Rescuing Rare Catalina Warplane Before It's Lost Forever | Loch Ness: Plane Rescue | Wonder

[Music] in the autumn of 2020 one of the world's last remaining fully operational world war ii catalina flying boats was making a morale boosting appearance in scotland the catalina is a fantastically strong airplane the most successful flying boat ever built more than three thousand were built more catalinas than all other flying boats put together she landed on loch ness close to raf allness where the type was stationed in world war ii from here the catalinas of coastal command extended britain's wartime reach into the north sea and the atlantic ocean the visit proved to be the perfect fill-up for the har-press local tourism industry i think apart from nettie herself then it's probably the strangest thing that we've seen in the loch it's very unusual the catalina originally designed as a pure flying boat in the 1930s was almost obsolete before the war even began however she quickly found a home as a versatile if slow hunter bomber operating against submarines and surface craft however she was best known for her wartime air sea rescue roll the huge rear observation blisters hinging open to drag in downed airmen in the wartime days some of those pilots were flying this plane with a remarkably low number of hours 50 hours 100 hours ridic when i think about that it's ridiculous what was being demanded of those guys what should have literally been a flying visit for the modern catalina turned into a dramatic battle to save one of the world's rarest aircraft and we just stopped to let a cameraman off the airplane we started engines again but unfortunately the right engine said not starting i've seen loch ness when the waves are crashing around the shores and the plane's not built for that its operators are now facing a race against time to escape from loch ness what is this super plane [Music] anything familiar that torso with a middle-aged sag her speed less than some cars can do maneuverable some days all right on others she brings around like a 10 ton truck just like the 80 year old example that landed on loch ness the original wartime miss pickup was built by canadian vickers at cartierville in due course this catalina found its way to the united kingdom where it went into action providing air sea rescue cover for the united states army air force base at helsworth in suffolk the same procedure is followed with the catalinas as they take off control at air sea rescue is notified in the same manner and the airborne time is again [Music] posted so it was that miss pickup was operating over the north sea on march the 30th 1945 on a mission that was to prove its last of the war the aircraft was sent to the aid of a fighter pilot downed off a dutch island in the north sea escorted by two p-51 mustangs she landed to begin the rescue however as the captain second lieutenant john v lapinas attempted to turn the plane on the water the crew discovered an unfamiliar problem her right engine failed to start an oil line had been severed miss pickup was now herself in need of rescue but worse was to come during the next day she was attacked by a pair of me262s the luftwaffe's new jet fighter tearing off the tail and peppering the fuselage with holes the crew abandoned her enemy raiders returned in an effort to finish her off a sitting duck in the north sea and on march the 31st 1945 she sank that though was just the beginning of their troubles despite repeated attempts to drop full-size rescue boats for them the crew were adrift in desperate conditions for four days finally getting a lifeboat dropped to them the stranded crew battled 10-foot seas more enemy fire and the failure of the lifeboats engines before eventually being picked up by an raf rescue launch on the evening of april the 4th and taken to great yarmouth 75 years later and the current catalina bearing the same name as her illustrious forebear miss pickup has successfully landed on loch ness and thankfully appears to be in good sea with the condition but a pilot for warren wilson is acutely aware of her limitations and briefs his team accordingly this aeroplane wants to fly she wants to go on the water she's at home in the water she's beautifully built fantastically designed excellent hull for carving through the water even when it's rough but you have to have a feeling for the plane which only comes gradually i mean the catalina is a fantastically strong airplane the most successful flying boat ever built more than three thousand were built more catalinas than all other flying boats put together at that stage like so many warbirds the aircraft currently flying as miss pickup is not the original airframe she's painted to represent a pby-a catalina that operated for the united states army air force in the uk during world war ii [Music] the aircraft is though of wartime vintage built in canada the current miss pickup was originally ordered for the royal canadian air force delivered on the 27th of october 1943 and initially saw service at bella bella on the british columbia coast the canadian catalina known as the kansas were mainly operated from water despite their amphibious undercarriages and were used on day and night patrol searching for enemy submarines when the war ended it ended a period of stories before being converted to a freighter in 1948 it was finally struck off military service in 1961 and became a firefighting water bomber with well-known catalina operator kentings in 1980 she was part of the norcon air waterbombing fleet taken over by the province of saskatchewan to protect the northern forests by the late 1990s the remaining saskatchewan catalinas were sent to east africa and converted to passenger aircraft for the tourist industry in zimbabwe [Music] that deal though fell through and in 2004 the official catalina society plain sailing swooped in to buy the aircraft then civilian registered as c fnjf to put her to work as a tourism and historic attraction on the global airshow circuit but there was a whole host of upgrades and jobs to be done on her before she would be sufficiently airworthy and seaworthy to be flown from canada back to the uk the owners dispatched engineer gary shot to work on the aircraft with a small team of volunteers more conversion work safety and performance modifications were undertaken the race was on to get her into the air and back to the uk before any more airshows were missed after detailed inspections by the local aviation authorities she was given the paperwork he needed a limited supplemental type certificate and permission to fly 0-3-175 what does that mean lstc at last oh god let me be the first to congratulate thank you very much even on the day of departure things didn't go smoothly the weather was awful and the flight already abandoned once due to high winds looked at risk even the vehicle moving the plane suffered setbacks well tractor does it it wouldn't move it the other day it had so much water in the bilges however gary short and his team were rewarded for long weeks in canada preparing her for the ferry flight to ireland arriving on the 30th of march after nearly 13 hours in the air and in temperatures as low as -28 degrees after her triumphant arrival at duxford she flew the airshow circuit for a year and are now rather faded yellow paint before a winter transformation to our new united states army air force colours depicting a catalina number 44-33915 of the 8th air force fifth emergency rescue squadron in those markings she's flown ever since memorializing the original aircraft and crew and all those who served on the iconic catalina in the wartime days some of those pilots were flying this plane with a remarkably low number of hours 50 hours 100 hours ridic when i think about that it's ridiculous what was being demanded of those guys so usually when i'm flying the plane i'm totally focused on just flying the plane but anytime that we stand back and think about what those people achieved what those pilots and crew achieved during the war it's staggering poor warren wilson started his flying career as a cadet quickly moving on to the raf's basic jet trainer the jet provost that the hawk fast trainer finally converting to the harrier gr3 based in germany at the very height of cold war tensions his time with the complex and technically demanding jump jet left him in great demand as a war bird pilot after his raf service he co-founded the fighter media show series and eventually teamed up with a couple of colleagues to acquire and operate larger warbirds eventually specializing in catalinas not a cheap undertaking fund is always a concern for the catalina we run with a group of 25 shareholders who pay monthly fees and thanks to their capital input for a share and their monthly fees we're able to meet our running costs so it's not a case of it's a rich man's toy it's something which eats money it really does catalinas are in great demand for filming and promotional work and it's this switch in the autumn of 2020 brought paul entertainment wonderful miss pickup to loch ness paul and the team had been engaged to deposit a pair of sporting celebrities onto the waters of loch ness as part of filming for a television panel show the contestants leaving the aircraft and swimming to shore all had gone well in perfect weather conditions and on a still lock the tv crew were happy with their results and departed miss pickup leaving her to simply restart her engines taxi across the lock and head for home guys shut the airplane down to let people off i believe and then come to restart it and nothing happened nothing happened to start a turn but the engine didn't so they knew they had a problem couldn't start one engine couldn't take off on one engine we were thinking to ourselves what on earth are they going to do where they're going to put it i've seen loch ness when when the waves are crashing around the shores and the plane's not built for that loch ness is what 30 kilometers long or more um and a couple of kilometers wide so it's a big piece of water and if the wind is free to blow along that for any stretch of time the waves are going to get up and can be really significant it's quite flimsy actually so uh any any big waves or wind will end up destroying it after a while so it's imperative that you get the aircraft to safety and safety being out of the water she's not indestructible and we needed help there are big winds coming there are threats to the aeroplane exposed to the elements for months and months she's going to deteriorate significantly then it's just total disaster one reasonably large hole in the hull and it's just i'm unthinkable the race was on to save one of the last catalinas from a watery grave loch ness may be a pool of cam and an ideal venue for an autumn day out but in the late months of 2020 a rare catalina flying boat was stranded on her waters an engine broken if she wasn't lifted to safety soon she could join the hundreds of years of wrecks at the bottom of one of the world's deepest and most notorious inland waterways for paul warren wilson and his team who have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in this pickup came the realization that their precious catalina flying boat was in real and present danger people think it's a lake a lock it's small you know it's relatively benign it's 23 miles long so it's it's uh longer than some of the channel crossings so we get a huge wind fetch the prevailing wind coming up from the southwest and so it can be like it is today absolutely beautiful flat cam particularly it comes up very quick with the wind and you can have up to two you know two meters is you know pretty regular in the winter or in particularly windy conditions and it's very short swell as well so you know it's quite harsh if you're out in the water you can get waves three and a half meters high and they're very short and very steep so if it's a vicious old block that's why there's a rescue service on it the water it's actually classed as category seed so you're it can get wild in there sea level it's just like sea cutter categorization so it it's anything but a mill pond it could have found it on the shore you know there's no doubt about that i mean as you say this lock can get quite rough and with the wind blowing through the glen in which the rock is is based it could mean that you know anything that was immobile on the surface would be at the mercy of the wind and the current the problem is also that the sides of the loch are very rocky we don't have nice sandy beaches we've got this one bay ercot bay which gives very good shelter from southwesterly wind not so good from the northeast because just as we have a prevailing southwesterly wind the only other wind we have of any substance is actually a northeasterly blowing the other way and that can be quite nasty when we did our work on the water when we stopped on the water it was nearly calm wind and just beautiful little choppy waves of about three inches maximum so no problem at all in the short term but in the longer term because we knew it would take some time to fix the problem whatever it was in the longer term we need shelter we need to get to a boy and then if it's going to be a long time we need to find a way to protect the plane more more than just being more to a boy and we needed help and fortunately we were quite near to the local rnli station they got their kit on came out and lent a hand which made a huge difference to us any craft out in the loft um it's the most common way to get caught out is with the weather coming up very quickly um and the shoreline the water is very dark you can't see the shore the same as you would in the in the sea for most parts very random the rocks and so you get anywhere near the shore at all and in any kind of wave and it will just hold straight in whatever goes on it when it was out there there was a feral wind blowing there it would have been driven down out of the shoulder doors it's possible where they could have put the wheels down and it would have you know but it's pretty it's it's there's some pretty big cobbles down here despite the fact that the rnli were on the scene and assisting a new problem emerged night was falling making operations even more hazardous and before she could be towed to the loch side it was vital to get the passenger safely ashore are you looking down there i'll get the pull right let him go unlock this miss pickup has spent the night temporarily murdered to a boy however it was vital the aged aircraft is lifted to the safety of dry land as soon as possible not only was this logistically difficult but also cripplingly expensive prompting a public appeal hello my name's matt dylan i'm one of the volunteer pilots for our blood catalina mist pickup it's only now that we've started this operation we've got a better idea of the true costs involved in this hence we've taken the decision to increase our funding target to just over 29 000 pounds this should cover the cost of the entire operation from getting her off the lock and back home to her nice warm hangar in duxford before the winter sets in one of our members started a gofundme campaign which was amazingly successful and has brought us 30 000 pounds which has covered the costs of craning out of the water six weeks of work here accommodation tools transport fortunately just 800 meters away on the other side of urcat bay uh is temple pier where they very kindly allowed us to bring the plane out of the water onto the land and put the aircraft in a much more controlled situation where in slow time we could tie her down properly put scaffolding around put some weather protection bring in cranes and so on and get on with the job of changing the engine the rescue was planned however there was a hitch the catalina is fitted with special lifting points on the top of her wing but these are designed for use in the hangar with overhead hoists at the lock side the team had to improvise and a large and powerful crane would be needed at considerable expense to hoist her out of the water i was astonished to hear that they could be operational for up to 14 hours in the air that's quite extraordinary it seemed to me and clearly they required a huge um fuel capacity to do that and you were telling me that the fuel is the tanks are housed in that wing up on the top and i can just imagine the kind of weight that these two engines are required to lift out of the water the worry of craning her out by her massive wing has to be weighed against the risk of leaving her where she is the fear was that had she been left on the lock she could take on water and sink while she is fully capable and licensed for water operations she's not sealed in quite the same way as wartime aircraft and without bilge pumps running and in rough water she could have been swamped if she were to have more trouble getting off loch ness the prognosis could be grim and she wouldn't be the first aviation wreck on the bottom in 1976 marty klein brought his side scan sonar here and when they returned to america they found on the sonar traces the image of an airplane and initially they thought it was a catalina you can see the two engines there and you can see why they might have thought that but subsequently robin holmes of harriet watt university identified the uh the wreck as a wellington bomber in 70 meters of water in loch ness and ultimately successfully salvaged the the wreck in 1985 and it's now at the brooklyn's spirit brooklyn's museum in waybridge the catalina team were well aware of the wellington wreck and nervously watched the crane get to work it was 150 thinner big beast the wheels go in all directions fascinating watching it and so they put it in there got it all set up with all the extra weights and all the rest the reason it was so big is to get the jib length to get out to be able to lift the thing at that distance yeah because they had to be far enough back but so when they lifted it they could actually put it on the end of the pier i was on one of the the ropes on the end trying to take pictures and watch it as well and we were very lucky the weather was virtually flat calm lifted out perfectly beautifully as the crew finally managed to get to the faulty engine on dry land it was very evident that this wouldn't be an easy job one month after miss pickup arrived on loch ness paul gary and the team will finally find out tomorrow whether they have a chance of flying the catalina out in one piece even the few days that she'd been fully exposed to the elements on loch ness had taken their toll lubricants have been washed out of hard to reach hinges and panels and the rain even though light had penetrated many compartments in wartime a team of dozens of engineers would take this in their stride with access to unlimited spares and with no regard for cost gary and his small teammate loch ness didn't have any such luxury and were in a race against time further inspection of the engine that had failed revealed it had to come off the aircraft as you can see this part of the engine is everything from the firewall forward is a engine change unit well we don't have one of those we have a bare engine which is literally that just the bare bones of the engine which we have to put everything from this engine the service onto before we can put it back on and uh that should take us a few days so having lifted the whole aircraft out of the lock the team now had to take the engine off with the utmost care to be able to transfer the parts across to the new unit because if everyone starts waving and shooting yeah he doesn't know who to listen to or so if you need if you wanted to stop just tell me and i'll stop engine was finally removed to be replaced with the new unit another massive physical and logistical challenge for the team we baby them really but uh in those days they just had to punish them in this punishing situation extreme weights long distances cold hot everything like that so these engines were yeah i think they made more of these than any other aero engine especially radials every single thing has to be checked every single panel that goes on every single screw nut bolt because if something comes loose it can endanger the engine well we've stripped down uh most of the accessories and um teamwork you know the covers etc off the engine now we're just putting some of them onto the new one while we can and tomorrow the guys from solo will come along and swap these engines over on their stands because that one's better for building up this one's not quite good enough for that so the duff one or one we think stuff is going to go on this shipping stand and this one's going to go on the build up stand ready to uh be put back on next week starter motor will go on here the generator below it uh fuel pump will go under here vacuum pump underneath and taco jenny which goes on the rev counter here that will go on this bit and then the big bit the carburetor goes on top of this pad here but not on top of it pack comes off it goes on here personally and and the guy's helping me i think we'll have this dutch wood back on the wing and possibly running by where are we now wednesday sometime middle of next week to the end of next week despite worsening weather and logistical problems gary and roger got the components built onto the new engine core and bench tested what they could the only way they could test all the systems though was to winch the engine back onto the aircraft morale was raised as the crane team returned for this operation [Music] evening was drawing in at loch ness the engine was fitted oil and hydraulics topped up and she was covered for the night the next day was the most critical so far engine test day [Music] one month after being stranded at loch ness this stricken part of aviation history one of the world's last fully operational world war ii flying boats had been lovingly repaired by her dedicated crew and hope they can finally fire out and home to duxford an entire engine has had to be removed and some of its key components integrated into a new unit before being winched back onto the aircraft for testing everything on his hard work this is just extra hard work because the place that we're at this is this is the final part the engine will be oiled up fingers crossed you'll hear pretty sounds you've got to be very quick because that's the big thing out there is a real pain all the time so you never know what's going to happen perhaps the most famous catalina lost on an inland waterway isn't sitting at the bottom of a lake in fact it's been on public display for 60 years and is slowly rotting away leaving behind only its extraordinary story well i'm quite amazed it's lasted as long as it has when you consider you know where it is and you couldn't kind of imagine a worse place to leave something like this and uh you know here it is stuck on the beach and it hasn't disappeared all together you know like many catalinas after the war the now sad wreck beach near charmel shake in the middle east was once a magnificent passenger aircraft his tail though is curious owned by millionaire thomas kendall the aircraft had been in britain filming the b-movie sos pacific [Music] so when filming wrapped kendall undertook a round-the-world holiday with family and friends on the luxurious air yacht they were greeted like royalty wherever they went until on wednesday the 23rd of march 1960 they sat down in an inviting looking inlet unnamed on their map which the pilots thought was in egypt unfortunately they'd landed in a sensitive area of saudi arabia and local tribesmen fearing an invasion opened fire on the unprotected aircraft injuring kendall and members of his party and damaging like miss pickup the right engine the kendall party found themselves under house arrest at the tribe's camp while an international incident unfolded eventually they were freed and after medical treatment all survived however the usa refused to supply spare parts for the aircraft feeding it may be pressed into military use and sadly the once magnificent air yard was left to rot on the receding sea line where her now vandalized and dissected skeleton remains to this day she's a stark reminder that the same fate might have and still could await miss pickup [Music] far from the sunshine off the middle east it was cold and damp at loch ness alone in the cockpit the pressure was on for engineer gary short as he silently ran through his final pre-start checklist for the new engine if everything was in order she would start if not it would have meant engine removal and back to the workshop [Music] the tension was palpable as the engine rotated on its starter so [Applause] well done really really well done from this pickup it looked like the risk of not escaping spending a winter or worse trap than loch ness was finally receding now perhaps she could start her journey home [Music] with the engine runs completed all had looked well for a getaway however for the first time the lock began to strike back winds and rain increased towards the projected return to flight day and it was aborted the following weekend had a weather window but with snow threatened that two slipped one final attempt was scheduled for the start of december before a projected three weeks of severe weather the team knew when the day began cold but still unclear that it was now or never in the early morning darkness at the site of loch ness the meticulous planning by the catalina rescue team was coming into its own the now familiar crane crew arrived to lift her back onto the water carefully positioning their equipment ready for the instructions of the crew electrical and system tests were undertaken and paul held a final briefing as you know the problem with putting the plane on the water is wind blowing us into something hopefully there won't be too much wind um to cope with that what we will do as i see the sequence is we've got a line attached to each of the floats just as we had last time although i wasn't here then and looking after those lines will be gary on the starboard float and roger on the fourth float and the aim of those lies is just to keep the plane facing directly towards the key if the engine started and the aircraft flew the plan was an initial flight to the west midlands and a short hop the next day to arrive at duxford as airfield reopened the final engine checks were complete the aircraft had been made safe and was ready for the water the whole winching operation was undertaken slowly and with great care and it made for a fascinating time lapse condensing the 20 minute operation into one simple move [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] parking brake off pilots paul warren wilson and matt dearden now have the aircraft prepared and go through their pre-flight checklist before the critical power checks and takeoff run set pitch fully fine we'll be fine mixtures ico ico cowgills open open carpet cold cold static manifold pressure note noted radio master switch as required not required start clearance rotating beacon on not required ignition master on on restarts complete thanks battery on turn and go hatches overhead now actually what i think about it [Music] [Music] despite the good weather everything had to work perfectly and the swell on the loft raised some concern as when the aircraft is traveling at 90 miles an hour in our takeoff run any mistake or technical issue can quickly become a crisis finally though as maximum take-off power was applied catalina broke free from the water that had held her captive as a threat of wood to doing which he climbed out over the dark forbidding surface of the lord [Music] so [Music] after six long weeks she's in the air passing over the assembled crowd of well-wishers on the side of loch ness and tipping her wings in the long established gesture of thanks from all warbirds [Music] after six weeks stranded at loch ness in which her dedicated crew had to battle to save her one of the world's last catalina flying boats is now safely airborne once more and on the first part of our homework journey to duxford her first flight of freedom was short though a 12-mile hop to inverness airport to do a systems check ensure that all was working well and most importantly take on the fuel for the 500 mile journey to cambridgeshire via the midlands when to plan really as smooth as uh we can expect um a little bit wavier than we anticipated out there quite a few i'm glad i got my window closed about a second before a bloody great wave come over the top but uh otherwise no she's all good she's behaving inverness now just going to refuel her and then head south back home we'll get her home now back in a nice hangar and suck her away for the winter basically at duxford a long anxious wait was almost over as finally the ground team's beloved catalina came into view mission accomplished [Music] safe on the ground the new engine had performed flawlessly and she was prepared for her first night in a hangar in three months [Music] [Applause] a good trip at the beginning of december right now it's cold wintry about three degrees today you know the weather could have been really against us but we were just so lucky it's just we're not blue skies but good as you're going to arsenal really plane's been behaving yourself new engine pretty thoughtless really testament to the team and you know and everybody who's worked on it it's just fantastic really happy to be home as soon as the cat's home she's groomed for the next prowl [Music] that's a blitz buggy towing her into position for overhaul some job for a maintenance officer keeping an aerial antique acting like a dive bomber the bad symptom sheet port propeller throwing oil nothing serious but a new part is needed these cats take plenty some here are nearly four years old as economist pickup enters our eighth decade of continuous operation it's testament to the incredible efforts of our crew and the original design that an aircraft regarded in wartime as warned out in less than five years continues to fly and perform at air shows with the crane there lifting her back onto the water that was sort of the tricky bit that we were all a little nervous about it's not something we do very much and uh we know we needed light winds which in uh winter in scotland that's not exactly very common particularly a lot now textbook operation really um the waves were quite interesting a lot less that was uh that caught out a little bit we weren't quite just spacing them to be as big as that but uh you know she's designed for much bigger waves than that so uh just something a bit new for us for uh for this season that's mission accomplished and uh yeah she'll go back into the hangar now and undergo the usual winter maintenance ready for ready for next year basically in the preceding 44 days the catalina must pick up one of the world's rarest flying aircraft had faced an uncertain future dogged by technical issues and stranded on an unforgiving lock in deteriorating conditions the determination and perseverance of a dedicated team and the support of the public however means she lives to fly another day to honor those who operated in and were helped by the catalina flying boat and in this case rescued in an escape from loch ness [Music]

Channel: Wonder

Views: 296,987

Keywords: Wonder, wonder channel, survivial videos, survival stories, i shouldn't be alive, wonder i shouldn't be alive, outdoor channel, extreme documentary, loch ness fish, loch ness river monsters, loch ness monster, loch ness plane crash, loch ness plane rescue, plane rescue, plane documentary, plane documentary crash, plane accident documentary

Id: RRVStY-fG30

Length: 43min 49sec (2629 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 28 2021