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Happy Thanksgiving–another Mystery Photo
OK, Readers, y’all had a good time with the post yesterday. It’s Thanksgiving. Here’s another Mystery Photo to identify. It is an airplane.
Categories: Mystery Photo
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Leeham News and Comment
- Comparing the 787, 777-200/300ER and the 777-8/9X May 17, 2013
- Assessing the A350 program May 16, 2013
- Boeing gets launch order for MAX 7 May 15, 2013
- Taking care of business at the airframe OEMs May 15, 2013
- EADS earnings and Airbus A350, A380 updates May 14, 2013
Catalina- Air/Seaplane
Catalina?
It’s obviously a sponson for an amphibian, and my guess is the Catalina.
I also think it’s a Catalina – initially I thought this was corrugated iron (again), which would’ve ruled out the Catalina, but it seems that this look is just an artefact in the picture.
Yeap, it is the retractable wingtip-pontoon of a PBY/OA-10. Probibly from the one under restoration at McCord AFB/ Ft. Lewis JRB near Seattle. My guess is this came from a donor airplane and has been/will be installed on their SA-10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USAFCatalina.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PBY_Catalina_landing.jpg
Happy Thanksgiving Scott to you, your family, and your staff.
It is not really a trully airplane, but a flying boat (PBY-5) or an amphibian (PBY-5A)
The photo shows the retractable wing-tip float from a Consolidated PBY Catalina
On the photo the wing-tip float is not totally retracted in its “up” or “flight” position where it will extend the wing.
So we can see behind the wing-tip float, the wing of the PBY with the two holes where the two masts supporting the float will be hidden for reduced air-drag
Sorry for my bad english
http://www.airpowerworld.info/other-military-aircraft/pby-catalina-flying-boat.htm
The first photo shows the PBY flying with its wing tip floats in “down” position, so we can see the caracteristic structure of the wing
The retractable wing-tip floats certainly looks right, but what about that protruding “thing” on top of the vertical stabilizer?
The vertical tailplane doesn’t look right for it to be a Catalina. What about a
Beriev Be-200 Altair with the wingtip missing and the pontoon “hanging loose”?
OV-099 – You have a point, I had not seen this “protuding thing” during my first observation
I think that protruding thing is just white skies background which looks like part of the vertical stabilizer thanks to the “striping” artefacts in the scan/photo. If you zoom in on it, you can clearly see that those lines line up exactly throughout the photo, so they’re not a feature on the plane itself.
Sponson, of some sort I imagine.
Judging the leafy foliage in the background it’s an aircraft stashed away in a field of hashish.
As to what printer, the graineness of the print & lack of detail leads me to believe it was printed on an early Gutenberg Ink Jet
I think I found the exact Catalina shown in Scott’s photo:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/036230.html
It’s a Catalina that’s located at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico.
That photo above is from 2006 – here’s one of the same airframe from March 2011 that shows that the trees have grown a bit in the meantime, so that – along with the details of the livery visible – also matches up with Scott’s mystery photo:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Consolidated-PBY-5A-Catalina/1650334/
…and here’s the photo Scott cropped that mystery picture out of:
http://leehamnews.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/odds-and-ends-more-on-dc7b/
Yes, well done
BTW, it looks like that “protruding thing” is just part of the stucture.
http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=790541
Cheater!
I’d like to point out that I found the photos in the order that I posted them.
I.e. your original photo was the last I actually came across by doing a Google image search for “catalina san juan plane”.
I came across the first by searching for images of catalinas being restored.
Anyway – happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Some people have obviously too much time on their hand
Well done
It’s clearly an old PTY Catalina Flying boat, which I had the joy of flying one day.
See how old I am?
Happy Thanksgiving dear friends and thank you Scott, for enabling some of us
oldies like me, to learn about what’s happening in the aviation world today and
to share some of our “historical experiences” with younger generation experts in
this great profession, which is/was more like a hobby than a job for most of us!
good catch anfromme!
Rudy : ” See how old I am? ”
Oh no, another contest ..
1928
? anyway your historic perspective and inside stories (and of other retired aviation collegaes) are highly appreciated