4 engined pby catalina

[tom d. friedman]

almost 4:30 am ohio time, insomnia in affect....a buddy emailed me info on a modified 4 engined pby catalina. never saw 1 before. used in medical rescue etc, any feedback??.

[JohnH]

Yeah I saw it at the 1990 Santa Monica Auction, I have heard the two extra engines have been removed.

John

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/pbyregis ... f9746.html

http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleBirdPBY.html

found this at catalina.demon.nl:

N5PY 417 28-5ACF 9746 Ronald Ruble, Aurora, Oregon
Cat: Private ex: N5907 "Bird Innovator" a/c has been modified back to two engines.

[Jack Cook]

Ron Ruble owns her and she's parked in the open on the far south end of Aurora airport. He was working to restore her and did remove the outboard engines and gutted the cockpit. But then he got a job out of state and she been sitting out the the Oregon weather for the past 5 years.

[HarvardIV]

My dad was going to help work on it in 1982 at Yolo County Airport, Ca after it belly landed there.

[Jack Cook]

Here's a couple shots I took about 4 years ago.

[tom d. friedman]

how did she handle with the 2 additional powerplants?? speed wise, stability wise, manuevering etc?? best tom

[HarvardIV]

Hi Tom

They were 400 hp Lycomings. From what I was told at the time, the main use for them was to improving handling in the water.

[bdk]

The conversion was called the Bird Innovator.



Bird
Bird Corp, Palm Springs CA.
Bird Innovator [N5907] (Aviation Week via Ron Dupas)

Innovator 1967 = Four-engine conversion of Consolidated PBY-5A with two P&W R-1830-94M1 inboard and two Lycoming IGSO-480 turbosupercharged outboard; gross wt: 34,000# range: 2500-3500. Conversion originally made to give the PBY, owned by Bird Corp, maker of medical and aircraft environmental systems, better engine-out performance on overwater flights.

[jgrifft6]

I thought I'd read about this bird before... here's a Budd Davisson article on it:
http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleBirdPBY.html

Jason

[krlang]

Hmmm,
I remember reading the Trade a Plane advertisement for that years ago.


Funny Story:
Back in the day, a friend of mine who owned several Albatross' was asked why he did not have a Cat. He replied "Cuz a Cat takes off at 90, cruises at 90, lands at 90"
While at Reading a few weeks ago we watched the arrival of the Catalina on saturday afternoon. The tower controller asked him for his "Best time to the runway" The pilot replied "I'm giving you all I got"

You gotta love the Boats!

[Woody Jordan III]

I was there when my dad helped modify the Bird Innovator. He modified the instrument panel to accomodate the 2 new engines. I have the FAA Certificate for the mod. Would like to see the plane now and hopefully it is in better shape than the pics above.

[mrhenniger]

Welcome to WIX Woody!

Mike

[VG55]

Hello all!

I ran across this posting and figured that it was about time there was some solid info about the old girl...

I was recently hired to continue the restoration work in order to get her back to airworthy condition! There is a lot of work to do and this is something that will be a long time in the making but the rivets are being driven and slowly it is taking shape. Currently the belly including the keel is being rebuilt and slowly pieced back together. The mid section back to about the airstair door hinges is without skin because a few of the structural pieces have needed to be replaced and it will be re-skinned once they are installed. A plan is in place to finish that portion of the work by this coming spring in order to begin the rest of the re-assembly next summer.

At any rate, I just wanted to let anyone who was interested know that she is on the mend and I will do my best to keep you updated with how the work is going!

[Chris Brame]

A late-night hello and welcome to the wild wooly wonderful world of WIX!

By all means please keep your fellow WIXers posted on the bird (note lower case) Innovator - a good PBY restoration thread is something we'd enjoy.

So what are the plans for the restoration - military stock or civilian air yacht, or a combination of the two?

[Fouga23]

Thanks you for the update! I'm sure a lot of people here are looking forward to any future updates you could give us