This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history.

So it finally happened!

I’ve officially seen more than one Catalina hahaha! I’m super pumped to say this has been a wonderful day as far as PBY spotting goes, as I had the immense pleasure and privilege not only to check out N24VP in Ocaña near Toledo, but also talk with the Pacific Rim Catalina team there and climb aboard for a visit, that included something that had eluded me so far with “Miss Pick-Up”: a seat in the cockpit!

N24VP, also known to her owners as “La Bruja de la Mancha”, the Witch of the Mancha (the region of Spain where they are now), was featured in the Cat Pack before when she was still EC-FMC under the care of David Pajus. It seems that the new team’s (and David’s before that) years of hard work have finally paid off and the plane is finally close to being in flying condition. Sadly for us in Europe, this means that with the departure of PH-PBY from the Netherlands, only two flying Catalinas will remain in the European circuit: G-PBYA “Miss Pick-Up” from Duxford in the UK, and N9767 “Princess des Étoiles” in Paris, France.

Stay tuned for a photo series, and the very first Cat Pack video episode ever!

This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history. Sometimes, we look back at some that are no longer with us.

In addition to its many fine accomplishments, the PBY Catalina also holds an unfortunate first in the history of aviation : Cathay Pacific’s VR-HDT “Miss Macao”, a PBY-5A, was the very first airliner to ever be hijacked, on July 16th 1948.

Tragically, during the struggle for control shots were fired, impairing the pilots and sending the plane to fatally crash in the sea below. There was only one survivor, one of the hijackers.