CWH's PBY-5A Canso Questions

[Jack Cook]

On the topic of PBY water landings...It's my understanding that the FAA will not certify a PBY to make water landings in US airspace if it has a nose turret.

Erickson's PBY has been in the water more than once and it has a turret.
If fact once they put it into Devil's Lake in Lincoln City and had some issues getting out. They hit a dock destroying it and putting a gash into the hull under the left cockpit. Then they sank a boat that was towing the tail around to get the nose pointed in the right direction for take-off. The pilot goosed the throttles a bit and pulled the boat under. The guy in the blister told me it looked like they were trolling with the boat flipping around under water and flashing like a shinny lure They ended up putting spray in foam into the hole and were able to fly it out. I bet no one's ever noticed that patch on it

[rmcf]

where do these weird stories come from??

I was aware of the Erikson PBY..

[Canso42]

rcmf, check in on PBY@yahoogroups.com if you want PBY stories.
floats up,
Canso42

[Myles]

With regards to water landings in PBY's, my friend, Gus Vincent that owned and operated a -5A Catalina, N9521C (Fighter Factory owns this now) had a couple of the crew members install the nose turret. We landed on water all the time. No negative contact with the Feds for making water landings. We never landed in the ocean on account of the possibility of corrosion later down the road. I don't think you can wash all the salt off. Generally we landed on lakes in northern California and one time at Lake Tahoe. No one was allowed to occupy the nose for take off or landing on land or water, just during flight. There's a great picture of this PBY landing on Lake Tahoe in June of 1993. We had flown the airplane to Truckee for their airshow. Later that afternoon the plane was taken up for a flight to the lake. I was flying with my friend who is also a photographer, Phil Wallick in his Cessna 170. I flew and he took pictures across the bow of the Catalina as they were landing on the lake. On Phil's website is a really cool shot of the Catalina. I have 18 x 20" framed picture of this at home. I think of that airplane along with that day often. Link to Phil's site below. It's on the WWII Fighter and Bombers, page 3.

http://www.aircraftmilitary.com/

Jim Long
Santa Rosa, CA

[CWH Museum]

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum is currently in the process of attempting to acquire the correct turret for future installation. We will post an update when more news is available. CWH does not land on water due to insurance costs.