On Apr 7, 9:53*am, Dan wrote:
On 4/7/2012 11:27 AM, Gordon wrote:









On Apr 6, 9:55 pm, *wrote:
On 4/6/2012 10:24 PM, Peter Stickney wrote:

The PBY is an amazing beast - I've never been inside one, but I've seen
a couple of them fly.

* * *If you ever get the chance to go to Pensacola NAS the museum has a
cutaway Catalina fuselage. They may look big on the outside, but they
are crowded inside. Take a look at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutter...09/4728119350/

That makes me happy, actually. *That cutaway fuselage used to be
integral to the base survival school -- I have photos of it internally
and externally when I was going through aircrew candidate school in
81. *When the survival school was condemned (it was from the 40s and
was not in very good shape even when I was there) a few years back,
quite a few of us cried foul and ultimately the Cat was saved. *Back
in the day, the interior was completely restored, with all the
original equipment (weapons, SAR gear, electronics, etc.) that a
wartime aircraft would be expected to carry. *Beside it was a full
size diorama of a pilot in his life raft, with all his goodies laid
out on the inflated part. *Several years later, we overflew LCDR JM
Twiss, down at sea after his A-7 stalled. *I had a momentary smile
when I realized he had all of his gear laid out on his raft-edge, just
like at the survival school we had both attended.

* * Gordon, the Navy knows how to put on a good display when they want
to. The cutaway has mannequins dressed in period flying kit placed in
several crew positions. This gives a better sense of scale than one gets
just standing next to it. If you get a chance to visit the museum it is
worth the time.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

i haven't been to that museum since the very early 90s, but I work
with their staff probably on a monthly basis... time to arrange some
Space A travel to P'cola