The Consolidated PBY Catalina was an American flying boat designed in the 1930's by Isaac M. Laddon. The PBY Catalina first flew in 1933 and entered service with the US Navy in 1936, it served with numerous allied military forces during WW2 in maritime patrol work in both ASW and rescue roles. When the US Navy retired it's Catalinas in 1957 3,431 (2029 PBY-5 flying boats and 1402 PBY-5A amphibians) had been produced in a nine year period, a significant number of PBY Catalina aircraft having been produced as the Canso which were built in Canada under licence by Boeing, Vickers and Canadair. The initials PBY reflected the intended use of the Catalina as a patrol bomber, the Y was the manufacturer designation letter allocated to Consolidated Aircraft under the 1922 US Navy aircraft designation system. In civilian use after WW2 many Catalinas served as water bombers fighting forest fires. It is interesting to note that the flight mechanic was seated in the central pylon supporting the wing, the wing contained massive fuel tanks, these combined with the ability to fly on one engine only at optimum performance rather than two engines throttled back and consequently running inefficiently resulted in the Consolidated PBY Catalinas legendary performance and endurance. The wing-tip floats were made retractable so that they extended the wing, improving the wings lifting efficiently without increasing air drag. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was built as both a flying boat (PBY-5) and an amphibian (PBY-5A) as pictured above, although the ability to land on on a runway as well as water was desirable, the increase in weight resulted in reduced range, endurance, and speed. The RAF who gave the Consolidated PBY it's popular name "Catalina", operated nearly as many amphibians as it did the flying boat variants, the amphibian was more practical to use in the coastal defence role where ease of use was more important than range or endurance, the flying boat version allowed extended protection to be given to the Atlantic convoys from German U-boat wolf-packs. Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina Specifications:
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