World Catalina News - June 2026 - The Catalina Society

Once again, I bring you a round-up of Catalina News from around the globe. This was originally published in The Catalina News issue 105 sent to subscribing members of The Catalina Society.

The Catalina Society website has a regularly updated summary of all surviving Catalinas – click ‘Survivors’ to check it out. A reminder that, for consistency, I quote type designations as given when airframes were built which are not necessarily how aircraft are now registered, an example being our G-PBYA, built as a Canso A, later modified to a Canso 2F but registered on the UK civil aircraft register as a PBY-5A.

First, some news from Canada. Canso A C-FUAW, owned by Canadian Warplane Heritage, (CWH) is being worked on at Victoria, Vancouver Island from where it will eventually be operated as the west coast element of CWH, their existing airworthy Canso A C-FPQL being based at Hamilton, Mount Hope, Ontario. Pilot, Oliver Evans reports: ‘Jim Van Dyke of CWH is primarily in charge of the project with Gary Wieben of Fairview, Alberta-based Fairview Aircraft Restoration Society (FARS) doing most of the work to bring her back to airworthiness after a few years of inactivity. Some notable licensed engineering work has been contributed by Darcy Barker from the KF Centre of Excellence museum, Kelowna, BC who also works on the Convair 580 at the BC Aviation Museum at Victoria. CWH is covering the costs. This much-needed care and attention is long overdue. ‘UAW is about to receive a new prop’ on the starboard engine and work continues on the starboard engine to work out various bugs. New hydraulic lines have been put in place by local firm Victoria Air Maintenance. The hope is that she will be flying by the end of this coming summer.’ C-FUAW is now registered to Canadian Warplane Heritage at Mount Hope but one oddity is that the Canadian civil aircraft register has always quoted her as constructor’s number CV-201 whereas it should be CV-302 (CV-201 was never allocated to a Canso and is presumably a long-standing typo).

Oliver also flies the FARS Canso A C-FNJE, formerly Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) serial 11094, and was active in her last September when he and Gary Wieben did a few hours water work on a visit to Sturgeon Lake in north-western Alberta. This enabled some crew training and refreshing to take place and all went well. On September 27^th, C-FNJE flew to Grande Prairie to join in the festivities at the Warren Pinto Memorial Fly-In & Flight Fair there. Earlier in the season, on June 15^th, C-FNJE was on static display for inspection and walkthroughs at its Fairview base for the annual Father’s Day Fly-In Breakfast. Despite poor weather, there were six visiting aircraft and between 250 and 300 breakfasts were served. The Canso had its engines run and then, in the afternoon, went flying for a test flight and a quick trip to Peace River for some ‘splash and goes’. August 10^th saw it visit Westlock for the Fly and Drive-in Pancake Breakfast whilst on August 15^th it was at the Whitecourt Airport Alberta Air Tours event. On the 16^th the Canso went to Slave Lake for the Fly-In Air Fair. During the summer, C-FNJE also visited Edmonton to commemorate the opening of a new Veterans Hospital, funded by John Carswell who has been generously involved with several Cansos including our own UK-based Miss Pick Up.

I have occasionally reported on the so-called ‘Ghost of Gananoque’, the former RCAF Canso A CF-NJL which, when built by Canadian Vickers Ltd at Cartierville, PQ, was the aircraft immediately in front of C-FNJE mentioned above – it was RCAF serial 11093. Earmarked for disposal by the RCAF in May 1960, it was offered for sale in the following September. On April 10^th, 1961 it was formally sold to David Dorosh and struck off RCAF strength on the same day. It has been in the continuous ownership of Dorosh ever since. He moved it to Gananoque, Ontario around 1962 and had it registered as a ‘PBY-5A’ CF-NJL in November 1965. The intention seems to have been that it would be converted to a firefighting waterbomber but it remained unconverted and stored in an old wooden RCAF hangar at Gananoque. It is still on the Canadian civil aircraft register, its last registration date being June 8^th, 2004. From time to time, rumours of a sale have circulated but these have never come to anything and Dorosh is now be quite elderly so at some point disposal is inevitable. Over the years, its engines have been run but it has not flown since the early 1960s. It is in basically stock post-war RCAF condition, having been converted to a Canso 2F freighter in August 1945, so no longer has bow or blister turrets. It does still have the small crane used for freight loading and unloading that was a part of the 2F conversion. On September 23^rd last year, Dr Nick Blackman and Lee Howard from the UK’s Navy Wings charity visited Gananoque and were surprised to see the Canso there! They were shown around CF-NJL by David Dorosh who just happened to be on site and who said he was indeed intending to sell and was looking for a suitable buyer. He apparently has several spare engines and prop’ blades. When Nick and Lee visited, it was still stored inside its rather leaky hangar but its outer wings, vertical tail and horizontal stabilisers had been removed and partially crated. Their assessment was that the airframe is still in very good condition. It is known to have had just 3,192 hours on the airframe when the RCAF disposed of it. It will be interesting to see what happens to it.

In the USA, there has been plenty of activity, not all of it good, so let’s get the bad news out of the way first! The well-known Canso A N222FT, once named Flyin Turtle, suffered a landing mishap at the end of a post-maintenance test flight on the evening of October 31^st last year. This occurred at Mark Anton Airport, Dayton, Tennessee but no further details are available at the present time, other than there were no injuries involving those on board. N222FT is registered to John O’Connor’s company PBY LLC of Wilmington, Delaware. STOP PRESS – an update will appear in our next edition.

John O-Connor also owns the PBY-5A N423RS although it still appears on the US civil aircraft register under the name of former owner The Tunison Foundation. This veteran of operations with Greenpeace in Europe in the mid-1990s, and subsequent long-term storage at various locations in the UK, is now with Ezell Aviation of Breckenbridge, Texas for what is likely to be a lengthy rebuild.

The PBY-5A last registered as N607CC continues to be restored by the Kalamazoo Air Zoo team at Kalamazoo, Michigan from where it will in due course go to the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum for static display. Current work is concentrated on the wings whilst the hull sits outside awaiting its turn.

Work continues at American Aero Services, New Smyrna Beach, Florida on the Collings Foundation PBY-5A N459CF, remembered by many of us in Europe as the aircraft that was based in the Netherlands for many years as PH-PBY and the oldest airworthy Catalina. The restoration project is being led by Casey Littrell and is being carried out to an extraordinarily high standard. This involves not only external work but restoring the PBY’s interior to original condition. The result is amazing! Aft of the cockpit all sections of the hull have been restored including the radio operator’s and navigator’s stations and the flight engineer’s position in the superstructure or pylon. Further aft, the galley and bunk area have been fully fitted out, and work will now concentrate on the blister sections. The gorgeous blisters are already in place so it is the interior that needs to be worked on. Some work is also required in the cockpit. When complete, N459CF will be the most authentic airworthy Catalina extant.

PBY-5A N84857 took to the air again in January but not under her own power! The Catalina, owned by Pacific Northwest Naval Air Museum at Oak Harbor, Washington State, was moved as an underslung load beneath a Washington Air National Guard CH-47F Chinook helicopter on January 21^st after an initial attempt on the day before was abandoned. The Catalina was transported by road between its existing display site in downtown Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island to a staging area at SE Bayshore Drive and SE Midway Boulevard. From there it was airlifted to the museum’s new home at Ault Field Road, Oak Harbor, a distance of around three miles. This was not the first time that N84857 has been carried by helicopter – in June 2010 it was moved from Burlington, Washington to Whidbey Island by a commercially operated Boeing 234. The hull will now be reunited with its outer wing sections and put on permanent display in its new home.

From the USA to Athens, Greece. In February, your Editor and shareholder/pilot Jeff Boyling went to Athens to represent Catalina Aircraft Ltd and Plane Sailing Air Displays Ltd at the European Airshow Council Convention. In a spare day, we were taken to Dekelia-Tatoi military airfield on the outskirts of the city to see the Canso A N315KM which is still stored there in a large hangar shared with a trio of old jets – a MiG 15, a North American F-86 Sabre and a T-2 Buckeye. The Canso, registered to Sea Link Aviation Inc, has been at Tatoi for some years now and is kept in very good condition by its devoted engineer Bernard Krief, our host, although it has not flown since 2019. A former waterbomber in Quebec, it has been stripped of its pick-up equipment and tanks and been converted to TC-785 standards with horn-balance rudder and various other modifications. Although not being actively marketed, it is for sale at the right price. It was a privilege for Jeff and I to be shown around the aircraft by Bernard and, later, the Hellenic Air Force Museum across the airfield.

And lastly to Australia where the Boeing PB2B-2 Catalina VH-ASA Frigate Bird II is still located with the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) at Shellharbour Airport, Albion Park, New South Wales. It is being looked after for Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum which is undergoing a refit. This year sees the 75^th anniversary of Captain PG Taylor’s flight in this Catalina across the Pacific Ocean from Rose Bay, Sydney to Valparaiso, Chile via Noumea (New Caledonia), Suva (Fiji), Tonga, Aitutaki (Cook Islands), Tahiti (French Polynesia), Mangareva (Gambier Islands), and Easter Island (lsla de Pascura) and then the long ‘hop’ to Valparaiso in Chile, South America arriving on March 27^th, 1951. At the time, this was a truly remarkable flight and feat of navigation but only a few years later the same flight could be made by jet airliner but without all the stops! It’s just my view but would HARS be the best permanent home for this historic aircraft?