A short story of the Catalina 9767.
Consolidated PBY-5A Canso series n° 21996 was delivered to Royal Canadian Air Force with the serial number RCAF 9767, on March 4, 1943. Allocated to Squadron 162 in Reykjavik, the crew commanded by
the Captain Tom Cooke sank the U-Boot U-342 on April 17, 1944.
The amphibian was removed from the military service two years later, on April 1-st, 1946. Registered CF-CRR, it then passed from 1950 till 1959 in the hands of Canadian Pacific Airlines in Vancouver, then Northland Airlines Ltd. in Winnipeg in 1960, and Midwest Airlines Ltd, in the same place in 1970.
The civil registration was changed to C-FCRR in the name of Avalon Aviation Ltd, who used it as water bomber in Red Deer and Pary Sound, up to its retirement.
In October 1995, after a long maintenance prg in France, it departed for Africa equipped as a flying TV studio for use in a French TV natural history series called Operation Okavango. Its initial destination was Djibouti, followed by the Comoro Islands, then Kenya and Ethiopia. After a period at Harare in Zimbabwe, C-FCRR returned to France, and by mid-1997 was at Arcachon / La Teste de Buch minus its Okavango titles but named Capt Tom Cooke, after its illustrious wartime captain.
It was later repainted in an Air France colour scheme with the name Princesse des Etoiles and flown to Le Bourget, Paris, on 23 August 1998, where it was dismantled by the British firm Edwards Brothers Aviation, previously involved in the African filming, and trucked to the Place de la Concorde on the Champs Elysées. There, it was placed on public display during September, along with a great number of other vintage aeroplanes, to celebrate 100 years of Aéroclub de France.
With its Parisian appearance over, it was taken back to Le Bourget and flown south again ready for its next adventure a transatlantic flight to Chile and Brazil via West Africa! The main reason for this epic flight was to commemorate the Aéropostal mail flights flown by Jean Mermoz between France and Dakar, Sénégal, instigated in 1930. The Catalina left Toulouse on 14 October, and by 28 November 1998, C-FCRR had arrived in Santiago of Chile, a follow on flight to Brazil being made on the 3rd of that month.
For these flights, many sponsorship logos adorned the Catalina's hull and tail, including that of the Brazilian airline TAM, which was taking delivery of new airbus aircraft, the PBY being involved in the handover ceremony. At the completion of the ceremonies, C-FCRR flew north and spent some time at Oshawa, Ontario, where maintenance was carried out before leaving on 8 june 1999, crossing the Northern Atlantic via Reykjavik and Shannon, before arriving at Dinard in Brittany. A few weeks later, it was being kept busy as an aerial camera platform for the 11 August total eclipse of the sun.
After a long time of standing Catalina N9767 , took to the air again on the 22nd of December 2010!
Le PBY-5 Catalina s?envole d?Orly - AéroBuzz par Gil ROY
Consolidated PBY-5A Canso series n° 21996 was delivered to Royal Canadian Air Force with the serial number RCAF 9767, on March 4, 1943. Allocated to Squadron 162 in Reykjavik, the crew commanded by
the Captain Tom Cooke sank the U-Boot U-342 on April 17, 1944.
The amphibian was removed from the military service two years later, on April 1-st, 1946. Registered CF-CRR, it then passed from 1950 till 1959 in the hands of Canadian Pacific Airlines in Vancouver, then Northland Airlines Ltd. in Winnipeg in 1960, and Midwest Airlines Ltd, in the same place in 1970.
The civil registration was changed to C-FCRR in the name of Avalon Aviation Ltd, who used it as water bomber in Red Deer and Pary Sound, up to its retirement.
In October 1995, after a long maintenance prg in France, it departed for Africa equipped as a flying TV studio for use in a French TV natural history series called Operation Okavango. Its initial destination was Djibouti, followed by the Comoro Islands, then Kenya and Ethiopia. After a period at Harare in Zimbabwe, C-FCRR returned to France, and by mid-1997 was at Arcachon / La Teste de Buch minus its Okavango titles but named Capt Tom Cooke, after its illustrious wartime captain.
It was later repainted in an Air France colour scheme with the name Princesse des Etoiles and flown to Le Bourget, Paris, on 23 August 1998, where it was dismantled by the British firm Edwards Brothers Aviation, previously involved in the African filming, and trucked to the Place de la Concorde on the Champs Elysées. There, it was placed on public display during September, along with a great number of other vintage aeroplanes, to celebrate 100 years of Aéroclub de France.
With its Parisian appearance over, it was taken back to Le Bourget and flown south again ready for its next adventure a transatlantic flight to Chile and Brazil via West Africa! The main reason for this epic flight was to commemorate the Aéropostal mail flights flown by Jean Mermoz between France and Dakar, Sénégal, instigated in 1930. The Catalina left Toulouse on 14 October, and by 28 November 1998, C-FCRR had arrived in Santiago of Chile, a follow on flight to Brazil being made on the 3rd of that month.
For these flights, many sponsorship logos adorned the Catalina's hull and tail, including that of the Brazilian airline TAM, which was taking delivery of new airbus aircraft, the PBY being involved in the handover ceremony. At the completion of the ceremonies, C-FCRR flew north and spent some time at Oshawa, Ontario, where maintenance was carried out before leaving on 8 june 1999, crossing the Northern Atlantic via Reykjavik and Shannon, before arriving at Dinard in Brittany. A few weeks later, it was being kept busy as an aerial camera platform for the 11 August total eclipse of the sun.
After a long time of standing Catalina N9767 , took to the air again on the 22nd of December 2010!
Le PBY-5 Catalina s?envole d?Orly - AéroBuzz par Gil ROY
