I photographed these Consolidated PBY Catalina examples at McChord AFB and at a vintage aviation air show put on by the Historic Flight Foundation at Paine Field. Canadian service PBY-5’s are called Canso — I photographed Canso examples parked outside the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Ore., and at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson.
In 2017, I photographed the Catalina at McChord after it had received new paint. Another example was photographed at the NMoUSAF in Dayton.
The PBY-6 that I was able to board during an airshow at Paine Field was the Catalina that was temporarily based at nearby Thun Field before heading to Florida for use in the movie USS Indianapolis: Men of Honor. Sadly it was lost after being beached just offshore during filming — the most serious damage done when salvage crane operators attempted to lift the water-logged Catalina, essentially ripping the plane apart (read story here). I don’t usually link to outside images, but here is a very interesting video of this Catalina in Florida showing how close it was to shore. Sad that they attempted to lift the plane rather than using inflated floats to bring the nose section above the waterline and pumping the water out. Very sad.
There is a PBY-5A Catalina BuNo 46522 at the Erickson Collection in Madras, Ore., that I had originally photographed at the Tillamook Air Museum many years ago (sadly, I cannot find the photos from that visit in about 2004-5).
PBY-5A 46595 “Snafu Snatchers”
NMoUSAF 2018
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Canso A (PBY-5A) 9815
Evergreen Aviation Museum; 2015
Evergreen Museum 2018
PBY-5A 433915
Imperial War Museum, Duxford 2019
PBY-5A 46522
Erickson Collection, Madras 2017
Erickson Collection; Madras 2023
PBY-6A 64041 Catalina
Paine Field 2012
Canso A (PBY-5A) 9742
Pima Air Museum 2017
PBY-5A 33993 (displayed as 434033)
McChord AFB 2010
McChord AFB 2017
after new paint