EC-FMC is leaving Europe it seems. According to David Pajus’ blog, the PBY has been sold to an overseas buyer.
More details likely to come as the story develops…
Ciao Umberto
2016.02.21Que dire ? Umberto Eco, avec Saint-Ex, était l’un de mes écrivains fondateurs, et a eu une influence considérable sur ma manière de voir le monde et son étrange population, de le sentir, de le décrire. Un géant d’érudition qui restait accessible, qui donnait libre cours au langage, qui taillait sa route au milieu des mots là où d’autres peinait à s’ouvrir ne serait-ce qu’un sentier. Une perte immense, un autre jardin secret dont la clé est à jamais perdue. Adieu, maestro, merci de nous avoir éclairé aussi brillament, aussi fugace qu’ait été le moment. Je vous dois tellement. J’aurais aimé vous rencontrer et vous le dire. Trop tard désormais. Sic transit gloria mundi. Mais je n’oublierai pas.
Barcelona streets
2016.02.07Went out and did some street photography with my good friends of Barcelona Photo Project.
The objective today was to try and do some impro shots and “shoot from the hip”, as it were, and snap candid street life protraits.
My results can be seen in this album and they will be incoprorated into my own galleries during the next round of updates. Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment below!
war stories – chronicles of an uncertain war
2016.01.26The Uncertain War – Deschamp’s Last Stand
Another story build upon the foundations laid out by Luigi.
microstories
2016.01.24Hi everyone, gather around the camp fire, it’s time for some storytelling 🙂
My friend Luis “Luigi” Alvarez and I are engaged in a little writing spree of “microstories”, ultra-short little tales that may or may not reference each other and it’s been a lot of fun, so much that it’s leaving Facebook and coming here for your reading pleasure! Last year, I created a small compilation of our work so far which comprised 6 microstories:
(Cover illustration courtesy of Luigi lui-même!)
We followed up with a purpose-built Volume 2 around themes of duality: Black/White
Check it out by clicking the pic below:
Enjoy! 🙂
10k
2015.10.31I just passed the 10,000 word mark on the current WIP. Yay!
For this occasion, I will share a bit more about it.
title:
Embarcadero
Synopsis:
In 1938, a French pilot is hired by British MI6 to ferry a scientist from Stockholm to London before his discoveries can be tapped by German intelligence. With hostile forces on their heels and war brewing, will they manage to fly to safety in time?
I plan to hit 60k by the end of November, with a projected final wordcount of maybe 80 to 100… The goal is to finish the first draft by the end of 2015, let it sit for a bit, then start the editing process in February.
Work In Progress
2015.10.06After a long hiatus I have restarted work on two long-term writing projects, the first a SF novel set in the universe that contains the spaceship Freylia, this very website’s namesake, and the second a historical spy story set in 1938 that I’ve been planning for a good while.
I don’t know yet if I can work on both concurrently, so I’ll have to commit to one or the other pretty soon I believe. I have a little over 70k words written on the SF side, significantly more than the other, so that’s that…
We’ll see. I think it’s time for this universe to blossom in full and get to publishing stage.
the Cat Pack — “Miss Pick Up”
2015.10.04This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history.
If there’s one bird I know well, that would be G-PBYA, a.k.a. “Miss Pick Up”, the white bird of Duxford where she’s being lovingly maintained by the dedicated crew of The Catalina Society. This aircraft was the first (and come to think of it, to date, the only) Catalina I saw “for real”, when they visited Barcelona for the Festa al Cel airshow in 2010. I saw it again two years later at the flying-boats/floatplanes meeting in Biscarrosse where it displayed how graceful it can be on water. For my third visit, it turned out she had something special in store.
As some of you may know, I’ve been collaborating this year on a special project called the Féria de l’Air, an airshow in Nîmes, southern France. This airshow took place last week on the 26th-27th of September, and G-PBYA was there, and I had the immense privilege not just of getting another tour, given by crew chief David Legg, whom I had the pleasure to meet at last, but also to fly aboard as a passenger during one of their rehearsal flights.
G-PBYA (CV-283) was built in 1943 in Cartierville, Québec, by Canadian Vickers for the Royal Canadian Air Force. This makes it a Canso A, which is a variant of the US Navy PBY-5A. After a long life in military and civilian service, it is now a regular sight on the European airshow circuit, where it flies in the colors of a wartime USAAF OA-10A Catalina 44-33915 of the 8th Air Force 5th Emergency Rescue Squadron at Halesworth, Suffolk.
Here’s a small, somewhat shaky video of my flight on this beautiful bird, with tremendous thanks to all the people involved:
Full album of the airshow available soon!
New website!
2015.09.25Check out the new looks! Freylia Studios has been completely redesigned to account for recent changes and updates, with new photos and designs sections filled with recent material. I also bit the bullet and decided to create Freylia Studios’s official Facebook page as well.
Don’t hesitate to let me know what you think!
the Cat Pack — N85U
2015.08.20This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history.
N85U is no more.
The last active Catalina waterbomber has been destroyed. The Cyclone-powered PBY-6A, which spent the last few decades based in Washington state, fighting forest fires, had been hired to appear in the upcoming Nicolas Cage war movie “Indianapolis”, when it was beached two days after its arrival there due to a leak. A misfortune for sure after spending months refurbishing and repainting the plane for its movie appearance. But the worst was still to come…
The plane was completely salvageable, although all the electronics were probably totalled, however the recovery turned to a complete disaster when the misuse of a crane destroyed the fuselage, leaving N85U a three-part wreck.
It is especially infuriating and frustrating to see such criminal incompetence as PBYs do have a hoisting point on top of the wing for precisely the kind of lift that was required. Wrong tools and unfamiliar crews can make a dangerous combination… A very sad, completely avoidable accident, and the end of one of the most iconic planes in the USA.