PBY-5A “Catalina”

The Spanish aviation museum ‘Museo de Aeronautica y Astronautica de Cuatro Vientos’ has recently released a book on one of their exhibits: the PBY-5A Catalina. The author Michel Lozares Sánchez has described the history of this exhibit in a 98 page book. The book not only describes the museum’s Catalina BuAir No. 46596, but also in the first chapter the general history of the Catalina that started in 1935 with the XP3Y-1 flying boat prototype in 1935. Later it became during and after the second world war more known as the PBY.

Lozares shortly describes in this chapter all versions PBY-1 to PBY-6 of the Catalina. In the second chapter he describes the quite extensive career of the PBY-5A amphibian of Cuatro Vientos, which started in 1945 at the US Navy.

In the 3rd chapter a number of profiles of the various Cuatro Vientos Catalina identities are given.

The 4th chapter deals with Catalina’s operationally used in Spain, including the machines that were used as fire bombers.

Lorenzo concludes his book with a short section with official Catalina documents and an overview of the various Catalina model kits that were ever released. In total the book contains some 135 photographs, most of them in colour, and a number of document reproductions.

For all Catalina fans it is a welcome addition, although knowledge of the Spanish language is required to fully appreciate this book and an English summary is unfortunately not present!

Book details:
Title: PBY-5A “Catalina”
Author: Michel Lorenzo Sánches
Publisher: Ministerio de Defensa, Spain
ISBN: 978-84-9781-355-6
Type: A4 size, softcover

Nico Braas

Sample publication is provided by author of the book Michel Lorenzo Sánches