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Remembering the PBY Catalina Landseaire, the Flying Yacht Slash Camper That Knew No Limits

Glenn Odekirk's "aerial luxury yacht"

Kendall's Landseaire and the "Catalina curse"

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile

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Cat Tales: The story of World War II’s PBY Flying Boat

For first flights, 1935 was a vintage year.

It saw the arrival of three enormously capable, ahead-of-their-time airplanes that played a huge part in winning World War II: the Boeing B-17, Douglas DC-3/C-47 and Consolidated PBY flying boat , later to become an amphibian as well.

The deeds of the Flying Fortress and C-47 are widely known, but the PBY casts a less obvious shadow across wartime history.

And it doesn’t help that the “Pigboat,” as some of its admirers grudgingly call it, didn’t have the warlike mien of the iconic B-17 or the rugged grace of the C-47.

Well, rugged it had … grace, not so much.

But never mind, the PBY, like all great objects of industrial design, exuded an air of absolute purposefulness.

The Consolidated team that limned its lines knew exactly what to include and what to leave off: a shapely, minimal hull rather than a standard flying boat barge; two tightly cowled and wing-faired engines close to the centerline, ideal for single-engine handling, though they made directional control on the water a bit difficult; a towering, fish-tail vertical fin to help with the steering both on the water and in the air; clean, cantilever, strutless horizontal stabilizers; and the colossal, fuel-fat wing that gave the PBY range and endurance far beyond anything else with propellers.

Even the waist-blister goiters that became so much a part of the flying boat’s look when they were added to the PBY-4 might have seemed excessive, but they were effective gunnery and observation posts.

After all, the famous “Attu Zero,” the largely undamaged example of the Japanese navy’s mythic fighter, was discovered by an airsick crewman who had leaned into his PBY’s blister and opened it to vomit just as the crashed Mitsubishi flashed below him.

A Consolidated PBY -5A Catalina Patrol Aircraft receives repairs to a gun blister at a Pacific Navy repair base, April 1945. (National Archives)

The PBY wasn’t without its teething troubles, however.

Though the prototype came in over 600 pounds lighter than the contract specified, with a stall speed 10 mph slower and a top speed 12 mph faster with a substantially shorter takeoff run, the vertical tailfin needed to be increased in size to add stability.

When the prototype made its first rough-water landings, in 4- and 5-foot seas, the impact of one full-stall touchdown blew out the bombardier’s window and the forward hatch, cracked the windshield, wrinkled the hull and damaged all six prop blades.

Consolidated pointed out that a less robust boat would have sunk, but it quickly added numerous stiffeners and gussets.

New flying boat pilots complained that the PBY was brutally heavy on the controls. Old-timers accustomed to the open-cockpit biplane boats that had preceded it laughed and opined that the PBY was light and responsive.

Having flown a B-17 of the same era, I can attest that one pilot’s “light and responsive” is another’s “at least I don’t have to go to the gym today.”

Open-sea landings required a practiced touch, since the Pigboat asked to be stalled on at minimum speed — a characteristic that soon made it such a superb rough-water boat. Popped rivets and even sprung seams were not uncommon, but crewmen learned to use the navigator’s pencils to plug rivet holes, and pilots soon realized that a touch-and-go or immediate beaching was the only defense against an open hull skin.

The PBY’s single shapely central pylon was a great leap forward, following first use of the concept on the slightly earlier Sikorsky S-42. The streamlined pylon put the wing-mounted engines well above spray height, since water can do a surprising amount of damage to prop tips moving at near-supersonic speeds.

More important, in combination with four short fuselage struts, it supported the PBY’s glory: the vast ironing board of a wing that was both an enormous fuel tank and a strong, efficient lifting surface. With a beefy continuous I-beam spar and internal bracing, the wing was actually semi-cantilevered.

Consolidated PBY-5 patrol bombers fly in formation in the Hawaiian area, circa November 1941. These planes, from Patrol Squadron 14 (VP-14), arrived on Oahu on 23 November 1941. The plane closest to the camera is 14-P-1, which on 7 December 1941 was flown during the attack by the destroyer Ward on a Japanese midget submarine. (National Archives)

At the time, the PBY was the cleanest flying boat ever designed, at least when it came to drag.

The pylon was just wide enough to serve as the military flight engineer’s lofty but lonely office, his seat suspended from the wing above him like a playground swing.

With a window on each side, it gave him a good view of the nacelles, where any oil leakage would first show up. Many civil and commercial PBYs in use all over the world after WWII, however, dispensed with flight engineers and moved all the controls and engine gauges to the cockpit.

Another PBY innovation was totally retractable wing floats, each of which swung out and upward to fair neatly into the wing, the float itself morphing into a wingtip.

Had the usage existed at the time, this feature would have been pronounced “cool”…but as with so many cool things, it wasn’t particularly effective.

A PBY’s cruise speed remained about the same whether the floats were extended or retracted, though PBY pilots had to be ready to counteract substantial yaw whenever the tip floats were in motion, since each float often moved asymmetrically, answering to its own retraction system.

With the floats down, aileron effectiveness was also substantially decreased.

Aviation machinist's mates work on the starboard engine of a VP-31 Consolidated PBY-5A "Catalina" patrol bomber at an East Coast naval air station, circa 1942. Note radar antennas under the plane's wing. (National Archives)

The PBY’s lead designer, Consolidated’s Isaac Machlin Laddon, was a brilliant engineer, though he is not as well known as Kelly Johnson, Ed Heinemann and Alexander Kartveli, who also designed war-winners. “Mac”Laddon was responsible not only for the PBY but the B-24, B-36 and postwar Convair 240/340/440 series of twin-engine airliners.

Another of his team’s PBY novelties was its huge wet wing, the first on any production airplane but today a construction technique that is the aerospace standard. (Laddon had developed the concept for his far smaller Consolidated XBY-1 Fleetster dive-bomber prototype, but only one was built.)

A wet wing means that the wing skin itself is the fuel tank, with no need for separate fuel tanks or bladders to be inserted into bays between ribs and spars — a substantial weight-saving feature, but one that of course requires that every seam and rivet be sealed or gasketed.

In the case of the PBY, this considerable effort meant half a pound saved per gallon of fuel, or 875 pounds pared.

PBYs came in a variety of dash numbers, but the one that really mattered was the PBY-5, which became the world’s largest amphibian. (Today it’s the Russian Beriev B-200 twin-turbofan firebomber, roughly three times the weight of a PBY.)

PBYs in the Solomons. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)

Early PBYs had simple beaching gear — external wheels and struts that were tugged off manually by a swimsuited launching crew once the airplane had been trundled down a ramp and was afloat in the water. This was how Mac Laddon wanted it — simple, no extra weight, no complex retraction system, no internal space given up to wheel wells.

His boss Reuben Fleet, Consolidated’s founder and president, thought flying boats should carry “internal beaching gear” everywhere they went, so they could operate independently without the need for a beaching crew. So a PBY-4 was fitted with retractable gear that was deemed usable only for emergency runway use at light weights, and it became the prototype XPBY-5.

“My theory is that it was Reuben Fleet’s way of persuading his engineers to accept his idea for what he envisioned as a fully amphibious version,” says PBY authority David Legg of that initial retractable beaching gear.

Converting it into rugged, reliable, full-time landing gear was no small undertaking. It required substantial strengthening of the hull as well as a powerful hydraulic system, and it wasn’t easy to get good ground handling out of narrow-tread main gear sitting under a tippy 14-ton airplane with a high center of gravity. But the PBY-5A went on to become what is generally considered to be the ultimate variant of Consolidated’s flying boat.

The PBY went by several names, the most common being Catalina, the RAF’s designation for the boats that they bought. (The Brits had no idea there was such a thing as Catalina Island, not far from Consolidated’s San Diego headquarters, but Reuben Fleet suggested it.)

The U.S. Navy adopted the name several years later, so it’s correct to call a Navy airplane a PBY Catalina, but there’s no such thing in England, any more than there is an F4F Martlet, a C-47 Dakota or any other dual U.S./British designation; the RAF never used any of the U.S. alphanumeric designators.

Despite their long history of building successful seaplanes and flying boats, the British ended up buying some 700 Catalinas to serve alongside far larger Short Sunderlands as the RAF’s primary Coastal Command and Far East patrol bombers. The Brits had hoped the Saunders-Roe Lerwick would fulfill the medium patrol role, but the ghastly, short-coupled Lerwick twin turned out to be unstable and unable to fly on one engine. It was everything the Catalina wasn’t—including relatively heavily armed, with two multi-gun power turrets.

The Canadians named their PBYs Cansos, after a river in Nova Scotia.

One groaner has it that when RCAF pilots first saw a PBY, they said, “This thing can’t fly,” and the engineers answered, “It can so.”

A "Black Cat" PBY Catalina skims the waters of San Pedro Bay off Samar Island, in the Philippines. The Black Cat Squadron to which it belongs, VPB-34, was awarded the Presidential Citation. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)

Late in the war the Naval Aircraft Factory introduced an improved model it called the PBN-1 Nomad, most of which ended up going to the Soviets.

Well before the Nomad, however, there were the informally named Black Cats — Pacific patrol bombers that flew mainly at night and were painted overall flat black.

Another major wartime user of the PBY was the Royal Australian Air Force, and it has been said the Catalina was to Australia every bit as important — and to this day iconic — as the Spitfire was to Britain.

With a Japanese invasion a very real threat early in the war, RAAF Catalina coastal patrols and missions into the Solomons were crucial, and when the Allies soon went on the offensive, Aussie Cats ranged as far as the coast of China, mine-laying and night-bombing.

It’s said that when the RAAF Catalina crews ran out of bombs, they threw out beer bottles with razor blades inserted in the necks. The bottles whistled as they fell in the dark, which was designed to fright the Japanese.

A Brazilian Air Force PBY Squadron's officers sit on the wing of one of the IR PBY CATALINA Aircraft, circa 1945. They are being trained by U. S. Navy pilots. (National Archives)

Not many civilians knew what a PBY was until the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

That changed when hundreds of newspaper photos showed the crumpled, blazing PBYs of the six Navy patrol squadrons based at Kaneohe Naval Air Station and Ford Island. They had been 81 fine airplanes, most of them new.

Only four flyable Catalinas survived, three of them because they had been aloft at the time of the Japanese attack. One of those became the first U.S. aircraft to attack the Japanese, when it bombed a midget submarine an hour before the main assault.

The Cats and other PBYs were surprisingly effective bombers, under the right conditions.

Of the 60 Axis submarines sunk by the Navy in all theaters of the war, 25 went down under bombs from PBYs, plus one spotted by a PBY but sunk by a destroyer.

Another 13 were sunk by PB4Ys — the Navy version of the B-24 Liberator — giving Consolidated aircraft credit for almost two-thirds of all subs sunk by the U.S. in WWII.

More were deep-sixed by RAF Coastal Command Catalinas and Liberators, but a British Catalina’s most celebrated feat was spotting the battleship Bismarck after it sank the Royal Navy battle cruiser Hood and scuttled away under cover of fog.

The Cat didn’t sink the Bismarck , but appropriately, the critical, crippling blow was left to another antique, the Fairey Swordfish.

Sailors stand amid wrecked planes at the Ford Island seaplane base, watching as the destroyer Shaw explodes in the center background, 7 December 1941. The battleship Nevada is visible in the middle background, with its bow headed toward the left. Planes present include PBY, OS2U and SOC types. Wrecked wing in the foreground is from a PBY. (National Archives)

The PBY’s bombing career started less auspiciously.

The first-ever U.S. offensive airstrike of the Pacific War, which came nearly four months before the Doolittle Raid, was flown by six PBYs out of Ambon Island, in the Dutch East Indies, to bomb a Japanese base at Jolo, in the southwest Philippines.

PBYs were the only airplanes with the range to make the 1,600-mile round trip. Four of the six were shot down by Japanese fighters, and in his post-action report, one of the surviving pilots wrote, “It is impossible to outrun fighters with a PBY-4. Under no circumstances should PBYs be allowed to come in contact with enemy fighters unless protected by fighter convoy.”

A PBY typically cruised at 105 to 125 mph, which meant that a well-armed Cessna could have taken one on.

Indeed the PBY’s most effective defensive maneuver quickly became lumbering toward the nearest cloud bank to hide. One Australian Catalina pilot even evaded Zeros by ducking into a volcanic ash plume.

As the war in Europe heated up and American participation became inevitable, few thought the elderly, minimally armed and painfully slow PBY would be around much longer, so Consolidated started work on its successor, the twin-engine P4Y Corregidor — well before the name became synonymous with defeat.

The P4Y might have been an order of magnitude better than the PBY, but we’ll never know; certainly it was an order of magnitude uglier. It had a high-aspect-ratio, high-lift, low-drag, laminar-flow wing — the Davis airfoil that was soon to become famous on the B-24 — but it was designed to use the powerful but troublesome Wright R-3350 engines desperately needed for the B-29.

The War Department canceled the P4Y contract after just one prototype was built, and the Louisiana factory that was built to crank out Corregidors ended up building yet more Catalinas.

The crew of the Patrol Squadron 44 (VP-44) PBY-5A Catalina patrol bomber that found the approaching Japanese fleet's Midway Occupation Force on the morning of 3 June 1942. (National Archives)

For U.S. Catalinas, the equivalent of the RAF’s sink-the- Bismarck moment was the brief break in Pacific clouds through which a Navy PBY crew saw the Japanese fleet racing toward Midway.

In fact, the same phrases reappear in accounts of nearly every WWII naval battle, Atlantic and Pacific: “A PBY spotted the carrier….While Catalinas shadowed the fleet through the night….As the PBY followed the phosphorescent wakes….When the fog suddenly lifted, the PBY saw the picket destroyers….”

Few such slugfests started without at least one PBY tracking the combatants from above.

Particularly in the Pacific theater, air-sea rescue PBYs (called “Dumbos”) retrieved thousands of ditched pilots and shipwrecked seamen, often under fire and usually in seas that would have trashed a lesser boat.

One Dumbo landed three times to pick up downed bomber crews and eventually took off with 25 extra men aboard; for that mission, Navy Lt. Nathan Gordon became the only PBY pilot to be awarded a Medal of Honor.

Another Cat needed a three-mile takeoff run to lift a total of 63, including its own crew, and the pounding probably popped half the rivets in the hull. But the record goes to the Australian Catalina that carried 87 Dutch sailors — standing room only, thank you — after Japanese bombers mauled their freighter.

With 15,000 pounds of passengers alone, to say nothing of the airplane’s fuel and crew weight, that put the RAAF PBY well over gross, but the Cat’s basic weight-and-balance rule was that if the payload hadn’t yet sunk the boat, it would somehow take off.

A Patrol Bombing Squadron 52 (VPB-52) PBY-5 flying boat alongside a local outrigger canoe, during a rescue mission to the northwest end of McCluer Gulf in New Guinea, 13 August 1944. Women and children in the canoe are preparing to board the "Black Cat." Note very wide deck platform on the canoe. VPB-52 was then based at Biak. (National Archives)

Beyond its stellar military service, the PBY enjoyed a long civil history before, during and after WWII, and it isn’t over yet. One of the most widely known of all converted warbirds among people who think Mustangs are cars was the Cousteau Society’s Calypso , operated during the 1970s by the famous oceanographer and environmentalist Jacques-Yves Cousteau and often flown by his son Philippe.

Tragically, Philippe Cousteau was killed during a post-overhaul flight test of Calypso when it nosed over during a high speed water run on the Tagus River, in Portugal, in 1979.

Yet the PBY’s commercial career had started (false-started, actually) a good 40 years earlier, when Consolidated proposed using PBYs as transcontinental airliners that could use lakes and rivers en route for an emergency landing, if necessary.

Several American and British airlines did buy PBYs, but as survey airplanes, not passenger carriers.

In 1937 Consolidated did sell one very special civil PBY — it was officially a Model 28 — to rich, eccentric zoologist Richard Archbold.

A research associate at New York’s Museum of Natural History, Archbold was also a private pilot, so his Consolidated boat became, at least until the advent of converted-warbird corporate transports in the 1950s, the largest private plane in the world.

Archbold named the airplane Guba , a New Guinean word meaning “sudden storm,” and he intended to use it to continue his explorations of the Pacific island.

Guba ’s first major flight was a nonstop transcontinental trip from San Diego to New York in 1937, the first ever by a flying boat, establishing a speed record for the category that wasn’t broken until April 1944, by a Navy Martin Mars.

Archbold sold Guba to the Soviet government before going on to New Guinea, however, since they desperately needed the aircraft to do long-range searches for the Russian pioneer pilot Sigismund Levanevsky, who was lost in the Arctic (and never found).

Archbold immediately bought a second Model 28 — Guba II — and not only made it to New Guinea but carried on the rest of the way around the world for another record: the first-ever seaplane circumnavigation.

A PBY patrol bomber burning at Naval Air Station Kaneohe, Oahu, during the Japanese attack, 7 December 1941. (National Archives)

Another PBY record that has yet to be broken was set by a small cadre of Catalinas that were operated by the Australian airline Qantas during WWII.

They flew privileged passengers between Perth and Ceylon, near India, and from June 1943 to July 1945, several of them stayed aloft, nonstop and un-refueled, for more than 32 hours.

Super Airbuses and extended-range 747s fly faster and farther, but none has ever come close to making a longer-duration passenger flight.

After WWII, some surplus PBYs inevitably were converted into flying yachts, during the private-flying heyday that encouraged fantasies of flying cars, personal jetpacks, dad commuting in a Piper and seaplanes bobbing in lakes with fishermen on one float and bathing beauties on the other.

Luxury PBYs fit right in.

The most impressive lipstick-on-a-Pigboat scheme was the early-1950s Landseaire. Even Egypt’s King Farouk had one on order before his abdication. The base price of a Landseaire was $265,000, which is about $2.3 million today and would be a bargain, since that’s roughly the cost of a bush-taxi Cessna Caravan single on amphibious floats.

The Landseaire had 14-foot dinghies under each wing, hoisted to fit flush by cables that had once lifted torpedoes and bombs, and the gunners’ blisters were replaced by one-piece, blown-Lucite “flying bay windows” that invariably were photographed for various magazines (including a snarky Life feature) with a bikinied babe, drink in hand, stretched out on the interior foam-rubber cushion.

Equally well-known among modified PBYs was the Bird Innovator, the world’s only four-engine Cat.

A California company added a pair of 340-hp, geared Lycoming flat-6 engines outboard of the stock 1,200-hp Pratt radials to provide better performance at high gross weights as well as improved water maneuverability — the Lycs had reversible three-blade props — but apparently the Innovator was the answer to a question nobody had bothered to ask.

Only one was built, and a subsequent owner eventually removed the extra engines.

View of a Consolidated PBY "Catalina" bow turret (.30 cal. MG) banned, circa December 1942. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)

One thing that civil PBY conversions accomplished was a necessary bit of beautification: what came to be known as the “clipper bow,” a fairing-in of the cowl ahead of the windscreen to eliminate the awkward nose turret.

If there was one discordant note in the Cat’s refrain, it was that squared-off little greenhouse that gave the airplane the look of an angry hognose snake, a protuberance that seemed an add-on and if anything harked back to World War I observation airplanes with a freezing Frenchman standing upright in the bow.

On early PBYs, in fact, the “turret” was indeed nothing more than a semi-open bombardier/observer’s post. Guns came later — ineffective single or twin .30s in the nose, single .50s in each waist blister and sometimes a .30-cal firing from a belly hatch near the tail.

Today the PBY remains the best-known seaplane in the world. Until the last of them were recently retired, photos of Canso and Catalina water-bombers appeared regularly on the front pages of 21st-century newspapers, flying over forest fires in the U.S., Greece, Spain, France and elsewhere.

No flying boat or amphibian was ever produced in greater numbers than the two basic variants of the PBY. Between Consolidated, the Naval Aircraft Factory, Boeing Canada, Canadian Vickers and the Soviets, 1,452 wheel-less boats were manufactured, plus 1,853 amphibs with retractable gear.

Many sources give figures of 4,000-plus total, but PBY expert David Legg comes up with a combined production run of 3,305. (Legg runs The Catalina Society— catalina.org.uk — which operates a restored PBY-5A based at Duxford, England.)

It was a fortuitous combination of talents that made the PBY effective despite its painfully slow airspeed and relatively ineffective armament.

The old P-boat was hell for stout, handled open-water landing and takeoffs with equanimity, would lift anything that could fit into it, could carry 2 tons of bombs or torpedoes and had butt-busting duration and loiter capability. Since the future of commercial flying boats and amphibs seems to stretch no farther than firefighting, we’ll surely never see its like again.

At this time in 1941, a Clipper plane was trying to get home the hard way — flying around the world!

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For further reading, Stephan Wilkinson recommends: PBY: The Catalina Flying Boat , by Roscoe Creed; Black Cats and Dumbos: WWII’s Fighting PBYs , by Mel Crocker; and Consolidated PBY Catalina: The Peacetime Record , by David Legg. This article was published originally in the May 2013 issue of Aviation History Magazine, a sister outlet of Navy Times. To subscribe, click here .

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The Consolidated PBY Catalina – Meet the Flying Boat that Helped the Allies Win WW2

“ It would serve in every maritime theatre of the war while performing an array of missions, from reconnaissance and search-and-rescue to sub-hunting and anti-shipping.”

By James Brun

THE CONSOLIDATED PBY was not one of the Second World War’s more glamorous warplanes; it was a slow and ungainly, twin-engine “ flying boat .” Yet despite its odd appearance, it would go on to become the most numerous and successful amphibious float plane in history. It would serve in every maritime theatre of the war while performing an array of missions, from reconnaissance and search-and-rescue to sub-hunting and anti-shipping.

Here are seven amazing facts about the Catalina PBY, an aircraft that patrolled the vast reaches of the world’s oceans, looking for an enemy to track, report, or destroy.

It entered service before WW2

The PBY line of flying boats was conceived in 1933 in Buffalo, New York. It was originally designed as a long-range patrol bomber, intended for use to sink shipping and disrupt enemy sea lines of communication. The prototype first flew from Lake Erie in 1935 and by 1936 the aircraft was in service with the U.S. Navy. “PB” stands for Patrol Bomber, with “Y” being Consolidated Aircraft Corporation ’s manufacturer identification. Amphibious variants with retractable landing gear were appended by the suffix A, as in PBY-A.

It was big and slow, but had amazing endurance

She was 63 feet (20 metres) long, 19 feet (six metres) high, with a 104-foot (31 metre) wingspan. The PBY’s two Pratt & Whitney 1,200 horse power radial engines were maximized for range and endurance, and could cruise a distance of over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) at 125 m.p.h. (200 km/h), with a maximum speed of 180 m.p.h. (288 km/h). The airplane had an operating ceiling of over 15,000 feet, (4,400 metres) and under the right conditions, could stay in the air for up to 20 hours.

It was a true multitasker

The PBY was a jack-of-all-trades. A critical asset in the Pacific, Caribbean, Atlantic, Mediterranean and Arctic theatres of operation, the aircraft’s mission set included dropping anti-shipping mines, aerial reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, search and rescue, anti-submarine patrol, bombing, transport and even troop insertion.

Although lightly armed, it carried the latest technology

A polyvalent warrior, the PBY could be armed with four 1,000-pound bombs, eight depth charges, or two torpedoes attached at drop points beneath the wings. For defence against enemy aircraft, PBYs carried four machine guns: two .50 calibre Brownings on either side of the fuselage at the waist; one .30 calibre in the nose. A second .30 calibre was situated along the bottom of the hull in the ventral position. Interestingly, PBYs were among the first American aircraft fitted with radar to search for surface ships and aid in navigation. The PBY was also the first aircraft equipped with magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) equipment to help locate submerged submarines.

PBY crews worked round the clock

A typical PBY crew included nine officers and men. Typically, the plane commander, co-pilot, third pilot and navigator were all commissioned. Any of these could act as bombardier when not flying the plane. The enlisted men were mechanics and signalmen. These crew-members normally rotated through manning the guns when not engaged in their primary duties. On long-range patrols, crews rotated through watches. Responsibilities, such as making coffee and distributing meals, were conducted by whomever was off duty.

Catalinas flew for many Allied nations

The PBY was the most numerous aircraft of its kind. More than 3,300 were built before production ended in 1945. Catalinas served in the armed forces of the U.S., Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, the Soviet Union and Brazil. A Canadian-made version of the Consolidated PBY Catalina was dubbed the Canso. Cansos were built in Vancouver by Boeing Aircraft of Canada and in Montreal by Canadian Vickers Ltd . Cansos operated on coastal patrols in the Pacific and Atlantic hunting submarines and protecting convoys and merchant shipping. The Canso airframe was operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) until 1962.

The PBY’s Greatest Hits

The PBY was an essential component of some of the most dramatic moments of the Second World War. This brief collection of wartime narratives illustrates the PBY’s wide range of diverse roles.

During the May, 1941 Battle of the Denmark Strait , the German battleship Bismarck sunk HMS Hood , and damaged HMS Prince of Wales . Amid the subsequent hunt for the Bismarck , it was a RAF Catalina that first spotted the enemy warship west of Brest on May 26. The PBY-5 was piloted by Ensign Leonard B. “Tuck” Smith of the U.S. Navy, on loan with the RAF to help train British pilots to fly the aircraft. Smith sighted the Bismarck and a contact report was disseminated. The sighting directly resulted in the destruction of the infamous battleship by the Royal Navy.

On April 4 , 1942, a RCAF squadron leader named Leonard Birchall was patrolling south of Ceylon in his Catalina PBY when he spotted a Japanese carrier fleet steaming for the island, which was home of the Royal Navy’s Eastern Fleet. Birchall’s crew alerted Allied forces before their plane was shot down by a group of Zeros launched from a Japanese carrier. The fighters strafed Birchall’s downed aircraft in the sea, killing three members of his crew. The remaining six survivors, including Birchall, were picked up by a Japanese destroyer and taken prisoner. Birchall spent the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp, but his crews’ signal alerted the defenders of Ceylon to prepare for the impending attack. For his actions, Leonard Birchall is remembered today as the “Saviour of Ceylon.”

On June 3 , 1942, U.S. Navy Ensign Jack Reid of PBY patrol squadron VPB-44 located elements of the Japanese carrier fleet steaming for the Midway Atoll. The next day, another American PBY discovered the main Japanese fleet, facilitating the decisive battle that saw the U.S. Navy sink four Japanese carriers, thereby turning the tide of the Pacific War.

In October, 1942 , U.S. Navy PBYs attacked enemy ground forces and flew bombing raids against Japanese ships, all at night, during the Guadalcanal campaign . Soot residue from burnt oil was added to soap and washed over the fuselage of the PBYs, turning them black and making them difficult to spot in the darkness. This technique proved so effective that within months, new PBYs landing on Guadalcanal arrived painted black and became known as the “Black Cats.”

On June 24 , 1944 RCAF Flight Lieutenant David E. Hornell and his Canso destroyed the German submarine U-1225 in the North Atlantic. Hornell’s aircraft was shot down during the engagement and he and his crew spent over 20 hours in the frigid sea before being rescued. Hornell succumbed to exposure following his rescue and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism.

A U.S. Marine was shot down while attacking the Japanese fortress at Rabaul Harbour in 1944. The pilot was badly burned, temporarily blinded, and being shot at by Japanese forces ashore. A Navy PBY was ordered into the harbour to rescue the wounded Marine. The flying boats gunner stripped down to rescue the wounded man while under fire. The iconic photo was taken by Horace Bristol as the gunner got back to his station, under enemy fire, with no time to change back into his clothes before manning his weapon. The identity of the ‘naked gunner’ has never been established.

On July 30 , 1945, two torpedoes launched from a Japanese submarine slammed into the side of USS Indianapolis , days after she completed her secret mission to deliver enriched uranium and other parts of the Hiroshima bomb to Tinian Island. Within minutes, the heavy cruiser was gone. More than 900 of Indianapolis’ crew escaped the sinking ship but remained in the water for days; 600 would die of thirst, hunger, exposure and shark attacks. After the 316 remaining sailors were spotted by a Lockheed PV-1 Venture, a PBY-5 arrived on Aug. 2 to begin picking survivors. The plane was flown by Lieutenant Commander Robert Marks . He had orders not to land in the open ocean, but rather to drop life-rafts. He polled his crew, and they agreed to land the aircraft in the 4 metre swells. Fifty-six survivors were loaded onto the plane, but the aircraft was damaged by the landing and unable to fly. After nightfall, the first of seven rescue ships arrived.

Post-War Cats

Catalinas would continue to serve in a number of nations’ navies and air forces for decades after the Second World War; Brazil, for example, continued to operate the PBY until 1982. Surplus models would later be put to work in North America as forest fire water bombers. As many as 80 Catalinas remain as museum pieces in more than a dozen countries; at least 20 are still airworthy and make regular appearances at air shows.

James Brun  is an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy and regular contributor to MilitaryHistoryNow.com. For his daily tweets of rare and fascinating World War Two photos, follow him at  @lebrunjames81

Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, “Consolidated PBY-5A Canso” https://www.warplane.com/aircraft/collection/details.aspx?aircraftId=11 (Accessed 30 September 2020).

Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, “Consolidated PBY-5A Canso A” https://ingeniumcanada.org/artifact/consolidated-pby-5a-canso-a  (Accessed 30 September 2020).

The Catalina Preservation Society, “Specifications” http://pbycatalina.com/specifications/ (Accessed 30 September 2020).

National Naval Aviation Museum “PBY 5A Catalina” https://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/aircraft/pby-5a-catalina/ (Accessed 30 September 2020).

Polmar, Norman. “Historic Aircraft.”  Naval History  18, no. 5 (10, 2004): 14-15. https://search-proquest-com.cfc.idm.oclc.org/docview/203520587?accountid=9867 .

Rare Historical Photos, “The naked gunner, Rescue at Rabaul, 1944” https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/naked-gunner-rescue-rabaul-1944/ (Accessed 30 September 2020).

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina” https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/consolidated-pby-5-catalina/nasm_A19730277000 (Accessed 30 September 2020).

Wilkinson, Stephan. 2013. “Cat Tales.”  Aviation History  23 (5): 24–31. http://search.ebscohost.com.cfc.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=85414212&site=ehost-live&scope=site .

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Today, satellites are the battle fleet's keenest eyes. But during World War II, crews aboard lumbering flying boats provided distant, early warning of enemy ships and aircraft at sea. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was the U. S. Navy's most successful patrol flying boat of the war but naval aviators also used the PBY to attack ships at night, and to search for and rescue people stranded at sea. Following World War II, large seaplanes and flying boats suffered a mass extinction. The war caused a tremendous surge in concrete runway construction around the world, and wartime research and development pushed the range of aircraft beyond the span of the world's oceans. Seaplanes continued for some years after the war to serve special needs but land-based aircraft rapidly became more efficient at delivering most goods and services whether commercial or military.

Many aviation experts considered the PBY Catalina obsolete when the war started but combat proved the critics wrong. The 'Cat' had two noteworthy attributes that made the airplane prized by American aviators and the flight crews of other Allied nations: great range and excellent durability. By VJ Day, August 15, 1945, Consolidated and its licensees had built 3,282 PBYs, more than any flying boat or seaplane ever built.

Today, satellites are the battle fleet's keenest eyes but during World War II, crews aboard lumbering flying boats provided distant, early warning of enemy ships and aircraft at sea. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was the U. S. Navy's most successful patrol flying boat of the war but naval aviators also used the PBY to attack ships at night, and to search for and rescue people stranded at sea. Following World War II, large seaplanes and flying boats suffered a mass extinction. The war caused a tremendous surge in concrete runway construction around the world, and wartime research and development pushed the range of aircraft beyond the span of the world's oceans. Seaplanes continued for some years after the war to serve special needs but land-based aircraft rapidly became more efficient at delivering most goods and services whether commercial or military.

Many aviation experts considered the PBY Catalina obsolete when the war started, but combat proved the critics wrong. The 'Cat' had two noteworthy attributes that made the airplane prized by American aviators and the flight crews of other Allied nations: great range and excellent durability. By VJ Day, August 15, 1945, Consolidated and its licensees had built 3,282 PBYs, more than any flying boat or seaplane ever built.

Reuben Hollis Fleet founded the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in May 1923 at East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Fleet had been an army aviator during World War I, served as the first Officer-in-Charge of the U. S. Airmail after the war, and later Contracting Officer for the U. S. Army Air Service. In 1928, the old Curtiss works at Buffalo, New York, housed the company. That year, Fleet started a long association with military flying boats when he began working on the XPY-1 Admiral patrol bomber. Isaac M. Laddon, whom Fleet hired the pervious year, became the project engineer. Consolidated could not entice the cash-strapped Navy into buying this twin-engine, parasol-wing, monoplane flying boat but the company pressed on to build and operate the airplane as a civil transport called the Commodore.

In 1931, an improved version of the Commodore, designated the P2Y-1, finally drew the Navy's attention and procurement officers purchased a number of these aircraft to operate as patrol bombers. Consolidated continued to refine this design and in 1933, the Navy ordered a new prototype called the XP3Y-1. Consolidated engineers improved this variant in several significant ways. They adopted metal as the primary construction material for the entire flying and they fitted it with a single vertical stabilizer and rudder rather than the twin-tail used on earlier versions. The massive pylon that supported the parasol-wing above the fuselage incorporated a flight engineer's station. From this vantage point, the engineer could closely inspect the two engines mounted on the leading edge of the wing. Engineers also suspended outrigger floats from each wingtip, hinged to fold up after takeoff. The XP3Y-1 had provisions for bomb racks that held 907 kg (2,000 lb) of bombs. The new aircraft impressed Navy leaders and they ordered it into production as the PBY-1, or Patrol Bomber, Consolidated design number 1. The 'Cat' was off and running.

Following the first XPY3-1 flight on March 21, 1935, the Navy ordered sixty production PBY-1s. Improved variants followed and Consolidated also sold commercial versions. The PBY-2 had a revised tail structure, and the PBY-3 used 1,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830-66 engines more powerful than the earlier 900-horsepower R-1830-64s. The airplane company built a small number of the PBY-4 version equipped with 1,050-horsepower R-1830-72s. Several of these flying boats had gun mounts built into Plexiglas blisters on the aft fuselage that replaced the waist gun hatches built into previous variants. Engineers also revised the tail structure and engine nacelles.

At this time, Fleet and Laddon believed they could not significantly improve the PBY series, and that it was time for an entirely fresh, new design. Hitler's invasion of Poland erased this notion. Now the U. S. Navy needed many long-range patrol aircraft, as quickly as it could acquire them. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ordered the Navy to cover vast areas of the U. S. coastline "extending several hundred miles" into the Atlantic, the 'Neutrality Patrol.' On December 20, 1939, the U.S. Navy ordered 200 PBY-5s. This latest edition in the PBY line incorporated the changes tested on the PBY-4s mentioned above, plus more powerful engines. The PBY-5 could fly at a maximum speed of about 282 kph (175 mph) at an altitude of about 2,128 m (7,000 ft). The airplane had a service ceiling of about 4,469 m (14,700 ft) and the crew could fly the PBY-5 a distance of about 4,097 km (2,545 miles) without refueling.

The demand for production Catalinas became so great that Consolidated contracted with these companies to build license versions of the PBY-5: Naval Aircraft Factory built modified '-5s as the PBN-1 Nomad, Boeing Aircraft of Canada built the PB2B-1 and '-2, and Canadian Vickers Ltd. built the Canso for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the OA-10A for the U. S. Army Air Forces. The final development model of the PBY series was the PBY-6A, equipped with new radar, twin .50 caliber guns in a power-driven bow turret, and a new tail with a taller vertical fin first seen on the PBN-1.

War in Europe led other Allied combatants to ask for PBYs. Catalinas served with Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF), patrolling far-flung reaches of the British Empire. The RAF actually named the aircraft the Catalina, after Santa Catalina Island, California. An RAF PBY of 209 Squadron, with American Navy Ensign Leonard B. Smith flying as co-pilot, sighted the elusive German Battleship "Bismarck" on May 26, 1941, and the Royal Navy promptly sank the menacing warship the following day. PBYs also went to Australia and the Netherlands East Indies. During the Battle of the Atlantic, PBYs sank a number of U-boats but forced many more to remain submerged during daylight. This forced the German submarines to recharge their batteries at night, wasting valuable time otherwise spent attacking Allied ships. In the European Theater, most military operators did not put the Catalinas and their crews directly in harm's way. Most commanders felt that the PBY lacked the defensive armament to fend off Luftwaffe fighters and patrol aircraft such as the Focke Wulf FW 200 Condor or the Junkers Ju 88 but several dramatic duels with these aircraft disproved the idea that PBY crews could not defend themselves.

In the Pacific, the Catalina crews purposely sought direct combat with the Japanese. At Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese destroyed most of six squadrons of U.S. Navy PBYs. Just before the raid, a Catalina assisted in spotting and attacking one of the Japanese midget submarines that attempted to sneak into the harbor. Less than six months later, Navy Catalinas got their opportunity for revenge. On June 3, 1942, PBYs of U. S. Navy Patrol Squadron VP-44 spotted the Japanese fleet steaming at high speed toward Midway Island. This timely sighting gave the U.S. fleet the opportunity to surprise the enemy fleet with an attack by torpedo and dive bombers launched from the aircraft carriers "Hornet," "Enterprise," and "Yorktown." The ensuing battle marked the turning point in the Pacific War after dive bombers sank four Japanese aircraft carriers.

Navy flight crews aboard PBYs also played an important role in the Guadalcanal campaign. They spotted and attacked many Japanese ships attempting to land reinforcements on the island. Navy Catalinas equipped with radar and painted black also attacked Japanese shipping at night. These "Black Cat" raids were highly effective and usually caught the Japanese by surprise. PBY crews also dive-bombed land targets in the Aleutian Islands. Navy PBY airmen also conducted "Dumbo" rescue missions that saved countless airmen and sailors adrift in the Pacific Ocean. On February 15, 1943, U. S. Navy Lt. Nathan Gordon earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing 15 airmen in rough seas under near-continuous enemy fire.

The PBY-5 and all earlier versions were true flying boats without the means to land on any medium except water. Sailors could wrestle the big Catalina ashore and park it using wheeled beaching gear but the process was slow and difficult. Trying to repair or maintain the airplane in the water could also be very challenging. Consolidated first flew an improved PBY-5A with a retractable undercarriage during November 1939. The amphibian capability breathed new life into the design and made the Catalina ideal for the new Emergency Rescue Squadrons (ERS) that the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) began forming in 1943. The ERS Catalinas, designated OA-10s, provided crucial air rescue cover for crews forced to bail out or ditch over the ocean. This ERS became critical in the Pacific, once USAAF Boeing B-29 Superfortresses (see NASM collection) began operations against the Japanese home islands. The bombers often flew at the limit of their range, and even relatively minor damage could force the aircrews to ditch.

After the war, many PBYs continued to fly for commercial operators. Civil Cat' crews carried passengers and freight in far-flung areas of the world that lacked suitable airfields. Many post war PBYs became fire bombers. The crew of a Catalina fire bomber could land on a lake and scoop four tons of water in fourteen seconds. The crews of land-based aircraft had to waste valuable time returning to an airfield to refill their tanks.

In the early 1960s, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum acquired the last surviving PBY-5 (although a number of PBY-5As still survive). The U.S. Navy had accepted this Catalina on February 28, 1943, and navy crews flew patrols in this airplane from Pensacola, Florida. The flying boat now resides on loan at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.

This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.

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The Catalina Preservation Society

Pby catalina history, consolidated pby / catalina / canso history.

A brief PBY History by: John Clement

Development

The plane that would become the PBY Catalina was designed by Consolidated Aircraft Corporation’s lead designer, Isaac Machlin (“Mac”) Laddon when, in 1933, the United States Navy, wary of Japan’s growing influence in the Pacific Ocean, requested competing prototype designs for a flying boat with a range of 3,000 miles and a cruising speed of 100 mph to patrol Pacific seas in search of hostile navy forces. 

Flying boats were the dominant long-range aircraft of the day in that they did not require runway construction. Laddon was able to draw on Consolidated experience building two previous flying boats for the Navy.

Further testing resulted in design adjustments to modify the vertical tail structure and dorsal fin (See image below) to prevent the tail from becoming submerged on takeoff and to upgrade the aircraft from “Patrol” to “Patrol Bomber” status. 

The first flight of the modified XP3Y-1 in October, 1935, set a record for non-stop distance flight of 3,443 miles for a Class “C” seaplane  from Cristobal Harbor, Panama Canal Zone, to Alameda, California in 34 hours 45 minutes. A flight which did reveal the need for more powerful engines. After the power-plant update, the plane was re-delivered to the Navy as XPBY-1 (PB for Patrol Bomber; Y for Consolidated in accordance with the US Navy aircraft manufacturer’s designation system). [1]

Classified by Consolidated as Model 28, production models from PBY-1 to PBY-3 were incrementally upgraded to enhance performance. PBY-4, designed to continue the pattern of gradual improvement with Pratt and Whitney 1,050hp radial engines, would, over its production run from May, 1938 to June, 1939, mark a great leap forward.

In a few later production models of the PBY-4 , Plexiglass blisters which replaced the sliding hatches over the waist guns would become standard on subsequent models. They enhanced the gunners’ view of the enemy but also served as perfect observation posts for spotting enemy surface vessels. 

The PBY-5 flying boat did not have wheels but they could be rolled onto land for maintenance using beaching gear, light duty wheels and struts that had to be installed by crew members in swim suits and removed once they had been rolled into the water once again.

But, a proper landing gear was required to transform the PBY Catalina to a truly amphibious aircraft. The prototype, XPBY-5A BuNo 1245, made its debut in late 1939. [2]

A limited number of PBY-1 to PBY-4 models had been manufactured but by 1943 production of the PBY-5 for the US Navy alone exploded (flying boat, 684 built from September 1940 to July, 1943) and PBY-5A (amphibian, 802 built between October, 1941 and January, 1945). In addition, production included aircraft for the RCAF, RAF, RAAF, and Dutch MLD. 

The PBY had been manufactured by Consolidated plants in the United States at Buffalo New York, San Diego California and New Orleans . To meet the demand for the pby-5 and pby-5A, Boeing Aircraft of Canada , with a plant near Vancouver, and Canadian Vickers at St. Hubert, later Cartierville Airport near Montreal, were licensed to produce PBY’s.  Boeing’s were coded PB2B; the Vickers planes were PBV. 

The Soviet Union began receiving Catalina’s under Lend-Lease and producing their own under licence before World War II. The Soviet Aircraft were designated GST (Gidrosamolet transportnii/seaplane transport). 

The final Consolidated PBY model, PBY-6A , appeared at the end of the war, manufactured from January 10 to May, 1945. [3]

One final wrinkle in the development of the aircraft. At about the same time that the PBY-5 and PBY-5A went into production, the US Naval Aircraft Factory designed a variant known as the PBN-1 Nomad , a larger and more rugged plane with greater range and stronger wings permitting a 2,000 pound (908 kg) increase in gross takeoff weight.

138 of the 156 Nomads produced at the Naval Aircraft Factory were delivered by air to the Soviet Union. The remaining 18 were assigned to training units at NAS Whidbey Island and the Naval Air Facility in Newport, Rhode Island. Elements of the Nomad design were incorporated in the PB2B-2 and PBY-6A.

Design Features

A two-step hull with a streamlined upper fuselage was attached to a parasol wing on a pylon braced by one pair of struts on each side running from the side of the hull to a position just outside the engines. This design permitted views of the ocean below unobstructed by the wing.  

          PBY Drawing courtesy of Al Botting

The pylon served as the flight engineer’s post with just enough room for the engine control panel, two windows through which each engine could be checked for oil leaks, and a seat raised to leave room below for other crew members. 

Aft of the wing was a cabin with two bunks and a small galley. 

The huge wing, 104 feet in length, was both the fuel tank that gave the PBY superior range and endurance and a strong lifting surface that gave the plane a 15,000 lb./6,600 kg payload. [4]

A no nonsense continuous I-beam spar and internal bracing contributed to wing strength. The pylon put the wing-mounted engines well above spray height since water can damage propeller tips moving just below the speed of sound. 

The engines were mounted close to the fuselage to facilitate operation with one engine which increased range on long patrols but reduced the plane’s manoeuvrability on water and made it a very noisy machine to fly. [5]

A towering vertical stabilizer surface aided maneuvering on water as well as in the air. 

Floats to keep the wingtips out of the water on takeoff and landing were retractable, swinging out and upward to morph into the wingtips when the craft was airborne. 

Four bomb racks, two on the underside of each wing, could carry a total of four thousand pounds of bombs, depth charges or torpedoes.

Photo taken in the flight engineer’s station within the pylon shows the instrument panel and small windows, left and right, through which the engines could be checked for oil leaks.

The result was the most aerodynamic flying boat ever designed and the most-built flying boat of World War II with a production run of about 3,305. [6]

Construction was all-metal, stressed skin aluminum sheets riveted to an aluminum frame, except the ailerons and wing trailing edge which were fabric-covered to reduce the weight of the aircraft. The fabric, unbleached cotton, was hand sewn and the seams sealed with varnish to make them water tight and add rigidity. Rivets were kept in a freezer before being driven into place to make all joins especially tight when the rivets expanded in warming to room temperature.

Many aviation experts considered the PBY obsolete when the war started. 

Unobstructed view of ocean and land targets, rugged construction, long range, high payload, the PBY provided a strong military performance platform. High speed? No, but its speed was more than adequate for maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare. “Without her crew the plane is but an inanimate object, unable to move, express itself or show off her incredible characteristics. But…together with her crew they showed the world through their collective efforts the PBY’s contribution to aviation.” [7]

It’s time now to look at what the PBY and her crews were able to do. Catalina’s served in the wartime armed forces of the U.S.A., Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, Free France and Brazil. With the United States being neutral until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. The first PBY’s to enter combat in World War II were flown by Britain and her allies.

PBY Catalina’s in the Royal Air Force  

In 1939, the Royal Air Force (RAF), ordered a single example of a commercial model of the PBY-4 flying boat for an evaluation which was still in progress when war was declared and a decision was made to order the aircraft in large numbers for military service. The first of about 700 Consolidated flying boats entered service in early 1941 with 209 and 240 Squadrons of Coastal Command. Many of the later aircraft were diverted to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF).

The RAF favoured flying boats for their longer range but did have to accept twelve PBY-5A aircraft (designated Catalina IIIA) under Lend-Lease. True to its tradition of shunning alphanumeric designations, the RAF named their PBY’s Catalina’s, a name adopted by the US Navy in October, 1941. Consolidated president Reuben Fleet may have suggested the name “Catalina”, to the RAF as this was the name of an island off the coast of California not too far from the Consolidated plant. 

The Catalina’s Hollywood moment occurred on 26 May 1941 when an RAF flying boat based in Northern Ireland and co-piloted by Ensign Leonard B. Smith of the US Navy, spotted the German battleship Bismarck as it attempted to reach occupied France for repair, thus initiating the process that would see the destruction of Germany’s largest battleship. [8] Ensign Smith’s involvement was kept secret because of the official neutrality of the United States. [9]

On 17 July 1944 RAF officer John Cruickshank, piloting a Mk IV PBY Catalina JV928 from the Shetland islands, came under heavy anti-aircraft fire from German Submarine U-361. Seriously wounded, Cruickshank pressed home the attack and sank U-361 on his second pass. He was awarded the Victoria Cross and is the last living recipient to have been awarded the VC during the Second World War.

PBY Catalina’s and Canso’s in the Royal Canadian Air Force

The first PBY aircraft taken on strength by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) by No. 116 Squadron at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia on 28 June 1941,were nine Catalina Mark I flying boats diverted from an RAF contract to fulfill a request from the AOC (Air Officer Commanding) A/C (Air Commodore) A.E. Godfrey. [10]

Some flying boats were stationed on Canada’s east and west coasts for maritime patrol and convoy escort but, unlike the RAF, the RCAF favoured the amphibian PBY-5A for their Canadian squadrons since using straight flying boats was impractical during Canadian winters. 

In December, 1941, the decision was made to rename PBY-5A aircraft built in Canada for the RCAF because specifications for their Canadian built models were different from British and American versions.

Canadian Government PBY-5 and PBY-5A naming edict

The name, “CANSO,” was chosen for the Strait of Canso located in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada dividing the Nova Scotia peninsula from Cape Breton Island. The RCAF’s non-amphibious aircraft were to be named “Canso” while the amphibians were known as “Canso As”. The Catalina’s loaned from the RAF retained their original British name. [11]

The figures reported in the next paragraph indicate that no “CANSO” flying boats meeting RCAF specifications, were built. The number of Catalina’s and Canso’s taken on strength by the RCAF in WW II were 30 ex RAF Catalina flying boats and 208 Canso A amphibians. [12]

The two RCAF overseas squadrons, 422 and 413, flew Catalina’s supplied by the RAF. No. 422 (GR/General Reconnaissance) Squadron , based at Lough Erne , Northern Ireland on 2 April 1942, ferried key personnel and equipment to northern Russia. In transit they patrolled the route of Russian convoys watching for submarines and surface raiders operating off the coast of Norway. 

By March, 1942, Japan seemed to be on an inexorable march to supremacy in the Western Pacific and the South China Sea. Since the destruction of Pearl Harbour by a Japanese aircraft carrier fleet on December 7, 1941, Japan had overrun Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and Burma. A carrier-launched air raid destroyed the northern Australian port city of Darwin. Next up, the Indian Ocean where defeat of the British Eastern Fleet would have had disastrous consequences for the allied forces confronting the Axis powers.

“The most dangerous moment of the war, and the one which caused me the greatest alarm, was when the Japanese fleet was heading for Ceylon and the naval base there. The capture of Ceylon, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean, and the possibility at the same time of a German conquest of Egypt would have closed the ring and the future would have been black”

Prime Minister Winston Churchill

The British fleet based in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was a mix of modern and older vessels cobbled together in haste and put under the command of Admiral Sir James Somerville who realized his only option against a superior force was to adopt a defensive stance which involved keeping his ships out of port except for refueling and taking on food and water.

His plan was to concentrate his fleet outside the range of Japanese reconnaissance aircraft during daylight and close in at night. The British could use their radar-equipped Albacores to slow the Japanese fleet enough for their battleships to engage in the dark. Stay out of range they did but the British fleet never launched an offensive against the Japanese fleet.  The fleets never met. 

The Japanese expectation was for complete surprise which would find Royal Navy ships confined to harbour as had happened at Pearl Harbour and Darwin. Somerville’s overarching challenge was to locate his adversaries to eliminate the element of surprise. 

Cue the Catalina’s.

The RCAF’s second overseas squadron equipped with Catalina flying boats, No. 413 (GR) Squadron , was formed and stationed in Scotland before being sent to Ceylon in late March, 1942, to supplement RAF Catalina’s on the island. 

Voices from the Past

On 4 April, 413 Squadron leader Leonard Birchall took off in Catalina QL-A on a reconnaissance patrol of the sea south of Ceylon. At about 4pm, after 10 hours in the air, Birchall sighted a smudge on the southern horizon. Investigating from a height of 2000 feet, he saw the Japanese fleet formation including carriers, battleships, escorts and supply ships. 

Turning north under full power, it was already too late for the Catalina and its crew. The Catalina’s radio operator managed to get off a sighting report. But before he could finish his regulation two repeats, cannon shells from Japanese fighters began to rip through the air-frame – demolishing the radio.   The fight lasted just seven minutes. Some 350 miles from land, with dusk settling in, Birchall was forced to put his Catalina down in the ocean.  The single transmission was, fortunately, enough. It was received – though somewhat garbled – and rapidly shared among Ceylon’s defenders.

“We were saved from this disaster by an airman on reconnaissance who spotted the Japanese fleet and, though shot down, was able to get a message through to Ceylon which allowed the defending forces there to prepare for the approaching assault; otherwise they would have been taken by surprise.”

Sir Winston Churchill

Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron Leader Leonard Joseph Birchall, the “Saviour of Ceylon”

Among RCAF squadrons flying Canso A aircraft, No. 162 (BR) Squadron was the most successful anti-submarine squadron during the second world war with five U-boats destroyed, one shared sinking and one U-boat damaged. This was due to the skill and courage of the crews but also to location.

Formed at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, on 19 May 1942, it was seconded to RAF Coastal Command in January, 1944, and stationed first at RAF Reykjavik, Iceland, relatively close to U-boat routes from Norway into the North Atlantic. In May, 1944,162 was moved to Wick on the northeast coast of Scotland to intercept enemy submarines leaving Norwegian ports just before and then after the Normandy invasion.

The North Sea between Britain and Norway is an even smaller body of water than that east of Iceland and this, along with German urgency to dispatch U-boats to the English Channel following D-Day on 6 June 1944, probably accounted for the frequency at which U-boats were spotted and attacked by 162 Squadron. [14] Flying from Reykjavik:

F/O C.C. Cunningham and crew attacked a U-boat but could only claim it as damaged.

April 17, F/O T.C. Cooke and crew scored the squadron’s first kill when they sank U-342.

Sorties launched from Wick:  

June 3, F/L R.E. McBride and crew sank U-447

June 11, F/O L. Sherman and crew sank U-980

June 13, W/C Chapman and crew sank U-715. Also on this day, F/O Sherman sighted and attacked a U-boat but was shot down.

June 24, F/L D.A. Hornell and crew sank U-1225

June 30, F/L McBride attacked U-478 but the depth charges failed to release. An RAF Liberator was called in and sank the sub.

F/L D. A. Hornell’s attack on 24 June 1944, earned him the Victoria Cross, awarded posthumously. On sea patrol in the North Atlantic  Hornell’s aircraft was fired on and badly damaged by U-1125. Nevertheless, he and his crew succeeded in sinking the submarine. Hornell then managed to bring his burning aircraft down on the heavy swell. There was only one serviceable dinghy which could not hold all the crew so they took turns in the cold water.By the time the survivors were rescued 21 hours later, Hornell was blinded and weak from exposure and cold. He died shortly after being picked up. Hornell was laid to rest in  Lerwick  Cemetery, Shetland Islands. [15]

Author’s note:

A writer faces a difficult decision in choosing to feature individual achievements such as those of John Cruickshank, Leonard Birchall and David Hornell. World War II military personnel served their countries well and many, many people were called upon to do extraordinarily courageous things. Deep gratitude is owed to all veterans of that horrific conflict.

John Clement

And finally, the Canso A history you will not find anywhere else. The writer’s father flew Canso’s with the RCAF from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Torbay, Newfoundland. 

Initially posted to 160 Squadron as a 2 nd officer/co-pilot, he was selected for training to qualify as a first officer/captain and was posted to # 3 Operational Training Unit, Patricia Bay, where he flew RCAF 11024 now restored to airworthiness by volunteers of The Catalina Preservation Society  and renamed “Shady Lady.”

Training included night landings on the water. The only guide was a line of light buoys anchored in the bay with the other end tied to a boat. The boat’s role was to keep the line taut, directed into the wind. At night, the water was black and the shore was black. With no visual reference other than the string of lights, the pilot had to land on instruments, the artificial horizon and the altimeter.

To prevent the pilot being distracted from the instruments by glancing out the window, at a certain point in the approach the pilot’s seat was lowered so he couldn’t see outside. Training completed, he returned to 160 Squadron as a captain.

No. 160 Squadron Canso’s flying over the Atlantic carried homing pigeons . If an aircraft went down without being able to radio its position, the position could be written on a slip of paper which was to be attached to the bird’s leg and the pigeon released to fly back to the airfield. On every flight the pigeon master sent along the designated emergency pigeon plus a pigeon or two in training. The pigeon cadets were to be released when the plane was a certain distance from the airfield. The pigeons, kept in cages on a shelf in the galley, were not to be fed. The crew fed them bits of toast.

A way had to be found to release the pigeons so they wouldn’t be injured or killed by the back draft from the propellers. The solution was to put the bird in a brown paper shopping bag with the top loosely tucked in. The pigeon, in the paper bag, was put out one of the waist gunners’ blister windows and thrown down to keep it away from the plane’s propeller back-wash and the tail structure. The bag tumbled in the wind until it opened and the bird found its way out and began its flight back to the airfield. [16]

PBYs in the United States Navy and the United States Army Air Force

On December 27, 1941, America’s first offensive airstrike of the Pacific War turned out to be a textbook example of how not to use the PBY Catalina in combat. Six PBY’s took off from Ambon Island in the Dutch East Indies to bomb a Japanese base at Jolo in the southwest Philippines. The Catalina’s were the only aircraft with the range to make the 1,600 mile round trip. Four of the six were shot down and in his post-action report one of the surviving pilots wrote,

“It is impossible to outrun fighters with a PBY-4. Under no circumstances should PBY’s be allowed to come in contact with enemy fighters unless protected by fighter convoy.”

An observation from a PBY Pilot

It was no secret that the PBY’s cruise speed was 125 miles per hour. Perhaps the desire to retaliate after Pearl Harbour clouded the judgment of the commanding officer but after that inauspicious start the PBY distinguished itself in the Pacific as it had done in other theaters of war.

During the Guadalcanal Campaign PBY’s painted matte black were so effective in carrying out night bombing, torpedoing and strafing missions that they became a standard part of the US Navy’s battle plan. The fourteen Black Cat squadrons flying slowly at night, dipping to ship mast height, sank or damaged thousands of tons of Japanese shipping as well as bombing and strafing land based Japanese installations.

Particularly in the Pacific, air-sea rescue PBY’s, flown by the United States Army Air Force and nicknamed “Dumbos” from the original Walt Disney movie that was released during the war, retrieved thousands of downed pilots and shipwrecked seamen. The bunks proved especially valuable on search and rescue missions.  

The use of Catalina bunks in a rescue situation.

PBY’s and their crews were very effective in attacking enemy forces directly but their greatest contribution to the war effort was arguably as lookouts.

“…the same phrases reappear in accounts of nearly every WWII naval battle, Atlantic and Pacific: “A PBY spotted the carrier…While Catalina’s shadowed the fleet through the night…As the PBY followed the phosphorescent wakes …When the fog suddenly lifted, the PBY saw the picket destroyers…” [17]

The most significant American PBY discovery of enemy intent: the sighting of the Japanese fleet racing toward Midway.

  PBYs in the Royal Australian Air Force

In Australia, “It is often said that the Consolidated PBY Catalina’s were to Australia what the Supermarine Spitfire was to Britain.” [18]

With a Japanese invasion a very real threat early in the war, RAAF Catalina coastal patrols and missions into the Solomon’s were crucial, and when the Allies soon went on the offensive, Aussie Cats ranged as far as the coast of China, mine-laying and night-bombing. It’s said that when the RAAF Catalina crews ran out of bombs, they threw out beer bottles with razor blades inserted in the necks. The bottles whistled as they fell in the dark, which was designed to frighten the Japanese. [19]

From June 1943 to July 1945, Qantas operated flights from Perth to Ceylon, duration up to more than 32 hours, dubbed the “flight of the double sunrise.” These flights carried a maximum of 3 passengers; it was clear that PBY’s were not in a position to be part of the long distance passenger flights that developed in post-war years.

  PBYs in the Royal New Zealand Air Force

Fifty-six Catalina’s were operated by the Royal New Zealand Air Force between 1943 and 1953 at an Operational Training Unit in New Zealand and with operational squadrons at various points throughout the Pacific in anti-submarine warfare, shipping escort, air-sea rescue and transport roles. They continued to be operated after World War II because they filled a vital role in South Pacific communications. [20]

Like New Zealand, many countries continued to use PBY’s in their Air Forces for non-combat roles such as air/sea rescue and transportation. The last Catalina in U.S. service was a PBY-6A retired from use on 3 January 1957. [21]

The last Canso in the RCAF, 11089, was retired from service at Downsview on 08 April 1962 and went into civilian service as CF-PQO after being struck off charge on 29 November 1962 [22]

PBYs in Soviet Union Forces

“The Catalina in the Soviet Union was used to carry out a wide range of tasks, from search and rescue operations to anti-submarine missions and everything in between.” [23]

PBYs in the Brazilian Air Force

The Brazilian Air Force flew Catalina’s in naval air patrol missions against German submarines starting in 1943 and also air mail deliveries. In 1943, German submarine U-199 was sunk off the Brazilian coast by a coordinated Brazilian and American aircraft attack. The Brazilians continued to operate military Catalina’s on humanitarian supply flights to outlying settlements in the Amazon area until 1982.

Civilian Roles

Very few PBY-5 flying boats outlasted the war but amphibious PBY-5A models have flown to the present day. In civil aviation the crew dropped to two with the relocation of the engineers engine control panel from the pylon to the cockpit.

Many PBY’s that survived to post war went on to serve on African Safari’s and Canadian fishing charters.

Some surplus PBY’s were converted to flying yachts for the wealthy. Jacques-Yves Cousteau used a PBY-6A to support his diving expeditions.

The Catalina Preservation Society monitors PBY restoration projects around the world. Out of a total production of about 3,305 there are about fifteen airworthy PBY-5A in the world today (2021).

Now that may not seem like a lot until one considers that of the more than 18,000 World War II B-24 Liberator bombers produced by Consolidated and its licensees, only 3 are airworthy today.

PBY’s are still flying because they have not outlived their usefulness, particularly as water bombers. The Catalina Preservation Society “Shady Lady” being a case in point.

Not bad for an airplane deemed obsolete in 1939

Post Script:

The photo below is of the writer’s father, F/L George Clement, and the crew of an RCAF Canso A. F/L Clement is at the far left of the back row. The pigeons were confined to their coop when the photo was taken.

Acknowledgements

Sue McTaggart’s proofreading and editing of an early draft improved my writing.  Bob Dyck corrected a comment on Canso handling characteristics that I’d taken from an online site thus preventing me from exposing my absolute ignorance of what it’s like to fly the aircraft. David Legg’s comments proved invaluable in correcting errors in online sources that I’d consulted and adding information that I’d missed, especially the distinction between Canso and Canso A aircraft in the RCAF. The warm receptions of snippets of my father’s story by Sue McTaggart, Derwyn Ross and Ian Scanlon were reassuring. Derwyn initiated the whole process when he asked for a volunteer to take on the task of rewriting the History section of The Catalina Preservation Society’s web site. His comments on the first draft helped me to clarify themes and emphasis that guided me to focus on the story of the aircraft brought to life by the crews who flew her. My heartfelt thanks to you all.

John Clement, December, 2021.

[1] Creed, Roscoe, PBY -The Catalina Flying Boat, Naval Institute Press, 1985.

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Consolidated_XPBY-5A_BuNo_1245_Dec_1939.jpg Click on “File.” “Navy’s new ‘mystery’ plane…”

[3] For a video tour of a PBY-6A, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOjE-_cI-K8&t=1091s

[4] The wing was the first “wet” wing on a production airplane, containing the fuel without bladders thus reducing weight by half a pound per gallon of fuel.

[5] As years go by, many Canso pilots report degenerative hearing loss with captains affected in their left ears and first officers in their right.

[6] Calculated by David Legg of The Catalina Society of the United Kingdom. [7] Derwyn Ross, The Catalina Preservation Society.

[8] For a complete account of The Bismarck, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck

[9] Smith was one of nine American officers assigned to the RAF as special observers. Smith was the first American to participate in a World War II naval victory [2]  and is sometimes considered the first American to be directly involved in World War II for his actions.

[10] A. E. Godfrey was a remarkable Royal Canadian Air Force officer. On Sept. 22,1943, then Air Vice Marshall Godfrey became the most senior Canadian officer to fire directly on the enemy during World War II. For the full story go to https://legionmagazine.com/en/2005/05/godfrey-of-the-rcaf/

[11] RCAF document dated December 22, 1941 generously shared by David Legg, Editor: The Catalina News, The Catalina Society. https://www.catalina.org.uk

[12] David Legg, The Catalina Society, https://www.catalina.org.uk.

[13] RAF pilot Flight Lieutenant Graham, sent to followup on Birchall’s sighting, also found the fleet. His plane, Catalina Z2144, was shot down. No survivors.

[14] Finding a U-boat was not a totally random process. Once every 24 hours, each U-boat had to extend its radio antenna above water to signal its position to Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander of the U-boat fleet. Using shore-based receivers and triangulation the allies could track the U-boat radio signals as they left their Norwegian ports.

[15] For more, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ernest_Hornell

[16] For a list of all RCAF Canso and Catalina squadrons during World War II, go to https://www.cansofunds.com/the-canso-and-the-catalina-in-the-r-c-a-f/

[17] https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/08/31/cat-tales-the-story-of-world-war-iis-pby-flying-boat/

[18] https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/catalinas-in-the-pacific

[19] https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/08/31/cat-tales-the-story-of-world-war-iis-pby-flying-boat/

[20] https://www.nzcatalina.org/history

[21] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PBY_Catalina

[22] David Legg, The Catalina Society,  https://www.catalina.org.uk

[23] https://vvsairwar.com/2017/03/07/the-soviet-pby-catalinas-of-wwii/

Photograph Credits

A – RCAF 11024  A deep gratitude to Professional Aviation Photographer Heath Moffatt for allowing TCPS use of this image

B – xp3y-1 http://www.shu-aero.com/AeroPhotos_Shu_Aero/Aircraft_C/Consolidated/XPY_1_01.html

PBY Variants:

XPY-1 Admiral The Consolidated XPY-1 Admiral, was a modern design for the day, and,  the beginning of flying Boat designs that would eventually lead to the PBY, arguably the most successful fly boat ever built.

Mk I – RAF Coastal Command Designation of the PBY-5 model series.

PBY-5 – PBY-5A Canso – Canadian designation from December 1941 of the PBY model series as produced by Canadian Vickers in Cartierville Quebec and Boeing of Canada in Vancouver BC.

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PBY Catalina, U.S. Flying Boat

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Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina

Specifications :

The Catalina was the standard patrol plane for the Allies , serving in every maritime theater of the war.  Its exploits were legendary. A Catalina located the Bismark in mid-Atlantic after it had broken contact with radar-equipped British cruisers . Catalinas from Midway carried out a night torpedo attack on approaching Japanese troop transports using improvised racks and crews that had never dropped a torpedo before, and actually succeeded in damaging an oiler .  A Catalina is said to have attacked a Japanese carrier in daylight after radioing:  “Please inform next of kin.” In reality, the Catalina was much too slow to make an effective daylight bomber except under unusual conditions.  However, it was an effective night attack aircraft and antisubmarine platform as well as a versatile patrol and rescue aircraft.

The design came out of a Navy competition for a flying boat suitable for patrolling the vast reaches of the Pacific. Consolidated based its design on the successful P2Y flying boat, and the first Catalina flew on 21 March 1935. The design mounted its wing on a single large pylon rather than with the multitude of struts of earlier flying boats, and its wing floats retracted to become the wingtips. The wing included a large integral fuel tank in its center section, giving the aircraft its long range. The fuselage was divided into seven watertight compartments with such amenities as bunks, a galley, and toilet. However, the aircraft suffered from inadequate directional stability and was heavy on the controls. A Sperry autopilot proved indispensable on long patrol missions, but the cabin was not heated until nearly the end of the war.

The Navy selected the Catalina over the Douglas contender in June 1936 and the first operational aircraft were delivered in October 1936. The Navy was sufficiently pleased with the design that the original order of 60 aircraft (the largest since World War I) was followed by an even larger order for 149 more. Eventually all the Navy's patrol squadrons (26 squadrons organized into five wings by December 1941) would be equipped with the aircraft. The first amphibious variant (capable of landing in the water or at an airfield ) flew on 22 November 1939.  

The Catalina served as a test platform for jet-assisted takeoff and magnetic anomaly detection even before war broke out in the Pacific, but these seem not to have seen widespread use in the Pacific during the war. A single unarmed Catalina, "Guba", was sold to anthropologist Richard Archbold for his work in New Guinea, but Archbold subsequently sold the Catalina to Australian polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to search for Russian aviator Sigismund Levanevsky, who went missing 13 August 1937 on a trans-polar flight and was never found.

Catalinas subsequently served around the world and were supplied in significant numbers as Lend-Lease to the Allies. Britain received some 578 Catalinas by the end of the war. The aircraft was manufactured under license by the Canadians and Russians , eventually being manufactured in greater numbers than any other flying boat.

Most PBY-5s had been retrofitted with self-sealing fuel tanks and some armor protection for pilots and gunners by mid-1942. Nevertheless, the flying boats proved highly vulnerable to enemy fighters , and by early 1945 they were being superseded as daylight reconnaissance aircraft by land-based PV-1 Venturas and PB4Y Liberators and in the antisubmarine role by the PBM Mariner flying boat.

U.S. Navy PBYs typically operated from a seaplane tender , which could anchor in almost any large protected body of water and conduct operations until its fuel, rations, and munitions were all expended. In some cases, range was extended by staging the flying boats through a forward anchorage with a mooring buoy equipped with a 500-gallon (1890 liter) rubber gasoline storage tank.

Black Cats. A handful of PBY-5A Catalinas equipped with early ASV radar had reached the Pacific by August 1942 and participated in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons . In December 1942, the Americans deployed a full squadron of PBY-5As to operate at night in the Solomon Islands . This "Black Cat" squadron ( VP-11 ) painted its aircraft black, except for a squadron insignia that started out as a basic cat outline. Eyes were added after the second mission, teeth and whiskers after the third, and, allegedly, "anatomical insignia of a more personal nature" after the fourth mission (Morison 1949). The Black Cats participated in search, strike, and gunfire spotting missions, taking off at about 2230 each night and returning after daybreak. Over time, other squadrons began flying Black Cat missions, and Creed (1985) claims most of the squadrons in the South and Southwest Pacific had rotated through Black Cat tours by the end of the war.

The Catalinas proved well suited for these missions. The black paint and the flame dampers that were later installed over their exhaust ports made them all but invisible in the darkness. If a Japanese night fighter did locate a Black Cat, the Catalina would drop to very low altitude, where it was almost impossible for a night fighter to engage without crashing into the sea. This tactic was aided by radar altimeters installed on most of the Black Cats. The radar altimeters also allowed the Cats to fly the last 100 miles (160 km) to their targets at 50' (15 m) altitude to evade radar. The slow speed of the Cats was actually advantageous for night attacks at mast height.

Initially, the Cats dropped illuminating flares before attacking, but this proved counterproductive. Torpedoes also proved ineffective because of their unreliability. Eventually the tactic that was settled on was to locate targets by radar, then visually, before attacking from the quarter with a salvo of four 500 lb (227 kg) bombs with 5-second-delay fusees dropped from 50 to 150 feet (15 to 45 meters) altitude. A flare was sometimes dropped with the bombs to blind enemy gunners, and some Cat crewmen tossed parafrag bombs from the blisters or ventral hatch to further suppress antiaircraft fire. The gunners held their fire until the bombs were released to further increase the element of surprise .

Black Cat search missions in the Solomons included "Mike Search", a three-hour course up "The Slot" and through Indispensable Strait between Santa Isabel and Malaita . Three circuits could be flown in a single night. By August 1943 the Cats were flying "ferret" missions with electronic warfare technicians to locate Japanese radar installations for later air strikes.

A number of Cats in the Southwest Pacific were field modified with four 0.50 machine guns in the nose, turning them into potent strafers and making them highly effective at night barge hunting.

"Dumbo." Other Catalinas were equipped for air-sea rescue and were known as "Dumbos," after the Disney cartoon character. Each "Dumbo" carried a doctor and pharmacist's mate. Formal operations began in January 1943 and by 15 August 1943 at least 161 aircrew had been rescued by these aircraft. By the end of the year, three or four "Dumbos" took off with each large air strike to follow the aircraft to their targets and orbit some distance away to rescue any downed airmen. "Dumbo" missions were often very hazardous, taking place close to enemy airspace, but did much to improve aircrew morale . The "Dumbos" came to be heavily escorted and fiercely defended by grateful fighter pilots.

Minelaying. Australia had two squadrons of Catalinas when war broke out in the Pacific. These engaged in the same kinds of missions as their allied counterparts, but in addition the Australians began minelaying operations on 23 April 1943, starting in the Bismarcks but later expanding throughout southeast Asia. Each Catalina coiuld carry two magnetic mines. Success of missions was monitored by cryptanalysis and the campaign seriously inconvenienced the Japanese. One mission in December 1944 was escorted by a U.S. Navy Catalina equipped with electronic radar jammers.

Photo Gallery

Creed (1985)

Dorny (2007)

Gunston (1986)

Lunstrom (2006)

Morison (1949) Sharpe et al. (1999)

Wilson (1998)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2009-2010, 2013 by Kent G. Budge.  Index

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The soviet air forces at war, the soviet pby catalinas of wwii.

Soviet Catalina. Photo source

The PBY Catalina is one of the most iconic aircraft of the Second World War, and its contribution to victory both in Europe and the Pacific cannot be understated. From cargo transport and search and rescue operations to anti-submarine warfare, patrol bombing, and convoy escorts, the Catalina could adeptly carry out any task required of it. While it is well-known that Catalinas were active in nearly every major Western Allied operation in World War II, its service record with the Soviet military is often times overlooked. Indeed, although the Soviet Navy only had a handful of license-built Catalinas in their arsenal during the first two years of the war, in 1944, the U.S. began sending a significant number of the rugged and versatile flying boats to the Soviet Pacific, Black, Baltic, and North Sea fleets as part of the Lend-Lease program, and the Red Navy went on to use them with great effect. By the end of the war, the Soviet Union had received more than 150 Catalinas of various types from the U.S. These flying boats would go on to have an outstanding service record with the Soviet military both during the war with Germany and during the Soviet-Japanese War of August 1945.

The Soviet Union began purchasing Catalinas and producing their own under license even before World War II. In 1937, one year after the PBY was introduced in the U.S., the Soviet Union negotiated a contract with Consolidated Aircraft to purchase three PBY-2s (Model 28-2), the right to produce the Catalina in the Soviet Union under license, and engineering support from the American company to help set up the flying boat factory in the city of Taganrog. The three Models 28-2s that arrived in the Soviet Union the following year were the only three PBYs to be powered by Wright Cyclone R-1820-G3 engines, each of which was approximately 200 horsepower less than the usual Pratt and Whitney R-1830s that were put in the majority of Catalinas. The different engines made it easier for Soviet engineers to produce their own license-built PBYs, since the Soviet Shvetsov ASh-62 (M-62) was developed from the Shvetsov M-25, which was a license-built variant of the Wright Cyclone R-1820.

In 1938, a party of 18 American engineers from Consolidated were sent to Taganrog on the Sea of Azov to help set up the Soviet Catalina factory. However, much like the Lisunov Li-2 project, which was a license-built version of the DC-3, technical documents needed to be translated from English to Russian, and, more significantly, Consolidated Aircraft’s imperial measurements had to be converted to the Soviet Union’s metric system, a task that took several months.  Nevertheless, production of the Soviet-built Catalinas began the following January, and the new aircraft were designated GST (Gidrosamolet transportnii, or seaplane transport). By October 1941, when the German military overtook Taganrog where the Soviet Catalina factory had been located, a total of 27 GSTs had been built.

Soviet GST. Photo source

Unfortunately, little is known about the operational service of the majority of GSTs. In June of 1941, 11 Soviet GSTs were in stationed Sevastopol and were in service with the 80th Reconnaissance Squadron of the Black Sea Fleet. In the immediate aftermath of Operation Barbarossa, these flying boats were engaged mostly in reconnoitering enemy installations and naval bases on the Romanian coast and the western Black Sea, where the aircraft encountered stiff opposition. In the fall of 1941, when the Germans began their Crimean campaign, the Black Sea Fleet began using the remaining GSTs for night bombing missions against Axis encampments. As the Wehrmacht began to enclose Sevastopol, the license-built Catalinas were tasked with helping to evacuate important cargo from the city. By the time the GSTs were relocated to the Caucasus after the Crimea had fallen, only five of the Fleet’s 11 Catalinas were remaining. For the next two years, Soviet flying boats would play only a negligible role in the war against Germany, due both to the fact that the decisive battles of 1942 and 1943 were land operations, and to the fact that the Soviet military’s arsenal of flying boats had been severely depleted by the German onslaught of 1941 and early 1942.

Indeed, by June of 1944, the Soviet Navy’s seaplane forces found themselves in a crisis. Of the 859 flying boats of all types that were in the Soviet arsenal at the time of the German invasion, only 271 had survived. What is more, the Soviet aviation industry had only managed to manufacture 39 seaplanes during the up to this point, mostly Che-2s and Be-4s, aircraft which, by 1944, were grossly outdated. At the same time, the Red Army’s switch to a strategic offensive beginning in 1943 signified the need for a large number of modernized flying boats that would be able to perform anti-submarine tasks, transport duties, search and rescue operations, and long-range reconnaissance missions, assignments with which the majority of the remaining 271 seaplanes could not cope.

As early as 1942, Moscow had unsuccessfully requested that the U.S. provide PBY-5A amphibious Catalinas (complete with a retractable landing gear) for use in the North Sea and Pacific fleets. Despite this failed attempt, when Taganrog was liberated in August of 1943, Washington agreed to provide equipment, supplies, and tooling to rebuild the city’s GST factory. In October of 1944, however, the Soviet leadership made the decision to focus the factory’s efforts on a long-range amphibious aircraft project, known as LL-143, which eventually resulted in the Beriev Be-6, an aircraft that ultimately did not make its first flight until 1949.

The Soviet plans to focus on the development of the LL-143 in Taganrog was undoubtedly influenced by Washington’s decision in early 1944 to include the delivery of an initial 30 flying boats to the Soviet Union as part of the IV Lend-Lease Protocol. However, the Catalinas that were to be sent were not the PBY-5A amphibious aircraft that Moscow had requested, but the PBN-1 Nomad, a modified PBY flying boat that was different from its predecessor in several ways, but nevertheless a high quality and versatile aircraft (although it did lack a landing gear). Physically, the PBN-1 did not differ significantly from other PBYs, save for t he bow, which was sharpened and extended by 60 cm (two feet), and its tail, which was slightly enlarged and reshaped. However, most importantly, the engineers at the Naval Aircraft Factory managed to increase the size of the flying boat’s fuel tanks, increasing the Nomad’s range by 50%. The PBN-1 also featured upgraded weapons with continuous-feed mechanisms, as well as an improved electrical system. The Soviet Union was finally getting a high quality flying boat that could adeptly play the role required of it.

PBN Nomad drawing. Wings Palette

The first shipment of 24 PBN-1 Nomads arrived in Murmansk for use with the White Sea Fleet in June of 1944, and the second batch, destined for use in the Soviet Pacific Fleet, arrived shortly thereafter. The Black Sea and Baltic Fleets received their U.S.-built flying boats the following month. In many cases, the Nomads were put into operation almost immediately after the feets received them, despite a shortage of Soviet pilots who had been trained to fly the U.S.-built flying boats. To make matters worse, the upgraded PBN-1 reportedly handled differently than the Soviet-built GST, and successfully converting to the new aircraft took time for seasoned pilots. What is more, many airmen who were ordered to fly the Nomad had never before taken off or landed a seaplane of any kind.

Much like in the U.S. and the U.K., the Catalina in the Soviet Union was used to carry out a wide range of tasks, from search and rescue operations to anti-submarine missions and everything in between. Already as early as August 12, just two months after receiving their first batch of flying boats, a PBN Nomad with the Northern Fleet flown by S.M. Rubana came across a German submarine while on a reconnaissance mission. Flying without torpedoes or bombs on this particular day, the Nomad opened fire using its Browning .50 caliber machine guns, forcing the German submarine to dive. By this time, two more Nomads armed with depth charges had arrived, and proceeded to drop their ordnance. The crews of all three PBNs saw a stream of oil rising to the surface, making it the first successful Soviet Catalina attack against a German submarine. The incident appears to have convinced German submarines that the Soviet flying boats posed a threat significant enough to warrant diving when Nomads were in the area. One Catalina pilot, Sergey Pasechnik, recalled that his crew was often tasked with escorting ships of the Soviet Black Fleet. “During convoy escort, we had to carry 16 depth charges on each Catalina,” Pasechnik stated, “but we never had a chance to use them- the German submarines were afraid of us.”

Like in the U.S. Navy, the Soviet Catalinas were primarily responsible for carrying out reconnaissance operations and search and rescue missions, tasks at which the Soviet flying boats excelled. Already in August of 1944, shortly after receiving its first batch of Nomads, the pilots of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet put their flying boats to good use, rescuing two downed Soviet airmen on August 19th and three crew members of a Petlyakov Pe-2 on August 20th.

Photo source

Soviet aircrews were in general enthusiastic about the Catalina, especially its ability to carry out extensive maritime patrol missions without refueling. As one Nomad pilot, Vladimir Zaytsev, recalled, “What can I say about this machine? It was the American-made seaplane that could stay in the air for more than 30 hours without refueling. However, the speed was low, 300-350 kilometers per hour.” The Catalina’s ability to remain aloft for extended periods of time became an award-winning achievement during the war, even for commercial carriers. Indeed, the longest commercial flights in terms of time aloft ever made in the history of aviation were the Qantas flights between Perth and Colombo that took place weekly from June of 1943 through June of 1945 over the Indian Ocean. During these flights, Catalinas traveled a distance of 6,652 km (3,592 miles) non stop, which took 28 to 32 hours.

Paradoxically, it was precisely due to the Catalina’s range and its ability to remain aloft for extended periods that made some Soviet regiments relegate its use to a secondary role, using it only for long-range missions. For example, after being sent to the North Sea Fleet, PBN Nomads flew only 40 anti-submarine sorties through the end of the war, whereas Soviet-built MBR-2s flew 170 such sorties during the same time period. The North Sea Fleet preferred to use the MBR-2s for close-range missions, and only used the Nomads when the Soviet-built MBRS “fell short”.

Nevertheless, other Soviet Fleets used the Consolidated flying boats to their full potential, appreciating many of the characteristics of the aircraft. Nomad crew members were especially enthusiastic about the PBN’s armament, which included three .30 cal (7.62 mm) (two in the nose turret, one in the tail), and two .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine guns (one for each waist gunner), all of which were U.S.-built Browning machine guns. As one Nomad gunner, Sergey Pasechnik, recalled, the Catalinas were “always [armed with] American Browning guns. They were wonderful machine guns that never jammed in all my service. It was a reliable and effective weapon.”

Soviet Catalina crews also appreciated the flying boats’ radar, especially while carrying out night patrol missions, although only 48 of the 107 Nomads were equipped with the apparatus. Pasechnik went on to explain that, “Radar was on in our flying boat constantly. As I said, this radar could operate at a distance of 120 miles. Of course, it was not as powerful as the detection systems that I worked with after the war, but we could easily determine a ship’s location, [and] easily find the shore… Radar significantly helped the pilots, especially during night missions.”

By the German surrender on May 9th, 1945, the Soviet Union had received 107 PBN-1s. Amazingly, none of the Soviet Nomads had been lost in combat, although nine had been lost due technical problems. Deliveries of Catalinas to the Soviet Union, however, did not stop with the capitulation of Germany. Indeed, the Western Allies had been preparing for the Red Army to join the war against Japan for some time before Germany’s surrender, sending a number of Lend-Lease goods that were to be used only against Japan (most notably the P-63 Kingcobra). Starting in the Summer of 1945, the U.S. began ferrying Consolidated’s latest flying boat to the Soviet Union, the amphibious PBY-6A, while at the same time continuing delivery of PBN Nomads. On January 1, 1945, the Soviet Pacific Fleet had 28 flying boats in its arsenal, and by August 9, when the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, the Pacific Fleet had 71 Catalinas, both PBNs and PBY-6As.

The Soviet Catalinas did see extensive operational actions during the short Soviet-Japanese War of 1945, performing anti-submarine missions, search and rescue operations, and troop transport, among other tasks. Most notably, PBY-6As were used to transport airborne troops during the South Sakhalin Operation (August 11, 1945 – August 25, 1945) and the Kuril Landing Operation (August 18, 1945 – September 1, 1945). One PBN disappeared during the Far East Campaign, accounting for the Soviet Union’s only lost flying boat during the Soviet-Japanese War of 1945. After the war, the Soviet Union gradually replaced the Catalinas with the Beriev Be-6, which was produced between 1949 and 1957, though the U.S.-built flying boats continued to be used by the Red Navy until the mid-1950s.

As was the case with flying boats in service with the U.S. and U.K., the Soviet Catalinas had impressive service records. Often times the unsung hero of the Allied war effort, the PBY Catalina was a rugged and versatile aircraft that could perform a wide range of operations. Though the flying boats were not as popular and elegant as many other aircraft of WWII, they undoubtedly played a vital role in the war effort in all theaters, including the Eastern Front, and deserve to be remembered as such. 

-Patrick Kinville

• V.P. Kotelnikov, G.F. Petrov, D.A. Sobolev, N.V. Yakubovich, Amerikantsii v Rossii
• Krylia Rodiny no. 9 & 10

Further reading:

• Mel Crocker, Black Cats and Dumbos: WWII’s Fighting PBYs
• Louis B. Dorney, US Navy PBY Catalina Units of the Pacific War (Osprey Combat Aircraft, No. 62)

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Cat Tales: Consolidated’s PBY Flying Boat

1935 was a vintage year for first flights. It saw the arrival of three enormously capable, ahead-of-their-time airplanes that played a huge part in winning World War II: the Boeing B-17, Douglas DC-3/C-47 and Consolidated PBY flying boat, later to become an amphibian as well.

The deeds of the Flying Fortress and C-47 are widely known, but the PBY casts a less obvious shadow across wartime history. And it doesn’t help that the “Pigboat,” as some of its admirers grudgingly call it, didn’t have the warlike mien of the iconic B-17 or the rugged grace of the C-47.

Well, rugged it had…grace, not so much.

But never mind, the PBY, like all great objects of industrial design, exuded an air of absolute purposefulness. The Consolidated team that limned its lines knew exactly what to include and what to leave off: a shapely, minimal hull rather than a standard flying boat barge; two tightly cowled and wing-faired engines close to the centerline, ideal for single-engine handling, though they made directional control on the water a bit difficult; a towering, fish-tail vertical fin to help with the steering both on the water and in the air; clean, cantilever, strutless horizontal stabilizers; and the colossal, fuel-fat wing that gave the PBY range and endurance far beyond anything else with propellers.

Even the waist-blister goiters that became so much a part of the flying boat’s look when they were added to the PBY-4 might have seemed excessive, but they were effective gunnery and observation posts. After all, the famous “Attu Zero,” the largely undamaged example of the Japanese navy’s mythic fighter, was discovered by an airsick crewman who had leaned into his PBY’s blister and opened it to vomit just as the crashed Mitsubishi flashed below him.

The PBY wasn’t without its teething troubles, however. Though the prototype came in over 600 pounds lighter than the contract specified, with a stall speed 10 mph slower and a top speed 12 mph faster with a substantially shorter takeoff run, the vertical tailfin needed to be increased in size to add stability. When the prototype made its first rough-water landings, in 4- and 5-foot seas, the impact of one full-stall touchdown blew out the bombardier’s window and the forward hatch, cracked the windshield, wrinkled the hull and damaged all six prop blades. Consolidated pointed out that a less robust boat would have sunk, but it quickly added numerous stiffeners and gussets.

New flying boat pilots complained that the PBY was brutally heavy on the controls. Old-timers accustomed to the open-cockpit biplane boats that had preceded it laughed and opined that the PBY was light and responsive. Having flown a B-17 of the same era, I can attest that one pilot’s “light and responsive” is another’s “at least I don’t have to go to the gym today.”

Open-sea landings required a practiced touch, since the Pigboat asked to be stalled on at minimum speed— a characteristic that soon made it such a superb rough-water boat. Popped rivets and even sprung seams were not uncommon, but crewmen learned to use the navigator’s pencils to plug rivet holes, and pilots soon realized that a touch-and-go or immediate beaching was the only defense against an open hull skin.

The PBY’s single shapely central pylon was thus a great leap forward, following first use of the concept on the slightly earlier Sikorsky S-42. The streamlined pylon put the wing-mounted engines well above spray height, since water can do a surprising amount of damage to prop tips moving at near-supersonic speeds. More important, in combination with four short fuselage struts, it supported the PBY’s glory: the vast ironing board of a wing that was both an enormous fuel tank and a strong, efficient lifting surface. With a beefy continuous I-beam spar and internal bracing, the wing was actually semicantilevered. At the time, the PBY was the cleanest flying boat, dragwise, ever designed.

The pylon was just wide enough to serve as the military flight engineer’s lofty but lonely office, his seat suspended from the wing above him like a playground swing. With a window on each side, it gave him a good view of the nacelles, where any oil leakage would first show up. Many civil and commercial PBYs in use all over the world after WWII, however, dispensed with flight engineers and moved all the controls and engine gauges to the cockpit.

Another PBY innovation was totally retractable wing floats, each of which swung out and upward to fair neatly into the wing, the float itself morphing into a wingtip. Had the usage existed at the time, this feature would have been pronounced “cool”…but as with so many cool things, it wasn’t particularly effective. A PBY’s cruise speed remained about the same whether the floats were extended or retracted, though PBY pilots had to be ready to counteract substantial yaw whenever the tip floats were in motion, since each float often moved asymmetrically, answering to its own retraction system. With the floats down, aileron effectiveness was also substantially decreased.

The PBY’s lead designer, Consolidated’s Isaac Machlin Laddon, was a brilliant engineer, though he is not as well known as Kelly Johnson, Ed Heinemann and Alexander Kartveli, who also designed war-winners. “Mac”Laddon was responsible not only for the PBY but the B-24, B-36 and postwar Convair 240/340/440 series of twin-engine airliners.

Another of his team’s PBY novelties was its huge wet wing, the first on any production airplane but today a construction technique that is the aerospace standard. (Laddon had developed the concept for his far smaller Consolidated XBY-1 Fleetster dive-bomber prototype, but only one was built.) A wet wing means that the wing skin itself is the fuel tank, with no need for separate fuel tanks or bladders to be inserted into bays between ribs and spars—a substantial weight-saving feature, but one that of course requires that every seam and rivet be sealed or gasketed. In the case of the PBY, this considerable effort meant half a pound saved per gallon of fuel, or 875 pounds pared.

PBYs came in a variety of dash numbers, but the one that really mattered was the PBY-5, which became the world’s largest amphibian. (Today it’s the Russian Beriev B-200 twin-turbofan firebomber, roughly three times the weight of a PBY.) Early PBYs had simple beaching gear—external wheels and struts that were tugged off manually by a swimsuited launching crew once the airplane had been trundled down a ramp and was afloat in the water. This was how Mac Laddon wanted it—simple, no extra weight, no complex retraction system, no internal space given up to wheel wells. His boss Reuben Fleet, Consolidated’s founder and president, thought flying boats should carry “internal beaching gear” everywhere they went, so they could operate independently without the need for a beaching crew. So a PBY-4 was fitted with retractable gear that was deemed usable only for emergency runway use at light weights, and it became the prototype XPBY-5.

“My theory is that it was Reuben Fleet’s way of persuading his engineers to accept his idea for what he envisioned as a fully amphibious version,” says PBY authority David Legg of that initial retractable beaching gear. Converting it into rugged, reliable, full-time landing gear was no small undertaking. It required substantial strengthening of the hull as well as a powerful hydraulic system, and it wasn’t easy to get good ground handling out of narrow-tread main gear sitting under a tippy 14-ton airplane with a high center of gravity. But the PBY-5A went on to become what is generally considered to be the ultimate variant of Consolidated’s flying boat.

The PBY went by several names, the most common being Catalina, the RAF’s designation for the boats that they bought. (The Brits had no idea there was such a thing as Catalina Island, not far from Consolidated’s San Diego headquarters, but Reuben Fleet suggested it.) The U.S. Navy adopted the name several years later, so it’s correct to call a Navy airplane a PBY Catalina, but there’s no such thing in England, any more than there is an F4F Martlet, a C-47 Dakota or any other dual U.S./British designation; the RAF never used any of the U.S. alphanumeric designators.

Despite their long history of building successful seaplanes and flying boats, the British ended up buying some 700 Catalinas to serve alongside far larger Short Sunderlands as the RAF’s primary Coastal Command and Far East patrol bombers. The Brits had hoped the Saunders-Roe Lerwick would fulfill the medium patrol role, but the ghastly, short-coupled Lerwick twin turned out to be unstable and unable to fly on one engine. It was everything the Catalina wasn’t—including relatively heavily armed, with two multi-gun power turrets.

The Canadians named their PBYs Cansos, after a river in Nova Scotia, though one groaner has it that when RCAF pilots first saw a PBY, they said, “This thing can’t fly,” and the engineers answered, “It can so.” Late in the war the Naval Aircraft Factory introduced an improved model it called the PBN-1 Nomad, most of which ended up going to the Soviets. Well before the Nomad, however, there were the informally named Black Cats—Pacific patrol bombers that flew mainly at night and were painted overall flat black.

Another major wartime user of the PBY was the Royal Australian Air Force, and it has been said the Catalina was to Australia every bit as important—and to this day iconic—as the Spitfire was to Britain. With a Japanese invasion a very real threat early in the war, RAAF Catalina coastal patrols and missions into the Solomons were crucial, and when the Allies soon went on the offensive, Aussie Cats ranged as far as the coast of China, mine-laying and night-bombing. It’s said that when the RAAF Catalina crews ran out of bombs, they threw out beer bottles with razor blades inserted in the necks. The bottles whistled as they fell in the dark, assumedly frightening the Japanese.

Not many civilians knew what a PBY was until the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. That changed when hundreds of newspaper photos showed the crumpled, blazing PBYs of the six Navy patrol squadrons based at Kaneohe NAS and Ford Island. They had been 81 fine airplanes, most of them new. Only four flyable Catalinas survived, three of them because they had been aloft at the time of the Japanese attack. One of those became the first U.S. aircraft to attack the Japanese, when it bombed a midget submarine an hour before the main assault.

The Cats and other PBYs were surprisingly effective bombers, under the right conditions. Of the 60 Axis submarines sunk by the Navy in all theaters of the war, 25 went down under bombs from PBYs, plus one spotted by a PBY but sunk by a destroyer. Another 13 were sunk by PB4Ys—the Navy version of the B-24 Liberator—giving Consolidated aircraft credit for almost two-thirds of all subs sunk by the U.S. in WWII. More were deep-sixed by RAF Coastal Command Catalinas and Liberators, but a British Catalina’s most celebrated feat was spotting the battleship Bismarck after it sank the Royal Navy battle cruiser Hood and scuttled away under cover of fog. The Cat didn’t sink the Bismarck , but appropriately, the critical, crippling blow was left to another antique, the Fairey Swordfish.

The PBY’s bombing career started less auspiciously. The first-ever U.S. offensive airstrike of the Pacific War, which came nearly four months before the Doolittle Raid, was flown by six PBYs out of Ambon Island, in the Dutch East Indies, to bomb a Japanese base at Jolo, in the southwest Philippines. PBYs were the only airplanes with the range to make the 1,600-mile round trip. Four of the six were shot down by Japanese fighters, and in his post-action report, one of the surviving pilots wrote, “It is impossible to outrun fighters with a PBY-4. Under no circumstances should PBYs be allowed to come in contact with enemy fighters unless protected by fighter convoy.” A PBY typically cruised at 105 to 125 mph, which meant that a well-armed Cessna could have taken one on.

Indeed the PBY’s most effective defensive maneuver quickly became lumbering toward the nearest cloud bank to hide. One Australian Catalina pilot even evaded Zeros by ducking into a volcanic ash plume.

As the war in Europe heated up and American participation became inevitable, few thought the elderly, minimally armed and painfully slow PBY would be around much longer, so Consolidated started work on its successor, the twin-engine P4Y Corregidor—well before the name became synonymous with defeat. The P4Y might have been an order of magnitude better than the PBY, but we’ll never know; certainly it was an order of magnitude uglier. It had a highaspect-ratio, high-lift, low-drag, laminar-flow wing—the Davis airfoil that was soon to become famous on the B-24—but it was designed to use the powerful but troublesome Wright R-3350 engines desperately needed for the B-29. The War Department canceled the P4Y contract after just one prototype was built, and the Louisiana factory that was built to crank out Corregidors ended up building yet more Catalinas.

For the U.S. Catalinas, the equivalent of the RAF’s sink-the- Bismarck moment was the brief break in Pacific clouds through which a Navy PBY crew saw the Japanese fleet racing toward Midway. In fact, the same phrases reappear in accounts of nearly every WWII naval battle, Atlantic and Pacific: “A PBY spotted the carrier….While Catalinas shadowed the fleet through the night….As the PBY followed the phosphorescent wakes….When the fog suddenly lifted, the PBY saw the picket destroyers….” Few such slugfests started without at least one PBY tracking the combatants from above.

Particularly in the Pacific theater, air-sea rescue PBYs called Dumbos retrieved thousands of ditched pilots and shipwrecked seamen, often under fire and usually in seas that would have trashed a lesser boat. One Dumbo landed three times to pick up downed bomber crews and eventually took off with 25 extra men aboard; for that mission, Navy Lieutenant Nathan Gordon became the only PBY pilot to be awarded a Medal of Honor. Another Cat needed a three-mile takeoff run to lift a total of 63, including its own crew, and the pounding probably popped half the rivets in the hull. But the record goes to the Australian Catalina that carried 87 Dutch sailors—standing room only, thank you—after Japanese bombers mauled their freighter. With 15,000 pounds of passengers alone, to say nothing of the airplane’s fuel and crew weight, that put the RAAF PBY well over gross, but the Cat’s basic weight-and-balance rule was that if the payload hadn’t yet sunk the boat, it would somehow take off.

Beyond its stellar military service, the PBY enjoyed a long civil history before, during and after WWII, and it isn’t over yet. One of the most widely known of all converted warbirds among people who think Mustangs are cars was the Cousteau Society’s Calypso , operated during the 1970s by the famous oceanographer and environmentalist Jacques-Yves Cousteau and often flown by his son Philippe. Tragically, Philippe Cousteau was killed during a post-overhaul flight test of Calypso when it nosed over during a highspeed water run on the Tagus River, in Portugal, in 1979.

Yet the PBY’s commercial career had started—false-started, actually—a good 40 years earlier, when Consolidated proposed using PBYs as transcontinental airliners that could use lakes and rivers en route for an emergency landing, if necessary. Several American and British airlines did buy PBYs, but as survey airplanes, not passenger carriers.

In 1937 Consolidated did sell one very special civil PBY—it was officially a Model 28—to rich, eccentric zoologist Richard Archbold. A research associate at New York’s Museum of Natural History, Archbold was also a private pilot, so his Consolidated boat became, at least until the advent of converted-warbird corporate transports in the 1950s, the largest private plane in the world.

Archbold named the airplane Guba , a New Guinean word meaning “sudden storm,” and he intended to use it to continue his explorations of the Pacific island. Guba ’s first major flight was a nonstop transcontinental trip from San Diego to New York in 1937, the first ever by a flying boat, establishing a speed record for the category that wasn’t broken until April 1944, by a Navy Martin Mars. Archbold sold Guba to the Soviet government before going on to New Guinea, however, since they desperately needed the aircraft to do long-range searches for the Russian pioneer pilot Sigismund Levanevsky, who was lost in the Arctic (and never found). Archbold immediately bought a second Model 28— Guba II —and not only made it to New Guinea but carried on the rest of the way around the world for another record: the first-ever seaplane circumnavigation.

Another PBY record that has yet to be broken was set by a small cadre of Catalinas that were operated by the Australian airline Qantas during WWII. They flew privileged passengers between Perth and Ceylon, near India, and from June 1943 to July 1945, several of them stayed aloft, nonstop and unrefueled, for more than 32 hours. Super Airbuses and extended-range 747s fly faster and farther, but none has ever come close to making a longer-duration passenger flight (see “The PBYs That Flew Forever,” July 2011 issue.)

After WWII, some surplus PBYs inevitably were converted into flying yachts, during the private-flying heyday that encouraged fantasies of flying cars, personal jetpacks, dad commuting in a Piper and seaplanes bobbing in lakes with fishermen on one float and bathing beauties on the other. Luxury PBYs fit right in.

The most impressive lipstick-on-a-Pigboat scheme was the early-1950s Landseaire. Even Egypt’s King Farouk had one on order before his abdication. The base price of a Landseaire was $265,000, which is about $2.3 million today and would be a bargain, since that’s roughly the cost of a bush-taxi Cessna Caravan single on amphibious floats. The Landseaire had 14-foot dinghies under each wing, hoisted to fit flush by cables that had once lifted torpedoes and bombs, and the gunners’ blisters were replaced by one-piece, blown-Lucite “flying bay windows” that invariably were photographed for various magazines (including a snarky Life feature) with a bikinied babe, drink in hand, stretched out on the interior foam-rubber cushion.

Equally well-known—a relative term—among modified PBYs was the Bird Innovator, the world’s only four-engine Cat. A California company added a pair of 340-hp, geared Lycoming flat-6 engines outboard of the stock 1,200-hp Pratt radials to provide better performance at high gross weights as well as improved water maneuverability—the Lycs had reversible three-blade props—but apparently the Innovator was the answer to a question nobody had bothered to ask. Only one was built, and a subsequent owner eventually removed the extra engines.

One thing that civil PBY conversions accomplished was a necessary bit of beautification: what came to be known as the “clipper bow,” a fairing-in of the cowl ahead of the windscreen to eliminate the awkward nose turret. If there was one discordant note in the Cat’s refrain, it was that squared-off little greenhouse that gave the airplane the look of an angry hognose snake, a protuberance that seemed an add-on and if anything harked back to World War I observation airplanes with a freezing Frenchman standing upright in the bow. On early PBYs, in fact, the “turret” was indeed nothing more than a semi-open bombardier/observer’s post. Guns came later—ineffective single or twin .30s in the nose, single .50s in each waist blister and sometimes a .30-cal firing from a belly hatch near the tail.

this article first appeared in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

Today the PBY remains the best-known seaplane in the world. Until the last of them were recently retired, photos of Canso and Catalina waterbombers appeared regularly on the front pages of 21st-century newspapers, flying over forest fires in the U.S., Greece, Spain, France and elsewhere.

No flying boat or amphibian was ever produced in greater numbers than the two basic variants of the PBY. Between Consolidated, the Naval Aircraft Factory, Boeing Canada, Canadian Vickers and the Soviets, 1,452 wheelless boats were manufactured, plus 1,853 amphibs with retractable gear. Many sources give figures of 4,000-plus total, but PBY expert David Legg comes up with a combined production run of 3,305. (Legg runs The Catalina Society—catalina.org.uk— which operates a restored PBY-5A based at Duxford, England.)

It was a fortuitous combination of talents that made the PBY effective despite its painfully slow airspeed and relatively ineffective armament. The old P-boat was hell for stout, handled open-water landing and takeoffs with equanimity, would lift anything that could fit into it, could carry 2 tons of bombs or torpedoes and had butt-busting duration and loiter capability. Since the future of commercial flying boats and amphibs seems to stretch no farther than firefighting, we’ll surely never see its like again.

For further reading, frequent contributor Stephan Wilkinson recommends: PBY: The Catalina Flying Boat , by Roscoe Creed; Black Cats and Dumbos: WWII’s Fighting PBYs , by Mel Crocker; and Consolidated PBY Catalina: The Peacetime Record , by David Legg.

Originally published in the May 2013 issue of Aviation History Magazine . To subscribe, click here .

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Modernized Catalina Flying Boat Returns to the Skies Modernized Catalina Flying Boat Returns to the Skies

Florida-based Catalina Aircraft plans to revive the 80-year-old design with new technology.

July 26, 2023

The Consolidated Aircraft Corp. Catalina PBY flying boat is an icon of the World War II era, but this ancient design may have new life when brand-new examples are built using modern turboprop powerplants and contemporary avionics.

Consider it the flying equivalent of the modern Volkswagen buses built by Classic Steel , with their water-cooled Subaru engines or electric motors replacing the original air-cooled VW engines.

Consolidated built 3,276 Catalinas according to the U.S. Navy, which employed the planes for maritime patrols, search and rescue missions, and even bombing. According to the Navy Times , PBYs accounted for 25 of the 60 enemy submarines sunk during WWII, with another one sunk by a destroyer after being spotted by a PBY patrol plane.

The plane is notable for its streamlined hull and its wet wing, which contains fuel inside without separate tanks or even a rubber bladder.

Florida-based Catalina Aircraft is the current holder of the FAA Type Certificates for the 28-5ACF Catalina and has been providing parts to support Catalina operators. From this foundation, the company has announced the Next Generation Amphibious Aircraft (NGAA) Catalina II twin turboprop amphibious flying boat.

The Catalina II is available in two new production variants, a NGAA Civilian Variant and a NGAA Special Use Variant for government and military customers. The Air Force has recently expressed interest in amphibious aircraft, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals for a ground-effect seaplane .

"Interest in the rebirth of this legendary amphibian has been extraordinary,” said Lawrence Reece, president of Catalina Aircraft. “The capabilities this modernized iconic platform offers, being capable of performing so many unique missions, and in a variety of market segments, speaks to the heritage of the Catalina product line.”

“The NGAA Catalina II is a modern amphibian with advanced engines and avionics and will offer capabilities no other amphibian can provide today,” Reece continued. “We are looking forward to moving this program forward rapidly.”

The company says that the NGAA Catalina II will be the largest, fastest, longest range, highest payload, and most capable amphibious aircraft available worldwide with Western Certifications.

While the airframe design is carries over, Catalina says it will build them using modern corrosion-resistant materials, assembly practices, and supportability to ensure reliable supply of repair parts.

Cruising on the water on a takeoff run, a Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina patrol bomber can take off on land as well as water.

The plane’s civilian variant will have a 32,000-pound Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) and be sea state 2-capable. It can carry 34 passengers or 12,000 pounds of cargo for private or commercial operators.

Catalina Aircraft says the plane will use modern turboprop engines that deliver 15-20 percent better fuel efficiency than older turboprops, for a range of as far as 1,525 nautical miles and a cruising speed of 185 knots. At 212 mph, that’s about 100 mph faster than the piston-powered originals fly at cruising speed.

According to the Navy Times article, Qantas Airlines PBYs flew from Perth to Ceylon, near India, on a route that kept them aloft, non-stop and unrefueled, for more than 32 hours!

The military version will be rated for a 40,000-pound MTOW and can handle sea state 3 for military CONcepts of OPerations (CONOPs). This version flies faster than the civilian plane, with a cruising speed of 230 mph or 200 knots.

A fuel capacity of 2,710 gallons promises to keep the Catalina II in the air for more than 19 hours.

Catalina says the plane will be able to carry as many as 30 troops and their gear, though during WWII, one Australian Catalina managed to take off carrying 87 Dutch sailors rescued from their sunken freighter!

Both versions of the plane will feature dual ultra-wide, 4-segment touch screen displays (with night vision goggle compatibility for the military version) and a dark cockpit interface to reduce pilot workload.

Catalina promises to deliver the first planes in 2029, though pricing hasn’t been announced yet.

About the Author

Senior Editor, Design News

Dan’s coverage of the auto industry over three decades has taken him to the racetracks, automotive engineering centers, vehicle simulators, wind tunnels, and crash-test labs of the world.

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Bill Downs, War Correspondent

January 19, 2017, 1941. air patrol in the battle of the atlantic.

Grandstand Seat for Air Battle Fails to Make Former K. C. K. Man Feel Happy By WILLIAM R. DOWNS United Press Staff Correspondent Aboard Catalina flying boat, on Atlantic patrol — (UP) "Aircraft ahead!" The pilot's curt announcement and the shrill shrieking of the alarm horn transformed that laughing group of 20-year-olds aboard the American-made patrol plane into a crew of fighting men with itchy trigger fingers. The kid from London stopped slicing bread in his capacity of utility cook and crawled into the tail to man the rear machine gun. The port and starboard gunners in their "blisters" on the sides of the California-built craft prepared their guns. The observer almost bowled me over as he rushed to man the forward gun. For the first time I felt that my grandstand seat in this Battle of the Atlantic was not exactly comfortable. Through my binoculars the cloud-hopping plane two miles ahead looked like any other plane to me. But the pilot said it was a 2-motored Dornier 115. We all knew that if there was one German plane in the vicinity, there might be twenty. Or the one plane might indicate the presence of a German convoy, or warships, below. One plane alone could signal our presence to others, and before long we might be in a trap. The Catalina kept on its course. It is a magnificent craft. But for a matter of seconds I had one criticism of the California mechanics who made it. I caught myself wishing they had equipped it with 12-inch naval rifles—something you could get your teeth in. But the danger passed. Apparently the plane ahead was on reconnaissance and didn't want to fight. The crew members were disappointed. I told them I was, too. The crews love their "cats," praise their maneuverability and damn their long range. Catalinas can fly so far and so long that patrols average 18 to 20 hours in duration. The Catalina which spotted the German battleship Bismarck and summoned the British craft which sank it was in air 27 hours. How many submarines have been sunk by Catalinas cannot be reported, but it may be said that the number is constantly increasing. Patrol crews have time occasionally to think up wild schemes that would do credit to a Texas yarn spinner. The pilot of our Catalina told me one. "The idea is," he said, "to throw green paint into the ocean where a submarine is reported. Later, when the submarine comes to the surface, the paint will cover the periscope and the commander will think he is still underwater and keep on rising. "When the submarine reaches an altitude of about 2,000 feet, we will come along and shoot him down."

Category : Consolidated PBY Catalina

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Authority file   GND ID: Library of Congress authority ID: NL CR AUT ID: National Library of Israel J9U ID: Subcategories This category has the following 22 subcategories, out of 22 total. Consolidated PBY Catalina by location ‎ (5 C) Consolidated PBY Catalina by registration ‎ (22 C) PBY Catalina aircrew ‎ (20 F) Bird Innovator ‎ (4 F) Cockpit of PBY Catalina ‎ (5 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina in commercial service ‎ (2 C, 10 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina at Cosford Air Show 2024 ‎ (20 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina by country of service ‎ (12 C) Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina ‎ (5 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina drawings ‎ (5 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina gun turrets ‎ (1 C, 12 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina in flight ‎ (88 F) PBY Catalina models ‎ (6 F) PBY Catalina museum aircraft ‎ (11 C, 46 F) Nose art on PBY Catalina ‎ (3 F) Consolidated OA-10 Catalina ‎ (2 C, 15 F) PBY Catalina crop sprayers ‎ (19 F) PBY Catalina destroyed in combat ‎ (18 F) PBY Catalina warbirds ‎ (9 C, 78 F) PBY Catalina waterbomber ‎ (1 C, 36 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina production ‎ (6 F) Consolidated PBY Catalina on stamps ‎ (1 F) Pages in category "Consolidated PBY Catalina" This category contains only the following page. Consolidated PBY Catalina Media in category "Consolidated PBY Catalina" The following 175 files are in this category, out of 175 total. Nieuws uit Nieuw-Guinea, de Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Weeknummer 55-02 - Open Beelden - 17389.ogv 2 min 2 s, 320 × 240; 8.42 MB Story of the Black Cats ARC-12990.ogv 19 min 47 s, 400 × 300; 95.74 MB World War II American aircraft Consolidated military aircraft 1930s aircraft Flying boats of the United States Reconnaissance aircraft Maritime patrol aircraft of the United States Aircraft with 2 piston engines Amphibious aircraft Aircraft of the United States Navy World War II aircraft of Canada Parasol wing aircraft Cruciform tail aircraft Consolidated aircraft Aircraft by popular name Braced high wing aircraft Uses of Wikidata Infobox Navigation menu 443 IMAGES PBY Catalina "The Flying Yacht" The Consolidated PBY Catalina 1943 Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina flying boat at the Goodwood Revival PBY Catalina Flying Boat Catalina PBY-5a amphibious flying boat Cairns, Qld. 1944-01-12. The bowman of a RAAF Consolidated PBY Catalina COMMENTS Consolidated PBY Catalina The Consolidated Model 28, more commonly known as the PBY Catalina (US Navy designation), is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft designed by Consolidated Aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s. In US Army service it was designated the OA-10, in Canadian service as the Canso and it later received the NATO reporting name Mop. [4] It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Remembering the PBY Catalina Landseaire, the Flying Yacht Slash Camper The Consolidated Model 28, or the PBY Catalina, was designed and used extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, with applicability that ranged from patrol bomber to rescue missions. Cat Tales: The story of World War II's PBY Flying Boat A Patrol Bombing Squadron 52 (VPB-52) PBY-5 flying boat alongside a local outrigger canoe, during a rescue mission to the northwest end of McCluer Gulf in New Guinea, 13 August 1944. Women and ... The Consolidated PBY Catalina Here are seven amazing facts about the Catalina PBY, an aircraft that patrolled the vast reaches of the world's oceans, looking for an enemy to track, report, or destroy. A PBY prototype, circa 1935. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons) It entered service before WW2. The PBY line of flying boats was conceived in 1933 in Buffalo, New York. The Best Flying Boat The Consolidated PBY Catalina was the most successful flying boat ever developed. The "Cats" were employed in World War II as patrol aircraft and bombers, and performed torpedo, antisubmarine, search-and-rescue, and transport roles. Radar-equipped PBYs— painted black and known as "Black Cats"—carried out nighttime reconnaissance and ... List of preserved Consolidated PBY Catalinas PBY Catalina Survivors identifies Catalinas on display, and includes aircraft designations, status, serial numbers, locations and additional information. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was a twin-engined American flying boat of the 1930s and 1940s, designed by Consolidated Aircraft Co. PBY Catalina in a Nutshell: The Greatest Flying Boat The PBY Catalina was the most-produced flying boat of World War II. It served valiantly in a variety of roles, and it has a service record now pushing 90 yea... Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina The Consolidated PBY Catalina was the U. S. Navy's most successful patrol flying boat of the war but naval aviators also used the PBY to attack ships at night, and to search for and rescue people stranded at sea. Following World War II, large seaplanes and flying boats suffered a mass extinction. PBY Facts While the PBY Catalina fulfilled its Military role as a long range patrol, escort and rescue aircraft they were also used successfully for commercial air travel. ... Most importantly, through its Catalina flying boat operations across the Indian Ocean between 1943 and 1945 Qantas created, and still holds, a world air service duration record ... PBY Catalina History CONSOLIDATED PBY / Catalina / Canso History. A brief PBY History by: John Clement . Development. The plane that would become the PBY Catalina was designed by Consolidated Aircraft Corporation's lead designer, Isaac Machlin ("Mac") Laddon when, in 1933, the United States Navy, wary of Japan's growing influence in the Pacific Ocean, requested competing prototype designs for a flying boat ... To the Rescue: Consolidated PBY Catalina On July 31, 1943, a Brazilian Catalina sank the German sub U-199 off Rio de Janeiro. On Aug. 2, 1945, a U.S. Navy PBY was the first vessel to rescue survivors of the torpedoed heavy cruiser Indianapolis. Through war's end the Allies built a total of 3,308 Catalinas—more than all other World War II-era flying boats combined. Pictures of an Extreme Luxury "Landseaire" Flying Yacht Converted from These black and white photographs below were taken in 1950 by fame LIFE photographer Loomis Dean, who was invited aboard this luxury post-war conversion of a consolidated PBY Catalina, one of the most versatile airplanes used in the Second World War. According to Messy Nessy Chic, after the war, an entrepreneur by the name of Glenn Odekirk saw a new future for the roomy Catalinas as extreme ... The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: PBY Catalina, U.S. Flying Boat The design came out of a Navy competition for aflying boat suitable for patrolling the vast reaches of the Pacific. Consolidated based its design on the successful P2Y flying boat, andthe first Catalina flew on 21 March 1935. Thedesign mounted its wing on a single large pylon rather than with themultitude of struts of earlier flying boats, and ... Soaring by the Sea Foundation Take a flying tour inside PBY 9767's hangar located in Euguene, Oregon and witness the restoration work of a World War II PBY 5A Catalina. More Videos. Soaring BY THE SEA FOUNDATION. ADDRESS: 29030 Hollis Lane Eugene, Oregon 97402. PHONE: 541-579-8994. EMAIL: [email protected]. The Soviet PBY Catalinas of WWII In 1937, one year after the PBY was introduced in the U.S., the Soviet Union negotiated a contract with Consolidated Aircraft to purchase three PBY-2s (Model 28-2), the right to produce the Catalina in the Soviet Union under license, and engineering support from the American company to help set up the flying boat factory in the city of Taganrog. WWII PBY Catalina Flying Boat Takes Flight August 12, 2020 - A vintage World War II era Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat takes flight from the waters of Pearl Harbor in preparation for the 75th C... Cat Tales: Consolidated's PBY Flying Boat With a beefy continuous I-beam spar and internal bracing, the wing was actually semicantilevered. At the time, the PBY was the cleanest flying boat, dragwise, ever designed. This PBY-5A shows off some of the Catalina's attributes, long "wet" wings, bulging waist gun positions and dipole radar antennas under each wing. Sunken Flying Boat. A story of PBY Catalina resting in the… Name-wise, PB stands for Patrol Boat, while Y is the designated code for Consolidated as manufacturer hence PBY Catalina. It was the most produced aircraft of this type with some 3300 aircraft built. Modernized Catalina Flying Boat Returns to the Skies The Consolidated Aircraft Corp. Catalina PBY flying boat is an icon of the World War II era, but this ancient design may have new life when brand-new examples are built using modern turboprop powerplants and contemporary avionics. ... a Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina patrol bomber can take off on land as well as water. The plane's civilian ... The Catalina 'Landseaire' was a crazy air-yacht PBY conversion ... The PBY Catalina was extensivley used during WWII and after the war suprlus examples were used everything from fire-fighting aircraft to transport and, perhaps most uniquley, flying homes! In the 1950s the SoCal Aircraft Corp., headed by Glenn Odekirk (who worked extensivley with Howard Hughes), converted a number of these. Catalina C-FDIL A picture of a Catalina PBY-5A in its element... Don McDonald sent me this shot of C-FDIL (c/n 427), made during the 1980s. I was co-captain of this aircraft, tail number C-FDIL, which was operated by a company called Pacific Airboats and/or Can Air Services. We flew the west coast of British Columbia between Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte ... 1941. Air Patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic Aboard Catalina flying boat, on Atlantic patrol — (UP) "Aircraft ahead!" The pilot's curt announcement and the shrill shrieking of the alarm horn transformed that laughing group of 20-year-olds aboard the American-made patrol plane into a crew of fighting men with itchy trigger fingers. The kid from London stopped slicing bread in his ... Category:Consolidated PBY Catalina Media in category "Consolidated PBY Catalina" The following 175 files are in this category, out of 175 total. "African-American mechanics work on PBY at NAS Seattle, WA, Alvin V. Morrison, ... Catalina flying boat (15522004477).jpg 3,343 × 2,507; 1.14 MB. Catalina N5593V.jpg 3,161 × 1,200; 715 KB. catamaran gulet motorboat powerboat riverboat sailboat trimaran yacht