PBY at Fantasy of Flight

[wls3]

Paid a visit to FOF last week and was informed this PBY
was just recently acquired.

Bill

[TimAPNY]

Any idea where it came from Bill?

I love to see PBY's saved and flying!

Tim

[Ryan Keough]

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/pbyregis ... 48375.html

Looks like it was with a holding company right before... no idea where it came from before that.

[wls3]

Check of N number shows a North Carolina owner as of 2005.

I heard a/c was in Miami and flown to FOF just a few days
before my visit.

Bill

[N3Njeff]

Heard rumor that it was going to happen..................This airplane is the one that my dad flew with. This A/C is from Miami, it had been sitting for a couple of yrs after they had found some corrosion at the wing attach point. Dad had told me that it was possibly going to be sold and that they were doing a bunch of work on it this summer. The owner had owned a few over the yrs and this was his last one. I got to meet him once, he flew PBY's durring WW2.

Guess it was only a matter of time that Kermit would get one. It will be nice to see what he does with it and see it floating in the lake next door.

[Chris Brame]

Per Baugher:

48375 (c/n 1737) spotted in Flying Tigers Restoration Museum in Kissimmee, FL July 1998, bearing civil registration N96VC. Now N96UC. Was ex FAP 2002, ex ZP-CPA. This was apparently the aircraft used by Juan Peron to flee Argentina in Sept 1955. Now at Flying Tigers Warbird Restoration Museum. Became N4937V, then ZP-CBH, then T-29 of Paraguayan AF, later reserialled 2002. Then to N96FP, later N96UC. Maybe N96VC is a mis-read by somebody of N96UC!

[kzollitsch]

Excuse the poor picture, but here it is at Sun'n'fun 2000.

[mustangdriver]

Great to see another cat preserved. Kermitt has one heck of anice collection. I have been to his Polk CIty FOF twice now. I used to work at the Air heritage Museum in Pittsburgh, PA and I heard that he is going to get the A-20 we have there as well as one of the P-39's.

[APG85]

Wish he'd get his B-29 put together...

[Scott Rose]

Just updated the registry entry on this PBY, has an interesting South american history.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/pbyregis ... 48375.html

[Jerry O'Neill]

Guess it was only a matter of time that Kermit would get one. It will be nice to see what he does with it and see it floating in the lake next door.

This bird would be his second PBY as Kermit already had a PBY at FOF. It was sold to him by the New England Air Museum back in the early 1990's. It was never civilianized, so it has all the good military racks and turrets, and the hull was in fabulous shape, actually better than most of those used in water service, but it was just stripped down when NEAM aquired it. Perhaps it might become available now. It would make a great ground up restoration.
Jerry

[Todd Hackbarth]

It appears that Kermit Weeks' first PBY-5A, BuNo 33966, ex-N3936A may, and I repeat may, be a WWII combat veteran!!! I did a Google search on "PBY" + "33966" and came up with the following information from http://www.vpnavy.com/vp49_1943.html:

A BIT OF HISTORY: "00JUL43--On the night of 21 December (1942?), two PBY-5A's, 58-V-3 (Bu.No. 34029) and 49-V-3 (Bu.No. 33966) departed to NAS Attu, Alaska (the farthermost outpost of the U.S.A. on the northern march to Tokyo) to conduct night bombing and photographic reconnaisance of the Paramishiru - Shimushu area. Rendezvous was affected south of Nassacre Bay and base course set for the target. "How goes it" curves with precomputed courses and distances were used. The frist 259 miles out were flown at an altitude of about 800 feet, speed 90 knows indicated, automatic lean and 35 inches manifold pressure, with RPM's to give desired air speed. Frequent snow squalls were encountered during this part of the flight, contact between planes being maintained by use of IFF and radar. At about 300 miles from base solid overcast and continious snow were encountered, but altitude and speed were maintained for another 100 miles. In accordance with previous agreement at the end of the third hour, climb to 8500 feet was commenced, heavy icing was encoutered. The temperature drop was terrific and no heaters had ben installed in the planes - non available. Wing and tail de-icers worked very well, and rendesvous was accomplished on top. Celestial navigation used exclusevely through-out the entire trip, and success of this mission and the others that were to follow are directly attributable to the skill of the pilot, and crew and the outstanding ability of the navigators. The target was picked up by radar and showed the planes to be a few miles to the north of target. The pilots changed ocurse and crossed the coast line of Russia Kamchatka peninsula at Cape Lapatka. Araido, an extinct volcano just north of Paramushiru, was then picked up by Radar and taking departure from there planes skirted the northwest coast of Shimushu and turned in over Imai Zaki area dropping bombs in stick, heading toward Kataska. There was very little anti-aircraft action and no fighter opposition. The planes were over target area for approx. one hour, and after dropping all bombs and flash bombs for photographics, planes headed for NAS Attu, Alaska, 700 miles to east. Planes landed NAS Attu, Alaska at 1135, on the morning of 22 December, after thirteen hours of the coldest, most uncertain hours in the air that any of the two crews had ever known..." Archive: NARA-San Bruno Record Group: 321534009, SubGroup: TBD, Page: 09, Unit: VP-43..." Contributed by Eric Mitchell eric_mitchell@ccmail.com WEBSITE: www.pby.com

I have not tried to verify this information but the contributor, Eric Miller sites the source: "National Archives and Records Administration - San Bruno, California branch: Record Group 321534009, SubGroup: TBD, page 09, Unit: VP-43 ...".

I wonder if the New England Air Museum and Kermit Weeks are aware of this?

Todd

[rwdfresno]

I heard that he is going to get the A-20 we have there

I seem to recall that Kermit owns another A-20. I think it was a former Howard Hughes aircraft. I seem to remember seeing it in storage at Scholl's dessert storage.

[Jerry O'Neill]

Todd;
Great info and great news!!!!
As far as I know, when the sale was made on NEAM's PBY and A-24, no one was aware of any combat history on the PBY. I was on the Curatorial Committee at that time and we recommended the sale go through, as the proceeds helped us to erect our 20,000 sq.ft., restoration facility.

I was never one to let a WWII bird slip through our grasp, since they are always hard to aquire, but that restoration building has now helped us to move forward rapidly with the restoration and preservation of many other aircraft. We would have never been able to get where we are today with out the trades and sales that were done. (Macchi 200, B-17, PBY, A-24 and Hawker Tempest) I would love to have them back, but the nice thing is that they are all still with us, the Macchi restored and in Dayton, and the B-17 flying as "Liberty Belle".

They were tough decisions but ones we have never regreted.
Thanks for the history on the PBY. Maybe now there will be more interest in it.
I hope you're listening, Paul Allen!

Blue skies,
Jerry

[phil65]

Back in Oct 86,At NEAM. Her outerwings are beside her and thats the "BELL" to the right.