Some news on the Designs front: I’ve uploaded a few brochures and articles created for Angels One Five, a collective dedicated to the preservation of vintage airplanes and warbirds. Discover the Ryan PT-22 “Recruit” and one of the most iconic flying-boat ever, “Princess of Stars” N9767.
the Cat Pack — EC-FMC, the Spanish Catalina
2013.12.17This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history.
Near the Spanish city of Toledo lies an airfield housing one of the few quasi-airworthy Cats left in Europe, EC-FMC. This PBY is peculiar in that it’s a -6A model that was retrofitted with a -5A tail in order to comply with Canadian certification rules a few decades back. Its serial number is Bu64064 and it was built at the Consolidated factory of Lake Ponchartrain in New Orleans, USA.
It also served in the French Protection Civile as F-ZBAZ “Pélican Noir” for a spell. In retirement after a long career in firefighting in Europe and Canada, it still has its water tanks installed.
Now under the care of David Pajus, its restoration unfortunately was plagued with legal issues and hasn’t seen as much progress as desired… You can read more about it at http://waterbomber.blogg.se
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the Double Sunrise Cats
2013.07.11July 2013 marks the 70th Anniversary of the inaugural Double Sunrise Flights across the Indian Ocean from Perth, Australia to Koggala in southern Ceylon (Sri Lanka). RAAF PBY Catalina flying boats manned by Qantas crews flew the 3500 Naut. Miles (5652 Km) in a time ranging from 27 to 32 hours thus seeing the sunrise twice. Personnel carried on these long range flights were thus awarded a certificate called the “Secret Order of the Double Sunrise”
At near maximum take-off weight and carrying 1988 gallons (7525 litres) of fuel the Catalinas carried VIPs and important documents to break the Japanese blockade to the North of Australia and maintain contact with British and Allied forces in India and the rest of the world.
A documentary has been produced called “Double Sunrise Flights” directed & produced by Daniel Bunker: http://catalinadoco.com/
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Utility vs. Style: a closer look at PBY bow designs
2013.06.06I just published my latest article: “Utility vs. Style” is a compilation album focusing on the different PBY Catalina bow designs from the type’s inception in the 1930’s to the present day. The file is a PDF and you will need Acrobat Reader to open it. Read more…
Many thanks to all those who helped me get it online. 🙂
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Introducing the “Duckmeister”
2013.01.19So for my comeback post I’ve chosen to present my latest little dream concept, a Cessna 337 Skymaster Amphibian. I call it the “Duckmeister”… Want to know more? Discover it on freylia.net!
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the Cat Pack — a Colombian story
2010.02.18This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history.
I have been lucky enough lately to be in contact with two people who allowed me to use their words and pictures to tell the story of a plane. More precisely, a PBY-6A, whose lineage is shrouded in mystery.
In the city of Villavicencio, Colombia, airport code VVC, resides one of the few surviving Catalinas in the world. Her story would make good material for a movie, if movies today were about a story and not special effects.
With many thanks to Javier Franco Topper and Michael S. Prophet.
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