PBY Hulk Photos, Ephrata, WA, ca 1991

[Kenny Chapman]

Hello all. New to this forum.
The "hulk" from Hemet was in fact a PBY-5A airframe purchased from Bird Corporation in Palm Springs in 1975 to replace the tail on PBY-6A N6456C. This was required when the tail was blown off in a ground accident at Stockton CA. When the accident occurred it appeared that the airplane would miss the 75 fire season. Werner Aviation in Stockton won the bid to repair the damage and the airplane reported for duty TEN days later primarily due to the efforts of Tom Murphy, who is now director of restorations at the WAAAM museum in Hood River Oregon.

[hairy]

Since this thread has reared its head again it seems to be a good time to give you an update on "204".

"204" is now at the Classic Flyers Museum in Tauranga, New Zealand and has been restored to display condition.

Images and more detail are available in the June '09 Catalina Society newsletter (scroll about 1/3 of the way down) which is here - http://www.catalina.org.uk/catalina-lat ... 9-a32.html

Museum website - http://www.classicflyersnz.com/

[David Legg]

Hello all. New to this forum.
The "hulk" from Hemet was in fact a PBY-5A airframe purchased from Bird Corporation in Palm Springs in 1975 to replace the tail on PBY-6A N6456C. This was required when the tail was blown off in a ground accident at Stockton CA. When the accident occurred it appeared that the airplane would miss the 75 fire season. Werner Aviation in Stockton won the bid to repair the damage and the airplane reported for duty TEN days later primarily due to the efforts of Tom Murphy, who is now director of restorations at the WAAAM museum in Hood River Oregon.

I had heard this too so did it actually fly with a PBY-5A tail replacing the taller PBY-6A unit? Did the horizontal stabilisers get changed too? I wonder if there are any photos shwoing it in its 'PBY-5A' state. It was lost in a crash in Ontario in 7/1981 by which time it was on the Canadian register as C-GFFJ.

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.

[Mark_Pilkington]

Just to round out the Ephrata story, the mortal remains of the PBY-6A N2286D, the other 1/2 (white) fuselage hulk in the photos at the beginning of the thread is now in Victoria Australia to support the long term static restoration of RAAF PBY-5A(M) A24-88, many items were recovered in two 40' container loads including:

Wings and damaged wing centre-section
pylon remains
Floats
Ailerons
Tailplane
Elevators
Fin & Rudder
and structural remains of the rear fuselage

A24-88 was stripped of its wing, pylon and rear fuselage aft of the tunnel gun.

More recently a third 40' container load containing the wings of the former CAF N69756 (its fuselage has gone to Pima) has arrived out of Texas, with a complete and intact rear fuselage from forward of the tunnel gun to the stern post, allowing a direct splice onto A24-88, supported by parts from the salvaged rear section of N2286D.

Little was left at Ephrata following the three week effort to select, sectionise and load the remains of N2286D and the miscellaneous spares, and the good surplus parts were passed on to Pima for their PBY rebuild.

Thanks to the operators of ZK-PBY, the Catalina Club, who tipped us off about these parts being available in Ephrata when they recovered the other PBY Hulk ( the blue fuselage Tauranga/Ephrata/Hemet hulk) now identified by David above as US Navy PBY-5A BuAer48334, more recently N74821 and N9535C. Thanks also to Red and his wife for their patience in our elongated purchase and pickup

Regards

Mark Pilkington

[Kenny Chapman]

There are a couple of pictures of E84, N6456C with the new tail, still configured as a -6A on the scalefirebombers website in the PBY section. As I remember there was only minor sheet metal work to adapt the -5A tail to the -6A.

[David Legg]

There are a couple of pictures of E84, N6456C with the new tail, still configured as a -6A on the scalefirebombers website in the PBY section. As I remember there was only minor sheet metal work to adapt the -5A tail to the -6A.

Kenny - many thanks for that info. So, my understanding then is that although the cannabilised parts to repair PBY-6A N6456C came from a PBY-5A, they were used in such a way that '56C retained a PBY-6A style vertical tail and rudder. That makes sense as I had seen post-1975 photos of it in the USA and Canada that confirmed that. I see that the 9/1975 photos of it on the website you quoted show that the rudder is a different colour to the vertical tail, perhaps confirming the rush job mentioned in an earlier e-mail.

Mark - many thanks indeed for the update on the various projects in your e-mail - very helpful. One typo - N69756 is N68756. Keep up the good work on A24-88.

[Nathan]

Awesome wix thread of the week! Trying to mate photos of the PBY blue hulk to the in service 1949 photo sure gave me chills! I love good airplane mysteries. I too could make out a "2" and a "4". But some are right it could always be another plane. But I hope it's the same plane.

[David Legg]

Nathan- it isn't the same 'plane I'm afraid. It just had the same hull code but not the same BuAer number.

[Nathan]

ah well. It was good detective work, though.

[whistlingdeath77]

thanks for the great photos

[Kenny Chapman]

David,
The paint difference on the rudder on 84 is in fact because of the rush job. It was done up through the silver dope and then installed. The one thing I enjoyed about climbing inside the "hulk" was the fact that it still had an intact flight engineer's station in the pylon. All four of our others had been modified with all the F.E. controls moved forward to the cockpit.

[whistlingdeath77]

can it be restored?

[David Legg]

can it be restored?

It has been! The hull is restored externally and is on display at Tauranga in New Zealand. See the weblink to the Catalina Society website that is mentioned a few messages back and you will see a photo of it.

[whistlingdeath77]

can it be restored?

It has been! The hull is restored externally and is on display at Tauranga in New Zealand. See the weblink to the Catalina Society website that is mentioned a few messages back and you will see a photo of it.

thanks for the update!

[Kenny Chapman]

There are a couple of pictures of 84's final resting place on the following site. It's about 2/3 down the page. Sad.

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/search116.htm