Warbird Kid wrote:
Oh no... not another PBY thrown onto her back.
That is just awful to hear.
What is it with PBYs and flipping over on their backs in wind storms? I assume it's just that the large surface area of the wing requires less lift to get it off the ground. However, why is it that they always came to a rest upside down? High center of gravity? Then again, a number of the aircraft at NEAM ended up the same way after the tornado, so maybe it's not peculiar to PBYs.
Matt Gunsch wrote:
the PBY is a total loss
I admit I have only seen the single photo in the
previous post, but I'm not sure I would say it is a total loss. The wing probably, yes, but the fuselage looks relatively intact. There are a number of aviation museums - such as
MAM,
AFMNZ, and
NNAM - that either are restoring or have on display only the fuselage of Catalinas.
The CAF is even
restoring their PBY with the wing of another airframe. I recognize it is very unlikely that this airframe will ever fly, but it shows the extent to which a Catalina can be brought back from damage like this. On that note, does anyone know how they were able to flip it back over?
Matt Gunsch wrote:
fuselage has had it's back broken
From the picture, it appears that the break is behind the waist gun positions, correct?
JohnB wrote:
And judging from my last visit, Pima has lots of airframe sections left over from its "floating" display PBY project.
At least some, and possibly all, of those were
turned over to Plane Tags. So they may not exist anymore.
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