Thingbo shows the restored Royal Danish Air Force PBY-5A Catalina L-857 painted as Royal Norwegian Air Force ‘48382’/KK-A at Sola-Stavanger

In the USA, the Wright Cyclone-powered ‘Super Cat’ N287, originally US Navy PBY-5A BuNo 48287, has been dismantled and moved from its long term home in Florida to American Aero Services at New Smyrna Beach, Florida. It is currently stored like a large Airfix kit of parts and looks rather weather beaten in places after its long period of inactivity since being sold by its previous owner Charlie Clements who kept it in pristine condition and flew it regularly. Hopefully, American Aero will soon have it back in tip-top condition for new owner Cavanaugh Flight Museum of Addison, Dallas, Texas.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has an on-going exercise to clean-up the US Civil Aircraft Register by cancelling redundant registrations. There are still quite a few Catalinas on the register that have not been extant in the USA for many years, and the latest batch of cancellations on February 4th this year are a case in point.  On that date, no less than seven Catalinas that had been previously de-registered were formally cancelled. None of them had physically existed for several decades! The first two aircraft were both ex-US Navy PBY-5As, these being N68745, formally BuNo 48265 which was sold to the Dominican Republic forces in the very early 1950s, and N74694/BuNo 46631 which was sold to a civilian operator in Brazil at the end of 1950. The latter aircraft was written off in a crash in Brazil on May12th, 1954. The other five aircraft were all ex-US Navy PBY-6As that were sold to the Aircraft Instrument Corp, Miami, FL in 1956. All were subsequently broken up for spares. Their US civil registrations and US Navy Bu.Nos. were N7880B/46639, N7878B/46650. N7877B/46659, N7883B/64005 and N7884B/64033.

Finally, back to the Antipodes and Australia, where a number of projects are under way. Currently the only ‘flyer’ in the area is the Historic Aircraft Restoration Society’s PBY-6A VH-PBZ at Albion Park, Illawarra, NSW. Sadly, the proposed appearance at the event to mark the 75th anniversary of 1 Flying Boar Repair Depot (1 FBRD) at Lake Boga had to be cancelled because of poor weather conditions; VH-PBZ being a VFR aircraft only.  This was a great shame given the connections between Lake Boga and the RAAF Catalinas in WWII, although at least visitors could view the local museum’s composite Catalina based on RAAF PBY-5 A24-30. On November 26th last year, the RAAF Edinburgh ‘family day’ event saw VH-PBZ take part in a unique formation of RAAF maritime types – Lockheed P-2 Neptune and P-3 Orion and the new Boeing P-8 Poseidon.

The CAF Lake Superior Squadron completed the successful 12 Planes of Christmas fundraising campaign. With the funds collected, the unit was able to start applying fabric on the wing trailing edges. You can help the PBY getting in the air again by visiting www.cafduluth.com

CAF PBY

Elsewhere in Australia, work continues on PBY-6A VH-CAT at Bankstown Airport on the outskirts of Sydney, NSW. Both engines successfully ran on January 14th under the supervision of engineer Mick O’Grady. Work to refurbish the interior with new seating and restraints in the forward cabin has been continuing. This area was previously home to the navigator and radio operator.  The aim is to achieve a ‘Warbird Certificate of Airworthiness’ to allow the carriage of passengers.

The PBY-5A Catalina (ex-N7238Z) known as ‘Our Girl’ by its owners, the Rathmines Catalina Memorial Park Association, continues to receive attention from a keen workforce in the Rathmines area of Lake Macquarie, NSW. The group has recently sourced a genuine R-1830 engine work stand, which they have refurbished. The workstand was on display at last October’s Catalina Festival, complete with a partially assembled Twin Wasp mounted upon it. The Catalina’s hull has been the subject of a great deal of internal work. The restoration team has stripped out much of the post-war equipment, including wiring and electrical equipment, as part of a project to return the hull to its original configuration. Items required include one pilot’s seat for the cockpit, a seat for the engineer’s position in the pylon, and corrugated walkway components for the rear hull. The team is currently pressure washing the inside of the hull, after which they will repaint the interior with primer, followed by a layer of olive green. They are also cleaning the wing centre section at its storage site. The tail is under restoration at RAAF Edinburgh, along with the port engine. The restoration team has also sourced a supply of aluminium sheet to repair some of the damaged skin. Work is currently underway on the cockpit area. Other projects will include restoration of blisters and a bow turret.

Many thanks indeed to the Catalina Society for allowing us to reprint their latest update.

To know more about the Catalina Society, click HERE.

Click HERE to check out the updated Catalina Survivors List 

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