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Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina

sharkman

Master at Arms
I've been away for a bit because I've had an extremely busy field season at work. just really finished up the first week of November. I do have a long list of projects to complete (and I will at some point) but it is that time of year again for my local club's winter challenge build so I'm going to post that here.

I recently purchased an Academy 1/72 PBY-5 because I wanted the main wing for another future project and was wondering what I could use the fuselage for. Our challenge this year is any vehicle that passed though our local capital of Halifax, Nova Scotia over the years so I decided to build a PBY-5A that was operated by Eastern Provincial Airways and is currently being restored at one of our local museums.

You can see a bit of the history and a few pics on this link
http://acamuseum.ca/on-display/aircraft-collection/pby-5a-catalina-canso/

This is the kit

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It is a nice kit but being a 5, I'll need to make some mods to a 5A. Why did I get a 5 instead of a 5A? It was a very good price and these Academy kits are getting expensive!

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I started with the port side, drilling holes in the corners of the panels I need to show open with a pin vise and then cutting out the excess with a blade. then filing the opening.

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I won't need many of the kits parts as the real aircraft is basically an empty shell at the moment.

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i had some appropriate wheels and other parts that will be useful in converting this to a 5A in the spares box

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I started to cut the canopy down

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and worked on opening up the starboard side

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And here's where it is at for the moment.

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Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina/Canso

Go Warren :good: Deffinitelly the hard way to make a 5A

Cheers, Christian B)
 
Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina/Canso

Anything that passed through Halifax? Didn't most of the North Atlantic convoys start from Halifax? So wouldn't most anything be allowed?

That's some major surgery Warren :popcorn
 
Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina/Canso

Anything that passed through Halifax? Didn't most of the North Atlantic convoys start from Halifax? So wouldn't most anything be allowed?

That's some major surgery Warren :popcorn

Yeah, you’re right Bob. Hadn’t thought of that! I still probably wouldn’t have had much in my stash for this build.

More surgery to come!
 
Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina/Canso

Been awhile since I had an update!

Life gets in the way!

I was supposed to have this finished this past Wednesday for our local club contest but that didn't happen. However, the work continues at a snails pace!

I did get more of the interior done. The kit provides a few bulkheads but i scratched a couple new ones.

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I found out this actual aircraft was a US Catalina that was bought by Eastern Provincial and then modified. Apparently, the company did not have it very long after it was modified (about 6 months) when it crashed. Heard the crash was because the power got shut off accidentally and the engines stalled and she glided down to the ground before they could get it started again.

The starboard side has a big section of skin missing revealing the ribbing and some tubing, tried to show this
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Worked on scratch building the wheel wells based on the parts off one of my 1/48 kits. This was all just sheet styrene and a styrene tube cut on an angle
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More ribs and detail added to the interior. The real one is pretty gutted right now
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And how it stands at the moment. i'm ready to start painting and then I can get the hull together
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Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina/Canso

A few pics in the insides!

The back where the bubbles used to be
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next compartment looking forward
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just behind the cockpit
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Eastern Provincial Airways PBY-5A Catalina/Canso

Thanks Bob,

Been behind the 8 ball for the last little while, trying to get more bench time in!
 
Hi Warren, just saw this while looking for something else. Great job so far on the pigboat. Will this one be the one that was airlifted out of the boonies up between Churchill Falls and Goose? We used to haul diesel fuel from Goose to the Bell Telephone site at Sona Lake with the DC-3 or the C-46, and the wreck was right on the track from Goose to Sona. The airplane had forced landed in a shallow lake - commonly called a loon poop lake only the word wasn't poop - when they lost both engines in flight. (The co-pilot had accidently pulled both emergency fuel and oil shutoffs while trying to do something else in the cockpit in the dark.) :woohoo:
 
Wow! This is looking good so far Warren! I like the photos of the original. They show what you are trying to build and what shape it is in.
 
Hi Warren, just saw this while looking for something else. Great job so far on the pigboat. Will this one be the one that was airlifted out of the boonies up between Churchill Falls and Goose? We used to haul diesel fuel from Goose to the Bell Telephone site at Sona Lake with the DC-3 or the C-46, and the wreck was right on the track from Goose to Sona. The airplane had forced landed in a shallow lake - commonly called a loon poop lake only the word wasn't poop - when they lost both engines in flight. (The co-pilot had accidently pulled both emergency fuel and oil shutoffs while trying to do something else in the cockpit in the dark.) :woohoo:

Hey Stoney!

That would be the one. She's currently at the Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum, slowly being restored. I believe their planes are to restore the fuselage and attach 1/2 of the wing. they have both engines from her as well. It's a bit of a mess right now.

Interesting bit of knowledge!
 
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