PBY-Catalina
The Consolidated PBY Catalina — the long-range amphibious patrol bomber that hunted submarines and rescued downed airmen in every theater of WWII — captured as a high-quality RC scale model.
About
The Consolidated PBY Catalina was the U.S. Navy's primary long-range patrol bomber of World War II. Designed by Mac Laddon at Consolidated's San Diego plant, the XP3Y-1 prototype made its first flight on March 28, 1935. The PBY's defining capabilities were range and amphibious flexibility — twin Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radials gave the Catalina endurance of twenty-hour ocean-search missions, making it the workhorse of long-range maritime patrol, anti-submarine warfare, and air-sea rescue throughout WWII.
PBYs spotted the German battleship Bismarck during the famous May 1941 chase, hunted U-boats across the Atlantic, conducted "Black Cat" night-attack missions in the Pacific, and pulled hundreds of downed airmen out of the open ocean. Total Catalina production reached approximately 3,300 airframes, including license-built versions in the Soviet Union (as the GST) and Canada.
The unmistakable Catalina silhouette — high parasol wing, twin engines, deep boat-hull fuselage with retractable wingtip floats — is one of the most-modeled WWII flying-boat subjects in modern RC scale flying.
In the simulator
A demanding twin-engine flying-boat scale subject. A natural sibling of the PBY-Catalina Blue (Models Pack 1) — same airframe in a different paint scheme.
