Cat & Doc

[rxl]

Cat Driver - just curious, but did you ever fly the "Pig Boat" for Georgian Bay Airways?

[rxl]

Here is a question...

....which radio had whistle stop tuning?

HF?

[Cat Driver]

I confess my only practical exposure to radio ranges is in books by the incomparable late Ernest Gann....

I was fortunate to have known Ernest and spent a lot of time talking to him.

The last time we had a good talk was in Friday Harbor in his hangar, he was showing me his new strike finder he had installed in his Wing Derringer.

No one came even close to writing about aviation like he did.

[Cat Driver]

Cat Driver - just curious, but did you ever fly the "Pig Boat" for Georgian Bay Airways?

No I was Bob Murdock's first chief pilot when he started Avalon Aviation, I was with The Flying Fireman when he sold it to Frank.

[Cat Driver]

If I could only have one airplane as my toy it would be a Turbo Goose.

Hell my motor home burns almost as much fuel.....

....I just got back from another trip, we drove over six thousand miles.

If I were to choose the best ab-initio trainer it would be a Fleet Canuck.

[Cat Driver]

I am seriously considering getting my medical back......I am still in real good health because I can gain a stroke changing hands.

[Cat Driver]

HF?

It was the Narco Superhomer.

[rxl]

Cat Driver - just curious, but did you ever fly the "Pig Boat" for Georgian Bay Airways?

No I was Bob Murdock's first chief pilot when he started Avalon Aviation, I was with The Flying Fireman when he sold it to Frank.

Thanks. An old friend of mine worked for GBA in the early 80's.
He was in beautiful Armstrong Ontario one particularly wet summer wrenching on the Canso.
I think they spent most of their time water skiing behind the 185 bird-dog.

[oldtimer]

The Narco Superhomer was not what was called a one and half system because you used the same reciever to either communicate or navigate but not both together. The one was a comm tranmitter and receiver and the half was the nav receiver. The more expensive "upgraded" Narco Omnigator had whistle stop tuning because it had more transmitter channels so you seleted your transmitter channel, selected whistle stop and could tune the variable reciever to that frequency by listening to the whistle which changed in clarity as the reciever got closer to the correct frequency. Much like BFO on an ADF.
I also have to agree with . in the fact that the Fleet Canuck was one of the best ab-initio trainers ever built but would not work in todays environment because a pilot had to actually FLY the airplane, as in manipulate the primary flight controls in the correct fashion to achieve the desired performance, something not taught today. Maybe we should resurrect the design and sell copies to Asianan Airlines. Hell, sell them to almost any airline for pilot training. Just my opinion.
But I had better shut up with all this ancient shit for fear of hijacking this thread.

[oldtimer]

Cat Driver;
How come you have to change hands?
Is it to open another beer or change channels.

[Cat Driver]

He was in beautiful Armstrong Ontario

Ahhh, yes Armstorng...

...I remember a local resident that roamed the street with a bottle in his hand, we called him the missing link.

I think he is the brains behind the OMNR fire center now.

[Cat Driver]

How come you have to change hands?

I like variety.

[sidestick stirrer]

1955 or 56: I was 5-6 years old and my father held me as I stood on the back edge of the centre pedestal of an RCAF North Star, plowing its way high over the frozen Prairies between Winnipeg and Edmonton. One of the pilots put his headphones on me, I remember the yellow, chamois ear pads with black rubber on the outside and leather-over-metal headband that could be split into two bands for comfort. And there was this faint hum. The pilot rolled us gently into a turn and asked me to listen for a change, which I could just barely make out, the steady hum starting to break up into a rhythmic sound instead.
It seems so novel now:navigating using your hearing instead of your instruments.
One other memory from that flight. The cabin had canvas seats that faced inwards, like a Hercules does now.
As the Sun set, I became aware that we were on fire and we were all going to die. Of course, it was the mighty Merlins spitting blue flame from their inboard stub exhausts that I could see through the windows on the opposite side of the cabin.. Once the Sun had set, it was bright enough to illuminate the cabin with a flickering blue light. Dad tried to explain it to me but I couldn't wait to get on the ground, still thinking we were going to explode.
No hearing protection for any of the passengers on that long flight although I'm sure it didn't have any long term effects on hearing.
Is someone going to answer that phone?

[Cat Driver]

spitting blue flame from their inboard stub exhausts

Ahhh those were the days when our engine monitors were leaning the mixture by the color of the exhaust flame.....from yellow / orange to blue..


Now we just blindly follow the magenta line.

[switchflicker]

Transport Canada thinks it is a CV14.

Where does the 'Vultee' part of Consolidated Vultee come from, and what's with the fourteen after Consolidated Vultee. Certainly that's also a Canadianism.''

On a pilot's licence here in Canada, a Canso or Catalina or PBY is only known as a CV14.

Since I seem to need some educating tonight, could someone comment on PBY 5A. Are there other numbers and letters after the PBY descriptor?

Thanks

Sw

[Cat Driver]

First was the PBY 5 a straight flying boat.

Then they put landing gear on it and it became the PBY 5A for amphibious.

The best flying of the PBY,s was the PBY 6A.

It had a far more effective tail and rudder plus the elevators and ailerons has servo tabs that made it fly more like a DC3 than a PBY.

[iflyforpie]

PBY was the pre-1962 US Navy designation for the Catalina. P for Patrol, B for Bomber, Y for Consolidated (manufacturer's designations seemed arbitrary... F was Grumman, U was Vought, H was McDonnel, J was North American....). Since the US Navy was the largest operator of the Catalina, the letters have stuck as identifying the aircraft.

But TC doesn't care about obsolete US Navy designations, so they used the manufacturers model number.... probably by which time Consolidated merged with Vultee to become Convair, but before they became General Dynamics, Canadair, Boeing, and Bombardier by various paths.

[Cat Driver]

The PBY does a beautiful 80 degree bank in the turn during a pitch out type of course reversal when doing an airshow demo. That 104 foot wing span looks real impressive in that attitude at low level.

Hell using energy conservation and careful attention to angle of attack and G load in the turn you can do it at cruise power.

In fact I can not recall ever using anything other than cruise power during the demo.

The Colonel would pass out watching it, with the hard on it would give him.

[iflyforpie]

I would imagine like lots of flying boats of the era, the wing loading was quite low.

[Cat Driver]

I would imagine like lots of flying boats of the era, the wing loading was quite low.

Yes it is, however it has a lot of parasitic drag so speed can bleed off very quickly if you over control it.

An interesting factoid on inertia with a PBY can be demonstrated during a practice engine failure....when you accelerate to a safe climb speed ( 85 knots ) fail the engine and count to five before doing anything, the airspeed loss will only be 2 knots.

The lesson being taught was don't do anything stupid fast.

[lost in the north]

Anyone of you folks ever fly with Dale Blair...now that was a character

[switchflicker]

Thank you for the interesting info. The PBY has more nick names than Swearingen's flock of puddle-jumpers.

Sw

[Charles the Equestrian]

This goofy post turned into a useful one, whereas useful posts turn goofy. Lesson, start more goofy posts?


Yay, or nay, it's all hay.

[YYZSaabGuy]

Since we're talking about Cansos/Catalinas/PBYs/CV14s anyway, here's a nice story http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ ... -1.2692644 I stumbled across on CBC's website a few minutes ago.

BTW, the Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton has an ex-RCAF Canso in its collection: http://www.warplane.com/vintage-aircraf ... craftId=11. It's airworthy; it's also a seriously impressive airplane even sitting in a museum.

[Cat Driver]

BTW, the Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton has an ex-RCAF Canso in its collection:

I gave a couple of their pilots their type ratings when they first got it, was somewhere around 1998 or so as I recall.