History Up Close PBY Catalina

bp 11 which is quadrant i was in uh got credit for sinking over 100 000 tons of enemy shipping and damaging 100 000 tons and we were just one of the black cat squadrons out there so if the others were doing as well the jets were hurting pretty bad went to san diego reformed the squadron i was kept with this squadron and we deployed again in april back to the south pacific and that's when we got involved in black cat operation primarily done a lot of rescue work every time there's a big bombing by our carriers or or the air force on a one of the islands we'd have three or four planes out in the perimeter standing by to pick up any anyone that was shot down and that was really a blessing to the to the aviators and to us as well the pilots loved our airplane the pby really because they had all the runway they needed bp 11 which is squadron i was in uh got credit for sinking over 100 000 tons of enemy shipping and damaging 100 000 tons and we were just one of the black cat squadrons out there so if the others were doing as well the jets were hurting pretty bad went to san diego reformed the squadron i was kept with this squadron and we deployed again in april back to the south pacific and that's when we got involved in black cat operation primarily done a lot of rescue work every time there's a big bombing by our carriers or or the air force on a one of the islands we'd have three or four planes out in the perimeter standing by to pick up any anyone that was shot down that was really a blessing to the to the aviators and to us as well the pilots loved our airplane the pby really because they had all the runway they needed to get airborne and number two we had a lot of runways out there and they came in handy quite frequently but my pby days really my life it was my first tour and i had three years with him and he just absolutely the good thing about it we each had her own airplane we maintained our own plane and flew our own plane in most cases but the biggest challenge we had was pulling our checks while tied up at a buoy you can imagine how difficult that would be to work on an engine we did have engine stands that strapped around the engine but if you dropped anything it was gone spark plug or a tool or what have you so we had to be very patient be very careful in holding our maintenance tied up at a buoy we were stationed in port moresby new guinea in a tent city set up by the by the seabees and that's when we got involved in a evacuation of 219 australian commandos this happened in december 1943. uh our squadron got picked to go in uh in the northern part of the new guinea with the australian command commandos were still fighting the enemy that we had secured the southern part of new guinea at that time so we had a pretty good base at port moresby but the australian commanders when they needed supplies we dropped supplies to them they got to the point that they were kind of getting overrun and has to be repositioned our squadron got picked to make this rescue you we the pby has a wingspan of 104 feet and we had to land on the civic river which was 200 feet wide so it we made 19 individual trips in there to get these people out we went in on a skeleton crew only five people and no ordinance we had to go in light to bring the big low down each plane came out with 25 commandos and some of their equipment and there's five of us so that was 30 people on hpby fortunately there's no mishaps we got them all out there in a five-day period and they were happy they had a base south of us in new guinea but our main concern after getting loaded i had to keep them all forward and they just hung onto each other and our main concern was that there's no debris coming down that river while we was trying to take off and to spoil their whole day but we did get them all out of there and that was one of the big biggest rescue operations i guess in the pacific at that time greetings folks and welcome to another edition of history up close we're very excited today to have this event again sponsored by the naval aviation museum foundation and brought to you by hellcat productions today we're going to talk about one of the workhorses of the fleet during world war ii the pby catalina flying boat and back by popular demand is our wonderful wonderful presenter kim sheldon kim take it away thank you captain gillam many airplane designs became famous during world war ii but few emerged from the carnage of that conflict as well loved and respected as the consolidated pby catalina a pioneering design when it first flew in 1935 it was considered by many to be obsolete by the time the united states was thrust into world war ii in 1941 but as often as the case war is a come as you are affair and the pby was what the navy had on hand slow and ungainly the pby was an easy target for enemy fighters but what it lacked in speed and agility it more than made up for with long endurance rugged construction and versatility the pby went by many nicknames peaboat catalina black cat mad cat nomad and dumbo but whatever it was called if you were a seaman or airman downed in the ocean floating in your may west or a rubber lifeboat and a catalina appeared overhead it was a guardian angel personified its long endurance and range made it ideal as a reconnaissance and patrol aircraft its ability to carry four thousand pounds of bombs depth charges or torpedoes made it ideal as a sub-hunter or a night intruder and its ability to land and take off in the open ocean made it ideal as a rescue craft it became a jack of all trades that served with every allied air force in every theater of world war ii and served in whatever capacity it was asked to perform so well that in fact after the war was over it stayed in service with the military long after more modern and faster flying boats became available hi i'm lieutenant commander kim sheldon united states navy retired and i'm pleased to be here to be your host again for another episode of history up close and talk to you about the pby catalina consolidated designed the pby catalina in response to a navy requirement for a long-range flying boat that could fly non-stop from the west coast of the united states to hawaii consolidated had previously built seaplanes for the navy the py1 and the p2y py1 was actually the navy's very first monoplane flying boat but in a strange quirk of fate although consolidated designed the py1 martin aircraft company got the contract to actually build it the py1 was as i said the first monoplane the next model the consolidated design was the p2y this was a innovative airplane it had an enclosed cockpit and closed back uh turret and now engines that were instead of being supported by struts were actually built into the leading edge of the wing which is a dramatic decrease in drag for the airplane following on the p2y came the xp-3y which was designed to answer the navy's requirement for a long-range flying boat the navy however wanted more than just a patrol plane they wanted also a bomber so the p3y became the pby patrol p for patrol b for bomber and why was the navy's manufacturer suffix for consolidated the pby first flew and as the p3y in 1935 and after winning navy contract uh went into production in 1936 pb wise rolled off the line and from 1936 to 1940 uh evolved with a succession of models from the pby 1 2 3 4 and finally the pby 5 which is what we have here in the museum this was the most produced of all the pby catalinas which totaled 3 300 from the time they went in production in 1936 until production ceased in 1945. consolidated aircraft chaired by founder ruben fleet moved its factory from buffalo new york in 1935 to san diego in time to begin production on the pby for the navy subcontracts were led to other companies including boeing of canada in vancouver vickers aircraft in montreal and a new consolidated plant towards the end of the war was uh constructed in new orleans uh in addition the naval aircraft fact naval aircraft factory in philadelphia produced a much modified and modernized version of the pby referred to as the pbn nomad which mostly went to the soviet union under len lease describe the pby's external characteristics most noticeable about its design was the high parasol mounted wing the hull and fuselage were suspended under by a single pylon it's reinforced by a couple of struts on either side of the fuselage and wing it was a twin engine configuration powered by two pratt whitney r 1830 radial engines producing 1200 horsepower apiece what gave the aircraft its long range was that incredibly long wingspan the wing was used to carry the fuel for the airplane which was carried in the center wing section total of about gallons which gave the airplane tremendous endurance in some cases missions as long as 30 hours with that efficient lift producing wing and all the fuel on board the pby's armament as i mentioned earlier included hardpoints underneath both wings for a variety of depth charges bombs or torpedoes usually they carried a combination of bombs and depth charges under each wing each station could carry a 500 pound bomb or alternately if they were going to carry a torpedo they'd carry a mark 13 torpedo which weighed two thousand pounds underneath one wing and balance that with 500 pound bombs underneath the other wing a very versatile aircraft so he could go out and and hunt for a variety of targets defensive armament included a 30 caliber machine gun in the in the bow turret uh two 50 caliber browning machine guns in the waist blisters the pby five being the first of the series to incorporate this distinctive blister uh plexiglas bubble back there midships and then a 30 caliber machine gun in a little hatch in the tail called the tunnel gun uh various marks of the pby modified that later models of the pby replaced the single 30 caliber machine gun in the nose with a fisheye uh bubble bubble uh turret that had had two 30 caliber machine guns the navy asked consolidated in 1940 about the possibility of an amphibian version of the pby with uh retractable landing gear to enable it to land on or take off from land bases as well as water uh but as the war developed and production of pbys became more and more important the navy cooled on the idea of an amphibian version but thanks to the foresight of the president company president reuben fleet he really insisted on pursuing the amphibian version and we had by the time world war ii started what we called the pby 5a amphibian this was the most versatile of all the catalinas even though it wasn't the most produced but it was able to operate from land bases as well as from c drums the pby 5a amphibian was thus also able to launch and beach itself with on its own without the need for a large uh handling crew as in the flying boat versions the airplanes construction was a semi-monocoque stress skin aluminum skin over riveted over a aluminum frame made a lot of use of fabric covered surfaces to uh out of weight considerations the rudders the elevators the ailerons were all fabric covered with unbleached cotton linen as well as the about the aft aft one-third of the wing cord was also fabric covered and these uh these fabric sections of the aircraft were hand sewn and then doped with varnish to make them waterproof and to give them some rigidity yeah i've covered the high points of the aircraft externally but we have a beautiful cutaway of the pby's main hull down in the main deck so if you'll follow me we'll go down there and and pick up where i'm leaving off here every student naval aviator or student naval flight officer goes through about eight weeks of aviation pre-flight indoctrination here at naval air station pensacola included in the course of instruction of course was about two weeks of land and water survival in one of the classrooms in the old survival school here at schools command when we walked into the classroom we were confronted by this display built into the side of the building the outside of the pby was located on the outside and the cutaway section was right there in the classroom so as a young second lieutenant in the marine corps and a flight student here at pensacola in 1978 i sat in a desk next to this display for the first two weeks of my training here at pensacola the pby internally the one thing you want to notice about the aircraft right off the bat in which this display puts to a good uh appearance is the intricate construction aluminum construction where you see all the transverse frames and longitudinal stringers all of these are riveted together now this was a mass-produced airplane in the san diego factory but this was before automation so every every part of this airplane was handmade by skilled uh workmen uh hand hand placing all these hundreds of thousands of rivets in fact in order to make the rivets tighter when they uh put them in install them they would actually keep them in a freezer uh before using them so that when they installed them they were they were cold and as they'd expand they would make the joints especially tight remember we're talking about flying boats here so we use nautical terms to describe it this is the bow the pointy end of the airplane if you will the bow compartment was the first compartment in the airplane there were seven compartments total starting with the bow the bow observer had a defensive 30 30 caliber machine gun in this revolving turret it was not a powered turret he had to turn it manually and he also had a bomb aiming window here it's open right now but it had a louvered or corrugated door to protect it during landings and takeoffs right inside the window you'll notice on this display it's complete with the norton bomb site the norton bomb site became famous during world war ii as the main tool by which the army air forces conducted a strategic bombing with b-17s of germany but the norton bomb site was actually developed by the us navy to solve the trigonometry problem how to drop a weapon from a moving aircraft and solve for distance and trajectory to make sure you hit your target so the early pbys had included the norton bomb site which is a highly classified piece of equipment all through the war and some people have often asked what's this little circular port here believe it or not it was a removable port that so the gunner could uh take it out and reach his hand out in front and wipe off the the windshield when it was fogged up by water spray you've got the aircraft's mooring line which they flew with in this position coming back around here this removable mooring post again these are flying boats so when you're on the water you're basically a vessel and then you had this uh compartment here for the danforth anchor that the airplane often used uh when it had to land and moor itself someplace other than where the the seaplane tender might be the pilot's compartment is next as we go aft and here you had the patrol plane commander in the left seat and the co-pilot in the right seat on elevated pedestal seats here the control yoke was actually a u-shaped a yoke with two steering wheels on either side for the pilot and co-pilot a basic instrument panel in front of them and then the engine controls the throttle the mixture controls and the propeller controls were located on the center console over overhead the pilots had a there was a walkway between them here to go into the next watertight compartment which was the navigator and the radio man's compartment here you see the navigator sitting here with his chart table and his parallel rules the sailor next to him one of the air crewmen probably operating one of the early radar sets you can't see it on this side but the other side has one of the early radar arrays attached to the outside of the hull just opposite them on the starboard side facing uh to starboard is the radio man's position early on in the war there wasn't a lot of talk or voice radio uh signals sent by long range so the the radio operator actually had to use a telegraph key and send messages via morse code moving further aft from the navigator and the radio man's compartment is the in-flight kitchen and the in the flight engineers position flight engineer was located on a suspended seat up inside the pylon structure this got him out of the way of the rest of the crew and put him in a position where he had direct control of the engines in addition to the pilots so he could uh fine-tune the engines the mixture and they had to fire a fire extinguisher actuators for both engines in the event of an in-flight fire uh he could basically do everything with the engines up there and he had windows on both sides of the pylon so he could he had the best view of what was going on with those engines uh on the wings than anybody else so it was really a stroke of genius the way the designer of the pby place what we call called then the mechanic we call today the flight engineer on the starboard side of the aircraft is the in-flight kitchen and just behind that is an auxiliary power unit which provided electrical supplies to the airplane now right about this point you see a bracket here and another one here this is where the beaching gear for the flying boat would be attached when they wanted to bring the airplane out of the water when the amphibian version came out they replaced these with a huge housing here for one of the main wheels the two wheels retracted into the sides of the airplane and that stuck out quite a bit into this compartment so i'm not sure what happened to the in-flight kitchen it was probably moved someplace else we'll go back a little further after this was the the crew compartment uh because of the long uh endurance of their flights they did have bunks uh in here for the crew and to take crew rest while they're in flight um oftentimes when these were operating as flying boats and uh stationed in a uh in a uh protected anchorage uh and serviced by a seaplane tender oftentimes a number of members of the crew would have to remain aboard the airplane to provide an anchor watch and maintain maintain security make sure the airplane wasn't taking on water so this this airplane really became their home on the water the same way as a boat would for a boat owner these rat these bunks came in uh very handy too when they were rescuing uh survivors from ship sinkings or air downed aircraft getting put medical cases wounded people into these bunks and and take care of them on the flight home the pby was manned by a crew of eight or nine air crewmen and officers moving back to what we called the weapons compartment this was also where the these uh very nice plexiglas blisters were located it had kind of an eyelid arrangement here for opening and closing and in inside of each of these blisters were pedestal mounted browning m2 50 caliber machine guns for self-defense the ones we have on this sample here have their ammunition fed through a box attached to the side of the gun later models of the pby actually incorporated a a fixed ammunition chute that was connected to magazines in the airplane each gunner had a c-shaped walkway around the gun so he could operate it and give it very a lot of flexibility in protecting themselves against enemy aircraft or engaging with surface targets the last compartment back aft here is called the tunnel compartment there's actually a hatch underneath here that they could open up in flight and there was a mounted 30 caliber machine gun here to provide the airplane with some ability to defend itself against aircraft coming up from a six o'clock position or underneath from 1936 to 1940 the u.s navy established patrol wings on both coasts of the united states with a couple of patrol wings in hawaii and one over in the philippines to cover the far east from 1939 when the war in europe began the united states started flying what they called neutrality patrols to enforce the neutrality act which was basically in the atlantic to keep the tabs on the movement of german uh naval units uh in the atlantic especially on our side of the atlantic and then they expanded that in early 1941 to include patrols in the western pacific and the in in the south china sea to keep tabs on japanese naval activities frequently those encounters between pbys and japanese fighters came close to shots being fired but it was a very tenuous period in 1940 with the war in europe having great britain up to its neck in battle with germany the royal air force obtained pby five airplanes for their coastal command the british found it easier to remember names of airplanes as opposed to designations so it was actually the royal air force that gave it the name catalina naming it after that little island off the coast of california in may of 1941 the german super battleship bismarck uh sortied into the north atlantic with its escort the heavy cruiser prince oygan in a famous uh naval chase and battle that took place the bismarck sunk the hms hood and what followed was a classic naval chase as bismarck tried to make for europe the safety of french ports and for time eluded the royal navy for almost 24 hours until a royal air force catalina discovered it and reported his position and what followed of course was the famous battle in which bismarck was finally damaged and uh brought to heal and sunk in may of 41. on december 7th 1941 a japanese sneak attack on pearl harbor caught both the wings at ford island and kaneohe bay a naval air station flat-footed and destroyed 52 out of 64 the pby catalinas that were stationed there what followed for the first six months of war in the pacific was a battle of attrition in the southwest pacific and uh as the japanese onslaught continued to to conquer singapore the philippines the dutch east indies and parts of new guinea pby catalina squadrons that survived the initial attacks saw their numbers dwindle greatly as they fought a a retrograde action back towards australia oftentimes they're putting put into use evacuating civilians from endangered areas and then also trying to fly in under cover of darkness ammunition and food for surrounded american australian english and dutch troops on june 3rd 1942 a vp 44 pby 5a based in midway island discovered the advancing japanese invasion fleet that was bound for midway what followed is that night four planes from midway four pbys launched out to attack that invasion fleet with torpedoes at night and the first indication the japanese had that they were under attack was one of the torpedoes connecting with one of their oilers it was it turned out to be the only successful torpedo attack of the entire battle of midway conducted by those four pbys from midway on the night of june 3rd the following day june 4th 1942 another pby on patrol out of midway spotted the first japanese air raid inbound to midway and sent a very terse message back to midway via tel via wireless saying many planes headed midway this was far in advance of any uh any of those planes showing up on midway's radar this advanced warning gave midway precious additional time to get all of its aircraft off the ground so that the first japanese air raid against midway found virtually no aircraft left on the ground to destroy following the end of the battle midway june 5th and june 6th pby based on midway again provided valuable service by going out and scouring the uh the ocean for survivors from the multiple navy squadrons that were involved in that in that famous uh and pivotal battle of the pacific war in the aleutians uh pbys based in dutch harbor and later adac island conducted daytime bombing raids against the islands of atu and kisco which have been captured by the japanese and continued that uh ongoing uh bombing harassment of japanese positions until those islands american territory was finally taken back by the united states in 1943. in august of 1942 the united states went on the offensive uh in the pacific with its invasion of guadalcanal both u.s navy and royal australian air force catalina supported the operation and guadalcanal and the surrounding solomon islands with daytime bombing raids against japanese fleet units but found that the vulnerability of the pby really discouraged their use in daytime they just were too vulnerable to be caught in daylight by japanese fighter aircraft so what followed was a period where the united states this and australia decided to use the catalina as as a night intruder typically launching just before sunset and flying a 14 15 hour night mission returning to their base whether it was with a seaplane tender or a small harbor somewhere in the islands and using radar altimeters and radar to navigate and fly low and slow again using stealth coverage and painting the airplanes black which gave them the nickname black cats the black cats grew claws and with either bombs or torpedoes they made the nightly tokyo express the the uh train of japanese ships going down the slot between the islands and the solomon's to reinforce their garrisons on guadalcanal uh a very hazardous undertaking it's it's hard or difficult to say how many american troops lives were saved by virtue the fact that not all the ammunition or the ordinance or the food and supplies that japanese troops needed got to where they were intended to go and there thereby spared americans have heavier losses than they did by war's end black cat operations conducted by the u.s navy and the royal air force uh sank a total of five hundred japanese ships of all types totaling some seven hundred thousand tons as an interesting side story in australia qantas airways obtained five catalinas for use in what they called their double sunrise flights going from perth australia to ceylon or what we call sri lanka today this was a 3 500 mile journey that took them 28 hours to fly because of the fuel required extra fuel they had to take on to fly that distance they were only able to carry a very little cargo and three passengers and because most of the indian ocean was prowled upon by japanese fighters the airplanes had to take off in darkness and maintain radio silence for most of the trip they were so heavily laden with fuel in fact that if they had lost a single engine in flight they would have had to go down anytime in the first 10 hours and they called it the double sunrise flight because of the of the sheer length of the trip meant that the passengers got to see two sunrises uh between the time they left perth and the time they arrived at kagala lake and ceylon from january 1942 to june 1945 in the atlantic u.s navy coast guard and royal canadian air force catalina squadrons covered the entire eastern seaboard from newfoundland all the way down to brazil to provide overhead anti-submarine warfare support for the convoys that were taking supplies much-needed supplies to england and russia on the other side the atlantic royal air force catalinas did the same thing covering the north the north sea the bay of biscay and the mediterranean advances in anti-submarine warfare technology such as sonar the first aerial sauna boys magnetic anomaly detectors and the first acoustic homing torpedo called the mark 24 fido gave the allies a technological edge over the german u-boat wolf packs that were trying to prey on convoys heading for europe and back by 1944 losses amongst u-boats had gotten so great that the krig's marines u-boat chief admiral karl durnitz gave orders to his u-boat commanders that if they were caught on the surface they were to fight it out on the surface with their deck guns rather than submerge and be subjected to a one-sided pummeling from the anti-submarine warfare aircraft so german u-boats in the last year of the war started to spring up very heavy caliber anti-anti-aircraft guns like the 37 millimeter and 57 millimeter guns which made life for something as slow as the pby uh pretty miserable so they were discouraged from engaging in gun fights or gun duels with surfaced u-boats in june of 1944 a squadron called vp 63 madcatz deployed the first pbys equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector which was basically a boom underneath the rudder that had a magnetometer which would detect any anomalies in the earth's magnetic field like a large metallic object say a submerged submarine they deployed to morocco and helped the royal air force cover the approaches through the straits of gibraltar catching german u-boats as they ingressed or egress from the mediterranean by the end of the battle of the atlantic pbys and allied forces royal air force royal canadian air force u.s navy and coast guard had accounted for 20 of the 55 german u-boats that were sunk by aircraft in the entire war air sea rescue was always part of the pby's capabilities and it was used throughout the the beginning of the war through the through the 1944 when the or 1943 when the joint chiefs of staff agreed that a dedicated search and rescue or air sea rescue organization uh because of the size and scope of the of a two ocean war was just too much for the u.s coast guard to handle a loan so the decision was made to create an organization within within the united states army air forces uh called air sea rescue and they would be equipped equipped with amongst other types of pby catalinas which the air force referred to as the oa-10 these oa10s were taken from navy contracts and and turned over to the air force given air force serial numbers but the pilots and air crew had to come here to nas pensacola and nas jacksonville to be trained on how to fly the catalina dumbo was the nickname given to the pby because of its large wing and its semi similar resemblance to the disney cartoon character the flying elephant became a great term of endearment and by the end of the war thousands of servicemen airmen and sailors victims of ship sinkings owed their their lives to a catalina or a dumbo aircraft being available to land and pick them up pick them out of the water on august 3rd 1945 a navy catalina based in the philippines discovered and picked up the first group of survivors from the sinking of the heavy cruiser uss indianapolis east of the philippines which had been sunk by a japanese submarine five days earlier after delivering its cargo the first nuclear bomb to the air force on tinian after world war ii pat catalin has continued to serve in the navy reserves and in training units until the early 1950s when they were replaced by more modern and faster flying boats like martin's pbm and martin's p5m the air force continued to use oa-tens for another eight years following world war ii uh until they were replaced with new the new grumman sa-16 albatross amphibian and likewise the u.s coast guard started replacing its catalinas around 1949 1950 with the new albatross as well as a new contraption called the helicopter surprisingly foreign militaries continued to use catalinas provided under foreign military assistance programs until well into the 1970s they also found use as forest fire aerial forest fire fighting water bombers in canada and north america and for use as mission support aircraft in places like the amazon uh new guinea and and equatorial africa uh interestingly in 1971 uh ocean uh explorer and aquanaut philippe cousteau the son of jacques cousteau uh who was himself a uh a pilot purchased a ex-u.s navy pby 6a catalina dubbed calypso 2 and used it in their worldwide explorations sadly in 1979 while taxiing on the tagus river near lisbon portugal the airplane struck a sandbar uh wrenching one of the propellers loose from its uh from its engine and it cut through the cockpit killing philippe instantly in conclusion the pby was a state-of-the-art aircraft when it was first designed in 1935 but was was obsolete within five years but it was what the navy had on hand is what they had to fight with when the war was thrust upon us in 1941 and it did its job well and countless uh americans and allied uh sailor soldiers and marines and airmen uh owed their lives to the catalina and uh as one army combat veteran once remarked you so whenever i see a pby i stand and salute and now if you have any questions regarding the pby catalina i'll do my best to answer them very much kim for that outstanding presentation catalina a lot to talk about with the stereo historic aircraft we've had some questions come in uh scott uh asks how many survivors uh could it carry at one time in some of the dumbo missions that it flew well a lot depending on how heavy the airplane was uh how much fuel had on board and ammunition and so forth and if it had a full complement you know eight or nine-man crew uh i've read accounts if they said they could get as many as 20 passengers on board cash barber who gave the preface to this was talking about their rescue mission on the sepec river in new guinea where they put of course they flew with a minimal crew and unloaded all their ammunition uh and they got as many as 30 of the australian commanders on board each airplane for that mission but that was pushing it and that made for a long takeoff run uh in in the case of the uss indianapolis rescue i understand that the first pby on scene loaded as many as 30 of the survivors on board and she was too heavy to get airborne so they had to be actually rescued by another pby in that case and lou humphrey commented um why would they carry a healthy supply of number two pencils on on pbys that's a good question uh that was a habit that pby crewmen got into uh because these airplanes did not have flaps with that big wing a big parasol wing uh and it's a wide cord as well they did frequently did what we call full stall landings where they get down as low as they could as slow as they could and actually let the tail drag a little bit first uh if they misjudged their timing with the uh the crest and the trough of a wave they could easily slam down pretty hard and pop some rivets so everyone had a pencil in his pocket to use as a temporary plug uh to plug leaks uh in popped rivets or or bullet holes if they took battle damage while doing their missions uh robert asks are any uh pbys still flying today that's another good question there surprisingly there are quite a few pbys around the world flying i've seen estimates as high as 70 in me well not flying but 70 airplanes total in museums i think they're probably a dozen or two that are that are actually still flying in terms of the actual flying boat model the pb the straight dash five uh this one we have here in pensacola is the only straight dash five flying boat catalin all the other ones that are either in museums or a flying status still are the amphibian version either the dash 5a or the dash 6a catalinas and you mentioned that the pbys are are slow in the air not really can't really avoid air attack but was was there any real defense against air attack if you were a pby pilot how could you try to keep from getting shot down that was a good question evasive maneuvers were very simple basically if you had if you're high-flying pby you see lots and lots of accounts going back to the battle midway for example where the reconnaissance planes were spotting parts of the japanese fleet and they'd draw either japanese fighters or anti-aircraft fire and they dart for the safety of a cloud get into a big cloud and fly on instruments for a while until until the uh the interest in you had waned if you were caught in a clear clear sky either without clouds or at night or daytime with clear you know clear ceiling and visibility uh the best maneuver was to fly and turn into their attackers and and uh can you know confuse or or make their their gunfire solution uh more difficult or get down close to the water where you didn't have to worry about somebody coming up from underneath you the bat the six o'clock position on most airplanes including the pby was your most vulnerable uh position so they get down low and slow and and again turn into the attack and and uh try to complicate things for the enemy fighter as much as you could okay and we have time for one final question cooper asks did uh the us air force's pbys flown in the dumbo missions did they carry defensive armament like their navy counterparts yes they did the oa-tens was what the army air force designation for the pby was were armed with the same kind of armament that the the navy and coast guard pb wise flew with you know two one or two 30 caliber machine guns in the nose uh one in the tunnel uh position window in the tail and then two uh single 50s in the waist positions but underneath the plexiglas blisters uh thanks very much for joining us on this episode of history up close be sure to stay tuned with social media for our next subject coming up in about two weeks thanks you

Channel: NavalAviationMuseum

Views: 102,620

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Id: GMNkZa3RUX0

Length: 43min 5sec (2585 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020