Consolidated PBY-5 and Catalina MkIb

[Shessi]

Hi Folks,
Gone back to re-vamping the Alphasim PBY/Catalina for a change of pace. Still lots to do, but getting there.

New crews for USN (spot the cigarette in the crewmans mouth?) and Coastal Command, so now with rear opening blisters, and swinging out machine guns with crew.

The texture mapping is a nightmare, there are 58 separate textures!! I may combine some of the minor ones, but it will then upset the add-on texs already done (Mick, Beepee and others), so prob not.


Now some advice, although the PBY5 seems to have only been used by the USN (Blackcats VP54 etc), there were some 683 made for the US military (some going to CC as MkIVs), that's a lot of flying boats out there. Were they mixed with amphibians in squadrons or?

Did most have single 50 cals in the rear blisters or twin 50 cals?

I will also have a PBY US depth charge loaded version.

Seen here with incorrectly mounted, but looking good, texs by Mick and Beepee, and Alpha's not bad but will be tweaked CC colours.

Cheers

Shessi

ps Again no time-line on these...

[p3aewguy]

Hi Folks,
Gone back to re-vamping the Alphasim PBY/Catalina for a change of pace. Still lots to do, but getting there.

New crews for USN (spot the cigarette in the crewmans mouth?) and Coastal Command, so now with rear opening blisters, and swinging out machine guns with crew.

The texture mapping is a nightmare, there are 58 separate textures!! I may combine some of the minor ones, but it will then upset the add-on texs already done (Mick, Beepee and others), so prob not.


Now some advice, although the PBY5 seems to have only been used by the USN (Blackcats VP54 etc), there were some 683 made for the US military (some going to CC as MkIVs), that's a lot of flying boats out there. Were they mixed with amphibians in squadrons or?

Did most have single 50 cals in the rear blisters or twin 50 cals?

I will also have a PBY US depth charge loaded version.

Seen here with incorrectly mounted, but looking good, texs by Mick and Beepee, and Alpha's not bad but will be tweaked CC colours.

Cheers

Shessi

ps Again no time-line on these...

Looking good, Shessi! The pics and data I've seen indicate single .50's in the waist blisters. You're right, the mapping on these are a bear! Nice job on the crewmen, too!

Be sweet if you could convert the amphibian model to the later -6A variant with the radome, taller tail and enlarged stabs and elevators. Hint, hint

Dave

[HorusJ]

Look'n good! I really like what you did with the engine nacelles!

[Shessi]

Thanks for the replies gents,

Dave, ok confirmed that. I can't get any definitive info on the single 30 cal in the front turret. I wonder if the USN had a single like the CC Catalinas? or were they twins?

I've got loads of other projects and so will at some point get to the 5A amphibian, and maybe a 6, wouldn't be too hard to model.


Horus, ha ha! glad you noticed those. The Alpha's naucelles were far too bulged. I also found something surprising....Alpha had modelled both the 5 and 5A and not connected the wing struts on either side, to the fuselage!! Doesn't detract from a good model but I thought it was funny how even the best miss things.

I've corrected those, but was an accident waiting to happen....

Cheers

Shessi

[Mick]

Well, I can't prove that it was universal, but in the many books I've read and the many photos I've sen, I don't recall ever seeing twin guns in either the waist blisters or the nose turret.

Again I'm not not certain, but I have the impression that flying boats and amphibians were not mixed in squadrons, though there may have been exceptions, especially if a unit were in transition from the floater to the amphib - if that ever happened - I don't know if it did. My impression is that flying boat squadrons were based at seadromes and amphib squadrons were based at land bases, and the two weren't co-located all that often. If a suitable anchorage and water runway was available, I think the the flying boat was preferred. The amphibian was introduced because finding suitable places to base a flying boat squadron turned out to be harder than was initially anticipated, while the Navy's construction battalions (the famous Seabees) built land bases faster than anyone had expected. But the weight of the amphib's landing gear cut into the plane's useful load and range, so if a proper base could be arranged, the floater was the more capable patrol bomber.

As for all those textures, there sure are a lot, but if I recall correctly, not that many of them actually have to be changed when you're painting the plane. Most can be ignored.

I second Dave's suggestion - the absence of a -6A with the radome over the cockpit and the tall tail is a glaring absence in our PBY hangar. I was very disappointed when I opened the box and found that there was no -6A. The -6A was very common in the post-war Navy, and that's an era that interests me more than the wartime period.

Come to think of it, a lot of -5s and -5As also had that radome...

I look forward to seeing the fruits of your labors.

[Shessi]

Mick.
Thanks for the info, I thought as much.

Re-radome over cockpit. Yes, seen US PBY6A's with them, and Canso MkIV ie PBY5's and MkVI's/PBY6A, but no USN/USAF PBY5 or 5A's with it fitted.....

I'm now playing with the 5A undercarriage, so sometime the 5A will have the 5 tweaks I've done, a 6A should be easy after that. Then there's Mad-Cats and ASR Cats...etc etc..

Cheers

Shessi

[Mick]

Mick.
Thanks for the info, I thought as much.

Re-radome over cockpit. Yes, seen US PBY6A's with them, and Canso MkIV ie PBY5's and MkVI's/PBY6A, but no USN/USAF PBY5 or 5A's with it fitted.....

I'm now playing with the 5A undercarriage, so sometime the 5A will have the 5 tweaks I've done, a 6A should be easy after that. Then there's Mad-Cats and ASR Cats...etc etc..

Cheers

Shessi

Lemme see what I can come up with for pictures.

Watch this space...

[Mick]

OK, me and my cat just spent the past twenty minutes sitting on the floor in my back room, perusing PBY references, many books and magazines accumulated over years of modeling. Here's what I found out.

First, much to my surprise, there were indeed double machine gun mounts in one particular application. The late model "eyeball" nose turret had twin thirty calibers. They were mounted so close together that they look like one twin-barreled weapon, and it looks like a single mount from any distance, but there are two guns. There's a good line drawing and some photos in Squadron/Signal's PBY Catalina In Action. If Mr Google can't find a good photo on the web for you, let me know and I'll hook up my scanner and make some scans for you.

As for the bullet radome on the pylon over the nose, there are plenty of photos showing -5s and -5As with it, not just -6s. It seems to have been introduced no earlier than late 1943, up to some time in 1944. I didn't have the patience to read through five magazines, two PBY books and two US Navy colors and markings books to see if some author happened to mention when the dome first appeared, but in all the references I looked through, the earliest style of US national insignia on a plane with the dome is the one introduced in the late summer of 1943. And one photo caption of a -5 with the dome dated the photo as 1944, so sometime between those dates.

In wartime photos the dome shows up frequently on US Navy PBYs, US Army OV-10s and Commonwealth services' Catalinas. It's common but not nearly universal in late wartime photos. It appears to be universal on post-WW2 US Navy and Air Force planes.

I was sure about it being on -5As because I recalled being annoyed back when I did all those skins that there wasn't a model with that dome, since all of my post-war paints really belong on such a model. So please don't change the textures! All my paints belong on the anticipated new model, so please don't make me change all of them!

[Shessi]

Mick,
Yes knew about the twin 30's in the blister style late nose turret.

If you could post some pics of 5 and 5A's with radomes, thanks. I've only seen colour plates of supposed radome fitted 5 and 5A's, not photos. Or 6A's/OV10's mistakenly marked up as 5A's.

Also what do people want in Fs9, a naked PBY5 and then PBY5/5A with depth charges or bombs, PBY5/5A Blackcat with torpedoes or?

Cheers

Shessi

[voyager]

Shessi,

Clean would be my choice. Armed would be nice, too.

voyager

[nigel richards]

Mick,
Yes knew about the twin 30's in the blister style late nose turret.

If you could post some pics of 5 and 5A's with radomes, thanks. I've only seen colour plates of supposed radome fitted 5 and 5A's, not photos. Or 6A's/OV10's mistakenly marked up as 5A's.

Also what do people want in Fs9, a naked PBY5 and then PBY5/5A with depth charges or bombs, PBY5/5A Blackcat with torpedoes or?

Cheers

Shessi

Whatever you kindly have to offer, Shessi!

But I'm a sucker for 'naked and dirty'!

[PeteHam]

Whatever you kindly have to offer, Shessi!

But I'm a sucker for 'naked and dirty'!

A man after my own heart

Pete.

[ViperPilot2]

Shessi,

I'd like to add my 2 cents to the discussion, and request a lightly worn WW II Pacific Patrol livery, with your awesome crew additions. No fish or bombs; just like 'Strawberry 9' from the movie Midway!

[Mick]

Mick,
If you could post some pics of 5 and 5A's with radomes, thanks ... Shessi

OK, will do.

I have a busy day ahead of me and I'll have to relocate the right photos in the right books or mags, then hook up the scanner (which lives in the closet due to lack of space on my desk), so I can't do it right now. Hopefully by this afternoon, if I don't get too much "help" from the cat. It might be late this evening in your time zone before I get it done.

Watch this space...

[Mick]

Well, the cat was distracted from his mission of helping me do every little thing (thanks, other cat!) so I was able to hook up the scanner and scan some photos.

I'm posting this one because it's all pretty colors. The tail is only partially visible, but you can tell that it doesn't stick up as much as a -6 tail would.



And I'm posting this one because the tails of both planes are clearly visible.



The attached zip file contains these and six other photos, including a couple wartime shots, plus a couple of line drawings that I thought you might find helpful.

Uh-oh - the cat's back. Looks like I got this done just in time!

[TARPSBird]

Shessi,
Excellent upgrade work you're doing on these PBY's. I never noticed the engine nacelle discrepancy before, they resembled Beech 18 nacelles more than PBY. Since you asked for preferences on your final products... I'd like to see a late PBY-5A with the "eyeball" bow turret, radome on top and torpedo ordnance load-out. Your other versions could be the original Alpha PBY-5 and -5A with your upgrades and maybe an alternate .mdl file equipped with depth charges. Being able to carry DC's would be a nice visual effect for the RAF Cats and any other PBY with a ASW mission.

[Mick]

Speaking of nacelles, when I perused my references for the pictures I posted above, I noticed that the PBY In Action booklet showed different nacelle configurations for different versions of the plane. Alas, it didn't dawn on me to scan the drawings that show the differences. (I could hook up the scanner again if that would be helpful.)

Speaking of different versions, one of my biggest disappointments in the original release was that there wasn't an early flying boat with the flat hatches over the waist gun positions instead of the later teardrop bubbles. There are so very many colorful squadron tail color and pattern combinations that could be painted on such a model...

And speaking of gun positions, I think if you look closely enough to see the super-transparent glass part, the stock Alpha models all have the eyeball turret, though maybe not with the twin .30s. It would be very nice to have a -5 and a -5a (as well as the earlier versions, of course) with the original "hockey puck" nose turret.

Here's another reason not to change the texture mapping. Besides my post-WW2 skins that should go on a model with the late model radome, someone else (can't remember who) did a very nice paint of the Cousteau PBY-6A to fit on the -5A model. It would be really nice to be able to just assign that skin to a new -6A model.

Something else I noticed in my brief perusal of the references. At least one reference (I've already forgotten which one) says there was no such designation as PBY-6A. It said that since all -6s were amphibians, the A suffux was not used and they were just called PBY-6. Obviously not everyone is in agreement about that (or aware of it, as the case may be) since there is widespread usage in many sources of the term PBY-6A.

I'll stop and be quiet now. I hope that zip file of pictures is helpful!

[Scale Dail]

If your ask'in I would like a clean "patrol version" I would really like anything prewar with the flat sliding rear hatches.
Anything that you grace us with Shessi will be fine though! Thanks! Mick love your textures!

[TARPSBird]

On the default PBY-5 and -5A I prefer the regular "cheese box" bow turret without the eyeball gun mount. That came along later in the war and would not be appropriate on earlier aircraft. I'm sure Shessi's final package will be a great product in any event.

[Shessi]

Mick,
Many thanks for the pics, appreciated.

Unfortunately, and no criticism meant, apart from the Black Cat, all the others (French,Norwegian, US Coastguard and even what looks like a Coastal Command Cat is in fact a post war RNZAF PB2B (see tail)).
As I said WWII pics of radome fitted ac are rare, and Coastal Command ac even rarer...where are they, what do they look like, who flew they?

Ha ha! Funny how you make an offer and....I know, I know, I made the offer..

I think when I finish the 5A UC, the models covered will be naked early turreted 5/5A/Ib's; depthcharge/bomb fitted versions of these; Alpha's original 5/5A have the yaggi aerials; then maybe a late blister turreted/radome fitted 5A with bombs/torps, and then a PBY6.

I had a play with the rear of the fuselage to make a flat panel PBY4 etc, the fuselage is a compound curve in this area, so not easy, something to go back to in the future.

Anyway, this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for good ol' Alphasim and their generosity, and again no time lines on these.

Cheers

Shessi

[UncleTgt]

Mark,

Not great quality, but they are all captioned as PBY5a's with radomes, in 1945.

Guam , April 45
Greenland, 1945
Brazilian PA-10's, 1945

Hope this helps (a bit)

[Shessi]

John,
Thanks for those. This is the problem, as the first pic are Brazilian PA10's (possibly WWII), the second is a Black Cat PBY6 not a 5A, and last pic IS a WWII Greenland based 5A (hurrah!).

I wonder if there are any RAF CC radomed Catalina pics?

Cheers

Shessi

[Motormouse]

I wonder if there are any RAF CC radomed Catalina pics

There are indeed, there's an Imperial War Museum pic of one on slipway at Saunders Roe Beaumaris works , which was the accepting works for all Catalina's bound for RAF.

Hang on, I'll be back in a jiffy with a link or two

Here you go, look no wheels!

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205126685

few more Far East boats from 205 Sqn here -------> http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/se..._per_page=10&f[0]=agentString%3ARoyal%20Air%20Force%2C%20205%20Squa dron


Ttfn

Pete

[UncleTgt]

There are indeed, there's an Imperial War Museum pic of one on slipway at Saunders Roe Beaumaris works , which was the accepting works for all Catalina's bound for RAF.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205126685

Ttfn

Pete

Great find. What a strange beast, it even still has the underwing aerial pylons for the earlier ASV radar - never seen that anywhere else.

[Shessi]

Pete,
Again many thanks.
Sorry, I'm not being cynical, BUT as the IWM caption says the ac is at SR works, having been at the previous sqn's, including 205. Did it already have the radome fitted when at these sqn's or was is at SR to have it fitted for trials etc? Did it go back to an operational sqn?

The second link, I searched 205 Sqn, and apart from the SR works Catalina, I couldn't find any other radomed CC ac.

I found two nice paintings of Cruickshank's VC Catalina, one with radome, one without, AND one is a IIIA and one a IVA!! Where do these people get their evidence from??!!!

What with PBY6's reported as PBY6A's, PBY6's reported as PBY5/5A's, RNZAF PB2B's as CC Catalinas etc....aghhhhh! a mine field. I'm happy that USN PBY5/5A's and PBY6's all with radomes are evidenced, it's WWII CC Catalinas in service/at squadrons that I'd love to see hard evidence of.

Oh yes, and what about Leigh Light fitted CC Cats, as I believe Cruickshank's attack was at night and used a Leigh Light to illuminate the uboat?


John, yes I was interested in that. But that is also found on some CC Liberators. The centimetric radomed radar is used for searching, and the yaggi wing aerials are used for homing onto navigational radar beacons and final attack runs. Having these separate aerials on each wing allows better/more accurate signal comparison than using a single source/point radomed radar. Not all USN PBY's with radomed radar also had yaggi homing radar.

Cheers

Shessi