Tag Archives: PBY-5 Catalina

Flying Boat Blast from the Past (coming to an atoll near you?)

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Some 85 years ago, official period caption: “An air infantry mortar squadron loads a Navy Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina patrol bombing plane, 18 March 1941.”

Via the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, 80-G-2156

Now, fast forward to this week, and news comes that a Hong Kong company intends to operate the turboprop-powered Catalina IIs with Pan American World Airways’ “Winged Globe” logo.

From Flight Global:

Catalina Aircraft Trust, the Florida holder of the original Catalina amphibious flying boat’s type certificate, has taken another step toward bringing a modernised turboprop-powered variant of the aircraft to market.

The company has secured a letter of intent from Hong Kong-based Pan American Airways System covering purchases of up to 46 of the planned NGAA “Next Generation Amphibious Aircraft” Catalina II.

Catalina Aircraft is now evaluating engines, avionics and other systems needed to develop the aircraft, which founder and president Lawrence Reece notes will be the only Western-certificated transport-category flying boat.

He envisions demand for up to 600 Catalina IIs of several configurations.

More here.

Of course, with Hong Kong officially part of Red China, whether they want to be or not, the prospect that these 46 shiny new flying boats could be used to shuttle around small detachments of PLAN naval infantry around the Nine-Dash Line is real.

PBY Catalina making a comback?

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The Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina first flew in 1935 and, in a short decade, over 3,300 were built at four factories in the U.S., Canada, and the Soviet Union.

Onto the Ramp PBY seaplane Catalina Joseph Hirsch. Lot 3124-3: Paintings of Naval Aviation during World War II: Abbott Collection. #47.

The big flying boat was a classic of naval air power and provided the backbone of maritime search and rescue, reconnaissance, commando/stay behind support, and anti-shipping/ASW missions for the Allies in WWII, with the type only fully retired in military service (by the Brazilians) in 1982.

Not a bad run.

Well, a Florida-based Catalina Aircraft has been supporting civil PBY-5 fleets for the past two decades and just unveiled a new Next Generation Amphibious Catalina II variant of the classic flying boat at the AirVenture Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin this week.

They plan both a civilian variant with a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 32,000 pounds and a capacity for 34 passengers or six tons of cargo. The military version will have an expanded MTOW of 40,000 pounds. Deliveries are planned to begin in 2029.

Warship…err, how about Mud Cat?

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On the road this week covering an industry event in Oregon so not enough spare time on hand to do a proper Warship Wednesday.

In lieu, and in a salute to all this rain we seem to be getting, how about this amazing image taken 80 years ago today.

Official caption: “Track at Amchitka on the Heavy Side. A U.S. Navy Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina long-range flying boat raises a veritable cloud of mud as it comes to rest on the muddy landing field at Amchitka, American advance base in the Aleutian Islands, June 23, 1943.”

U.S. Navy Photograph. Photographed through Mylar sleeve. Lot-803-1: Aleutian Islands Campaign, June 1942 – August 1943.

Located about 80 miles from Kiska Island in the Aleutians, Allied forces landed on Amchitka unopposed in January 1943 and quickly built a Marston Matting airfield there to support the recapture of Attu and Kiska. Once the Emperor was driven out of Alaska, Amchitka-based Navy patrol bombers of Fleet Air Wing Four and the 11th Air Force began regular attacks into the Japanese Kurile Islands from there well into early 1944, by which time the war moved further West and left Amchitka again as a backwater. 

With the founding of the USAF’s Strategic Air Command in 1947, the largely vacant base was redesignated the Amchitka Air Force Base and used the lengthened strip as a refueling stop for B-29 and B-47 Bombers being deployed from the United States to Japan. This mission was short-lived, and the base shuttered again in 1950 other than for use as a relay station in the 1960s and 1970s.