NZ restored 1944 Catalina
19 May 2016
A group of aviation enthusiasts has finished restoring a 1944 Catalina Flying Boat to ensure it remains a working memorial to New Zealand's war history in the Pacific
The 1944 PBY-5 Catalina is the only one of its kind in New Zealand and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere that can take passengers.
It's a challenge to fly, New Plymouth pilot captain Brett Emeny says.
" It's quite heavy on the controls, so to fly it accurately takes quite a lot of balance between the ailerons and rudder control."
Modern aircraft of a similar size have computerised systems that control the rudder and keep the aircraft in balance, but the Catalina doesn't have any of that, Emeny says.
"You have to hand fly it. It's real seat of the pants flying. That's probably what I like about it. To fly it well you have to really concentrate on what you are doing."
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The Catalina is a flying example of a memorial for WWII aircrew - there were 54 Catalinas in three RNZAF squadrons in the Pacific, he says.
"They were brave boys flying these. They were only getting along at about 100 knots with all the gear they had hanging off them and carrying 6500 litres of fuel in behind the engines, so if a fighter (plane) managed to find them there was very little chance of getting away from it."
In WWII there were about 3500 Catalinas operating in all theatres of war.
They were built in Canada and used by the Canadian airforce hunting submarines across the Atlantic, Emeny says.
"They were going 1000 miles out to sea on 20 hour missions hunting submarines. They carried bombs, torpedoes or depth charges and they decimated the German U Boat fleet because they could fly 1000 miles out to sea and find U Boats on the surface recharging their batteries thinking they were safe from aerial attack."
They were used in the Pacific for picking up downed aircrew, he says.
"You have to be pretty brave doing that. There were fighters all over the place and they'd be going along 95-100 miles and land on the water to pick people up. They'd be sitting ducks on the water. They had some pretty severe losses."
