Friday, January 3, 2014

One of my favorites on the Friday Flyby


The PBY Catalina!  Imagine flying this bird across the Pacific.  I wonder how many are still airworthy?




4 comments:

  1. I bet there are more around than you would think, after all, Jaques Cousteau used one for years as they were such a strong and reliable workhorse. As a truly amphibious plane, they would be ideal for island hopping were there are no airstrips, but there is a lagoon and a reasonably shallow beach. Wonder how you could find out

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  2. They were elegant and useful old birds.

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  3. I'm pretty sure the remaining were bought up by Coulson Flying Tankers, the company that air-drops massive amounts of water onto forest fires, just as the government was going to scrap them. Some are still in service, fighting forest fires all over the US, Canada and Mexico - and are kept on Sproat Lake, near Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, BC.

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  4. Here is wikipedia's list of survivor PB-Y's
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Consolidated_PBY_Catalinas

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