Tag Archives: PBY-5 Catalina

PBY Catalina making a comback?

Posted on by One comment

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?

Posted on by 2 comments

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.