PBY 5A Catalina

A Cat's Tale
By: Alan F Crouchman

STANDFIRST:
The summer of 2003 saw the departure from these shores of Catalina N9521C for her new home in Virginia. Alan Crouchman charts her history.

Unlike many preserved or flying aircraft this Catalina PBY-5A has a true wartime service record, albeit a career that involved many days of mundane maritime patrol work protecting allied shipping from submarine attack. Whilst action for patrol aircraft was scarce their very presence would often be enough to stop a submarine from making an attack.

Unusual for such an old aircraft is the fact that her logbooks, dating back to her first pre-delivery flight are held by the owners, and the author was allowed to study these in the preparation for this article.

Like so many of her kind she was built by Consolidated at their San Diego plant as Bu No 48294 and completed her shake down flight on October 23 1943 with E Graham and W Hammond at the controls. With everything satisfactory she was delivered, by air, to Fleet Air Wing (FAW) 14 at Naval Air Station, San Diego, on November 5, piloted by Ensign Hansen.

Two weeks later she undertook the longest single flight of her wartime career, a total of 19.2 hours, when she was delivered from NAS San Diego right across the continental US to the NAS at Norfolk, Virginia where she was accepted by Headquarters Squadron (Hedron) 5-2.

At Norfolk the aircraft was serviced and prepared for her operational assignment. Changes made included the moving of the Intervalometer (the device to select the weapons release spacing) from the nose to the first pilots position and modified torpedo/depth charge racks were added to the wings. In addition she was repainted in the predominant white camouflage scheme, with the upper wings and the extreme upper fuselage retaining a pale blue camouflage.

On December 22 1943, Bu 48294 was formally assigned to FAW-15, whose Headquarters was at Agadir, French Morocco. The actual delivery flight, conducted by Lt Chalmers, and a crew of seven, was commenced on January 6, 1944, the routing being via the southern crossing. Having arrived at San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Janaury 8 they found, the following day, that the aircraft had lost all air pressure but this was quickly rectified and the delivery flight continued, arriving in French Morocco on January 19 whereupon she was assigned to VPB-92 which, at this time, was commanded by Lt Cmdr J F Parker.

VPB-92 had transferred to Agadir, 200 miles south of Casablanca on the west African coast, on December 5 1943 relieving VP-73, but conditions were found to be rather spartan, with the base still under construction, making living conditions somewhat primitive. Patrols from Agadir took in the area south to the Canary Islands, and north to the strait of Gibraltar and as far west as the Azores.

Upon assignment with VPB-92 Bu 48294 took up the individual aircraft code of P-3 which was painted on the forward fuselage and shortly began flying patrols out over the Atlantic. However, her stay at agadir would be somewhat short lived for, towards the end of February 1944, VPB-92 was ordered to move to the British West Indies, under the control of FAW-11, to carry out patrols in the south Atlantic and Caribbean area.

So little over a month since arriving in French Morocco she set off once again on February 23, this time with Lt (jg) Hall and a crew of seven and two passengers on board, for the long ferry flight with arrival at Trinidad being made on March 2 where she underwent servicing and the removal of her self-sealing fuel tanks.

In addition to its base at Trinidad VPB-92 set up two detachments of six aircraft, one at Zandary Field Suriniam and the other at Hato Field Curacao, where regular daily patrols would be flown over the shipping lanes. The detachment at Zandray Field, Suriniam, suffered from heavy tropical rains that would often keep the aircraft grounded for days on end bringing criticism from FAW-11 for its lack of efficiency. However the crews felt that justice was done when the CO of FAW-11 came to visit the detachment and was promptly grounded for two days due to the weather!

Bu 48294 as P-3 was assigned to the detachment at Hato Field Curacao, being delivered there on March 14, here the weather was somewhat calmer and routine daily patrols were mounted generally on schedule.

In June 1944 P-3 was back at Trinidad, with Hedron-11, undergoing maintenance that included a change of both engines. However the replacement starboard engine failed during post maintenance checks resulting in a second change of this engine before the aircraft was returned to operational service on June 26, 1944.

In the period from May to July 1944 the bulk of VPB-92 moved to NAS San Juan, Puerto Rico, for training purposes whilst a four ship detachment remained at Curacao, although the disposition of P-3 is unknown but it is likely that once her engine change had been completed she was sent to San Juan.

The remainder of the summer was spent in patrolling the warm waters around the Caribbean in search of elusive German U-Boats, which, by this time of the war, were becoming increasingly scarce in the South Atlantic area.

VPB-92's CO during this period was Lt Cmdr H S Blake and it is known that he flew P-3 on at least five occasions prior to his transfer on September 29 1944. His replacement was Lt Cmdr R A Proctor, who would command VPB-92 through to V-E Day, he also flew P-3 on at least three occasions.

At the end of November 1944 VPB-92 was transferred to NAS Quonset Point, Rhode Island, under the control of FAW-9, to undertake patrols and anti-submarine sweeps protecting the approaches to New York, although two aircraft remained in the Caribbean area to continue sweeps in this area.

It may be that the squadron did not actually transfer to Rhode Island until January 1945 and precisely where P-3 fitted into this plan is unclear, she definitely spent all of December in the Caribbean area, including a flight of 3.5 hours duration on Christmas Day, flown by Lt Tompkins and a crew of four.

However on January 6 1945, she was assigned to Hedron-9, at New York, for a further engine change and replacement of her radar equipment. On the following day, with the Squadron Executive Officer, Lt Cmdr Ted Hechler and a crew of three, she left San Juan, Puerto Rico for the ferry flight to New York, with stopovers at Cuba, Jacksonville, Floyd Bennet Field and finally Quonset Point where she arrived on January 12 1945.

Exactly one month later, with the maintenance work completed she was returned to VPB-92 to continue flying patrols again, however this time rather than the warm waters of the Caribbean the crews had to contend with the cold and icy conditions over the northern Atlantic.

For the remainder of the war P-3 continued her lonely vigil of patrols off the eastern seaboard watching for any signs of enemy activity. At the end of April a change of the Port engine was required and she once again returned to Hedron-9 for maintenance being delivered back to VPB-92 on V E Day, at which time she had a total of 1218.2 hours recorded.

Towards the end of May 1945 VPB-92 was ordered to disestablish and on May 24 all of VPB-92's aircraft, including P-3 flown by Lt Tompkins, were flown to NAS Norfolk, Virginia, where the aircraft were handed over to Hedron-5, with VPB-92 formally disbanding on May 28 1945.

Some reports suggest that Bu 48294 attacked and sank a U-Boat during World War Two, a nice thought but sadly not true. Having spent her entire wartime service with VPB-92 and the fact that this units last confirmed U-Boat sinking was on July 15 1943, three months before Bu 48294's first flight it is just not possible it may be that she dropped ordnance on a U-Boat sighting without results. However this is not borne out by an entry in her logbook in any way.

In early June 1945 she had all her armaments removed and she was loaned to the US Coast Guard service, initially at Elizabeth City, North Carolina and then, on June 21, to the Coast Guard unit at Biloxi, Mississippi, where her flying was aimed at a more peaceful intent than her previous service. This was followed by a three month tour with the USCG at Miami before returning to Biloxi in December 1945 and then, in January 1946, was delivered to NAS Seattle, Washington, to await a major overhaul.

After languishing at Seattle for eight months she was flown to the Naval Air facility at Philadelphia for refurbishment after which she was held as a pool aircraft at Philadelphia prior to being returned into storage at NAS Seattle.

A further period of modification work was undertaken at Philadelphia during 1948 at the end of which she was delivered to NAS Brooklyn, New York on December 17 1948.

It was at Brooklyn that disaster nearly overtook Bu 48294 on July 23 1949. She was going to undertake an instrument training flight, piloted by Lt Cmdr Robert A Proctor (who had previously flown Bu 48294 when he was CO of VPB-92 in 1944/45). Whilst holding on the taxi-strip awaiting his turn to enter the active runway an F-6F, Bu No 93892, piloted by Lt (jg) George Mabardy of VE-95 tried to taxi past the PBY to join the rest of his flight on a gunnery training exercise. Unfortunately Lt Mabardy misjudged his clearance and his propeller struck the trailing edge of the PBY's wing damaging the landing float, aileron and seven feet of the trailing edge of the wing. Damage to the F-6F was confined to the propeller and the embarrassment of the pilot, who received a letter of reprimand for his carelessness.

It is believed that the repairs were conducted at New York, with the aircraft being returned to service on September 3 1949. The period between December 1949 and June 1950 was spent at NAS Alameda, Calif, followed by two months at San Diego prior to a short time at Seattle before being assigned to the NAS at Birmingham, Alabama where she arrived on December 23 1950.

Very little flying was conducted at this period of her history although she did spend the months of August and September on loan to NAS Memphis before returning to Birmingham where, during the period Sept 30 to May 15 1952, she did not conduct any flying whatsoever.

Her active service life came to an end on August 5 1953 when she was delivered to the storage facility at Litchfield Park, Phoenix, Arizona and placed into long-term storage along with many other redundant PBY's that the US Navy no longer had a need for. With a total of some 3567 flying hours Bu 48294 remained at Litchfield Park until finally being formally stricken from the inventory on August 27 1956.

Her beginnings as a civilian aircraft are a little obscure, what is known is that on January 4 1961 she was flown from Miami, Fla, to Nth Little Rock, Arkansas, at which location she was formally registered to Obe W Noble, of Noble Air Services as N9521C, on March 2 1961, the seller being recorded as Mercantil Ecuatoriana S A of Quito, Ecuador.

How she got from Litchfield Park to Miami in the period of August 1956 to January 1961 is not recorded, and although sold by an Ecuadorian based bank it is debateable if she actually flew in Ecuador, correspondence in FAA records includes a letter from the Director General of Aviation in Ecuador stating that Bu 48294 had never appeared on the Ecuadorian register.

During the period from 1961 to 1967 she remained at Nth Little Rock, where her engines were overhauled and the rudder modified to include a horn balance a the tip before being ferried to Pan Air Services at New Orleans, on August 28 1967, where her nose turret and side blisters were removed, the latter being replaced with cargo doors, and a new flooring and troop seat type arrangement was installed. With all modification work completed she finally received her airworthiness certificate on December 7 1967.

In August 1968 she is listed as being sold to V & N Enterprises, but this is thought to have been a paperwork exercise as the Noble family were involved in this business and when her next sale is recorded, on July 9 1973, she is listed as being sold by Obe Noble, her original civilian owner, as part of a two aircraft deal, to James and Virgil Kelley, of San Diego. On September 10 1975 she was once again sold, this time to Two Jacks Inc at Olive Branch Mississippi, but the following year some financial problems resulted in a further sale to Warren and Christine Woods, of Palmer, Alaska who took over ownership on November 7 1977.

Initially she was used to ferry passengers to fishing sites around the barren wasteland of Alaska but in April 1978 she was converted to have bulk liquid cargo tanks installed by SORN Inc, Boeing Field, Seattle, Wash and capable of carrying 1,500 US Gallons internally was used to carry fuel to remote parts of this vast State.

In February she was sold to Goose Leasing of Anchorage Alaska and two months later registered to Catalina Flying Inc, although Mr Robert Curtis was an executive of both companies so this was just a paperwork transfer and she continued to haul fuel around Alaska and , in 1982, was known to be flying with Tikchik at Narrows Lodge Alaska.

The next stage of her history is shrouded and mystery, no changes of ownership are shown in her FAA records but these may have been removed due to legal considerations, what is known that in September 1985 she was involved in a drugs running racket and seized by the US Marshals Service and as, not surprisingly, no one came forward to defend the seizure she was forfeited to the US Government in a court case on November 21 1986. The following September the US Marshals Office sold her to Galen Vincent, a former TWA pilot, who had the bulk fuel transport system removed by WE Aerotech Services at Gig harbour, Wash, and then had her ferried to Santa Rosa, Calif, where Aerocrafters Inc began to convert her back to World War Two standard with the reinstallation of a nose turret and side blisters.

Over the next six years restoration slowly progressed but before it was completed Galen Vincent decided to sell the aircraft. Ownership passed via the Riverdale Liability Co Ltd to Joseph Tosolini, whose address was given as Venice, Florida, who planned to operate the aircraft in Europe. N9521C was painted in a late wartime US Navy two tone blue and white colour-scheme but in place of the stars and bars bore international red cross insignia, and was ferried to Milan, Italy, where she arrived in May 1995.

Over the next two years she appeared at a number of events and airshows
although these were mainly confined to appearances in Italy and Switzerland. In August 1997 she was sold once again, this time to Weavair, who ferried the aircraft to Lanseria, South Africa, and had the interior rearranged to accommodate fifteen passengers (from a previous arrangement of nine). Here it was used on flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town and up the eastern coast to Plattenburg, the early flying being conducted by Chuck Ellsworth, a Canadian pilot with a vast amount of experience in flying PBY's and DC-3's in northern Canada and Alaska, and is probably the highest-houred PBY pilot still current in the world, to check out three South African pilots, on the aircraft.

However, her stay in South Africa was not to last very long for in the late summer of 1999 it was decided to fly the aircraft back to the US to appear at the airshow at Oskosh in an effort to find a buyer. Ferry pilot for the trip was to be Chuck Ellsworth.

Leaving Johannesburg on July 22 1999, the trip would overfly Zimbabwe, Mozambique with a stop at Lilogwe, Malawi. The following day it was via Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya. This was intended to be an overnight stay but ended up as a five day stopover. The next leg was to Dijbouti and with many local wars going on the crew was aware that a forced landing in a US Navy marked aircraft may not be conducive to a long and happy retirement! The next leg was to Jeddah, Saudia Arabia where after a night stop an early start was scheduled but the oil temperature on the starboard engine became uncontrollable forcing it to be shut down and a return made to Jeddah and the realisation that an engine change would be required, resulting in a lengthy delay whilst not only a new engine would need to be sourced, but paperwork and visas would also cause problems.

Enlisting the expertise of UK based Clive and Mark Edwards (of Edwards Bros Aviation) who have a wealth of experience in radial engine types, they helped in the difficult task of sourcing, transporting and final fitting of a new engine and assisted with the continuation of the ferry flight.

Arriving at North Weald on March 4 2000 it was decided to store the aircraft at this location in an effort to find a buyer.

During the summer of 2000 N9521C was leased by Mike Woodley, of Aces High fame, to be used in the opening aerial sequences of a film called "Below." Flown by Chuck Ellsworth, who was brought over from Canada especially for the job, the filming was conducted off the east coast of England, near Clacton.

Refurbished by Edwards Bros the PBY sported dummy depth charges and repainted in a wartime colour-scheme of a Catalina of 209 Squadron RAF, in fact as AH545 WQ-Z, the aircraft that sighted the Bismarck.

Following filming the paintwork she resorted to her US Navy colour-scheme, and remained in storage in a hangar at North Weald where she was also used as a backdrop for a docu-drama on Glenn Miller's last flight.

In November 2001 she was acquired by Gerald Yagen of Training Services Inc, who trade as Tidewater Tech at Virginia Beach, Va. Part of this group is the Fighter Factory that operates a number of warbird types and it was intended that N9521C would be ferried across to Virginia in the summer of 2002. However delays with a further engine change meant that it would be prudent to delay the ferry flight to the spring of 2003, with the Edwards Brothers being commissioned to bring the aircraft up to full serviceability.

The crew for the ferry flight would be Chuck Ellsworth as first pilot, Bob Ramsey, another experienced PBY and CL-215 pilot, as co-pilot with Mark and Clive Edwards to assist with the flying and provide engineering back-up for the flight. Having stood at North Weald for a couple of years and with a new engine installed it was decided to carry out a series of test flights over the Essex and north Kent countryside to shake down the systems. The first flight was scheduled for June 25 but strong crosswinds prompted a delay of 24 hours. The following day a problem with the nose wheel locking pin was discovered during the pre-flight inspection, initially it was thought that she may have to go back into the hangar to be jacked up for some retraction tests to recycle to the gear, however some quick thinking and discussions between the Edwards Brothers and Chuck Ellsworth about the sequencing of the undercarriage it was decided to employ the use a block and tackle to lower the tail and anchor it to a stationary tractor, and with the help of some support under the nose the nose leg could be worked on, to resecure the downlock and pin.

With this completed the test flight was completed without further problems, the only adjustments being some small tweaks to the carb and propeller settings, testament to the aircrafts durability and the expertise of the Edwards Brothers.

With five hours of test flying completed over the next week it was time to prepare for the aircrafts departure which appropriately was made on July 4 with a flight to RAF Kinloss where she spent the night with her more modern counterparts. A precautionary stop was made at Teeside to avoid some poor weather but Kinloss was reached by evening. Next it was on to Wick where weather over the Atlantic kept her grounded to July 11 when the hop was made to Keflavik, Iceland. The next leg, to Narsarssuaq, Greenland, was the most critical and meant that conditions would need to be good so that the correct Fjord could be identified and a safe landing made at this uphill airfield. After a four day wait conditions were such that this of part of the journey could be completed without mishap.

After Greenland the trip was "downhill" with stopovers at Goose Bay, July 18 to 21, Bangor, Maine on July 21 and 22, an unscheduled stop at Windham, Conn, from July 22 to 25 to avoid some thunderstorms, and then down the east coast to Suffolk, Virginia which was reached on July 25 and where a somewhat tired ferry crew handed her over to Gerald Yagens's Fighter Factory.

The author would like to thank Clive and Mark Edwards, Bob Ramsey and especially Chuck Ellsworth for their help with the article, and to thank Angie Soper for providing the camera ship and piloting skills in achieving the air to air sortie.

Reproduced from the February 2004 edition of FlyPast with permission from the publishers, Key Publishing Ltd. www.flypast.com

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