PBY Hulk Photos, Ephrata, WA, ca 1991

[whistlingdeath77]

none can be saved?

[Mark_Pilkington]

none can be saved?

I'm not sure what you are referring to?

These were taken at the Ephrata, WA, airport in Spring 1991. They are the fuselages of PBY-6A N2886D/BuNo 64034 and PBY-5A BuNo 33979. N2886D was destroyed in a 1985 accident while scooping water fighting a fire. Both hulks were owned by Bob Schlaflei, who operated a half dozen PBYs in Eastern Washington as air tankers during the 1980s.

Of the two hulks mentioned in the opening post copied above, the blue PBY-5A listed as BuNo 33979 moved to NZ to provide parts support to the flying PBY there and has since moved on to static display in a museum in Taurange NZ as a 3/4 fuselage with mockup turret in its blue USN colour scheme, posts above contain links to its new home.

As per David's post above its now being positively identified

As the post referring to my article on the Catalina Society website above shows, the identity of the Tauranga/Ephrata/Hemet hulk was established a while back although since the start of this original thread. To confirm, it is US Navy PBY-5A BuAer48334, more recently N74821 and N9535C.

The White 1/2 fuselage N2886D however succumbed to the scrapper and lost its rear fuselage as per my last post on page 1 of this thread, and has more recently been fully scrapped for parts recovery.

The Australian National Aviation Museum recovered its remains and many other "ex-Schlaflei" parts (left over from the aborted SLAFCO / Moses Lake auction??) such as wings, floats, ailerons, fins, rudders, tailplanes and elevators to support the long term restoration of a former RAAF PBY-5A A24-88 that has combat service as a "Black Cat" in the Pacific.

http://www.aarg.com.au/Catalina.htm

Surplus usable parts that were not shipped to Australia were traded to Pima for other surplus parts for A24-88, so little went to waste or to scrap, so what could be saved, has been saved.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

[David Legg]

none can be saved?

Mark - I assumed the message above was related to the hulk shown on Ruud Leuw's website (PBY-6A C-GFFJ) and mentioned in Kenny Chapman's post and not the various ones that you usefully updated us all on. That being the case I think it is unlikely to be saved as it is pretty inaccessible and due to crash damage is incomplete anyway. It's been there since 1981 and I suspect that is where it will stay.

Last edited by David Legg on Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

[whistlingdeath77]

thank you for the update

[Mark_Pilkington]

none can be saved?

Mark - I assumed the message above was related to the hulk shown on Ruud Leuw's website (PBY-6A C-GFFJ) and mentioned in Kenny Chapman's post and not the various ones that you usefully updated us all on. That being the case I think it is unlikely to be saved as it is pretty inaccessible and due to crash damage is incomplpete anjway. It's been there since 1981 and I suspect that is where it will stay.

Actually David we were given permission to recover C-GFFJ by the Provence and offers of very generous assistance, and were actively exploring it to acquire its rear fuselage for A24-88 until we located a perfect rear fuselage already cut and ready to splice at the tunnel gun location.

We therefore didn't need to proceed with C-GFFJ but that worked out well as we relinquished our options on recovery another group was taking our place and I assume it will be recovered for use in a Canadian restoration, and most likely being added to, not reduced to parts.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

[David Legg]

[quote="

Actually David we were given permission to recover C-GFFJ by the Provence and offers of very generous assistance, and were actively exploring it to acquire its rear fuselage for A24-88 until we located a perfect rear fuselage already cut and ready to splice at the tunnel gun location.

We therefore didn't need to proceed with C-GFFJ but that worked out well as we relinquished our options on recovery another group was taking our place and I assume it will be recovered for use in a Canadian restoration, and most likely being added to, not reduced to parts.

Regards

Mark Pilkington[/quote][/quote][/quote]

That's great news Mark - best of luck to them!

[whistlingdeath77]