Historically speaking, the (Consolidated) Catalina (airmen called them "Cat") has made glorious contributions to both military and civil aviation. With 1st flight in 1935 (ahead of the legendary Douglas DC-3's first flight also in 1935), the Catalinas were reliably completing non-stop long-range flights in excess of 3000 miles, setting unheard-of milestones for propliners of the era (for comparison, the DC-3 had a typical range of 1500 miles). The Catalinas were used during WWII on top secret "Double Sunrise" flights from Perth to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The Qantas pilots were flying them for something like 33 hours of continuous flight in extremely dangerous missions (aided solely by Celestial navigation to avoid radio-signal detection by enemy aircraft): "...splendid boats which for years saw us through our most hazardous operations ever without accident or mishap of any kind." After more than 80 years after its first flight, these aircraft continue to fly now as water bomber (or air tanker) in aerial firefighting operations all over the world. One such Tanker, #703 from Buffalo Air, is the specimen I've used in this sample flight.

I've taken this aircraft on a sight-seeing tour in the vicinity of Mount Cook (NZSI), then tracking westward the northern coastline of the island, and finally calling it a night (after a water touchdown) just off-shore on this beautiful part of the world. [AS(Catalina)/Orbx(NZSI)/REX]

 

You have a great set of shots there mate

John

Outstanding pictures.  Did Aerosoft upgrade the Catalina to P3Dv4?

36 minutes ago, signmanbob said:

Outstanding pictures.  Did Aerosoft upgrade the Catalina to P3Dv4?

Thanks, Bob. Yes, it appears so, it says now on the website, " FSX/FSX:SE/P3D V4". Please check though!

Of course, this is my archived (AS) Catalina from years ago, for FSX/SE. Re-installed today, and tested it out. All OK with "simple" start. I wish to explore full cold & dark, in future. I recall the engine is a bit unforgiving if you do not follow proper procedure....

24 minutes ago, P_7878 said:

Thanks, Bob. Yes, it appears so, it says now on the website, " FSX/FSX:SE/P3D V4". Please check though!

Of course, this is my archived (AS) Catalina from years ago, for FSX/SE. Re-installed today, and tested it out. All OK with "simple" start. I wish to explore full cold & dark, in future. I recall the engine is a bit unforgiving if you do not follow proper procedure....

Yes, I remember that this was a well made simulation.  I don't remember how to start it now though.  

I'll have to go download the P3Dv4 version.  It looks like your having a lot of fun with it.

Thank you for letting me know.

Bob

Bob: Regarding, "I don't remember how to start it now though", don't get deterred at all. Neither do/did I recall the realistic start. But, AS provides lots of (easy to complex) options on its "Configuration" TAB making it all effortless. All you need to do (which I've done here) is to select "Flying Mode" and "Standard Engines" to go flying in a hurry. Have fun!

Nice pics. Just to confirm it was updated to p3d v4x but there are still two small issues with it. Don't know if I am allowed to post a link to Aerosoft forum so just go over there and search for "cat sound p3d" and you should find the topic 128853-catalina-pby-sound-issue (or copy this 😉 ). In there you should find an updated version of the asc.dll which will fix the sound issues. The fix never made it into the latest installer. The other bug is for the adf and dme modern avionics in the civ version. But me think there was no fix for it. I will have to recheck. Otherwise its still a beautiful rendition and with the realistic engines mode a nice beast to handle with care.

Cheers

T.

...arg. Me getting old. The other stuff was fixed too. The original gauge developer made a small fix package. Again go to AS forums and there is a topic 99894-pby-catalina-help. In there is a simobjetcs.zip package fixing the instruments and missing placard on the 5a and 6a models. With this its 100% v4x ready. Sorry and have fun 😉

Cheers

T.

Nice shots!

Thank you for posting, you've prompted me to reinstall the Cat into P3D 4.4, with the update you mentioned. It works perfectly: I turned the sound up and blasted out my neighbours on a brief sight-seeing flight around my local area in the UK. Wonderful stuff. it's such a good model. Thanks again for posting.

4 hours ago, Torsen said:

AS forums and there is a topic 99894-pby-catalina-help

As I ditched the AS Forum as they were getting a tad uppity for my liking, is there a vague possibility you could PM that?.

If not, no problem.

Outstanding series guy.  Thanks much

***Excellent*** I'll never forget that this was the Aircraft that spotted and rescued some of the survivors of The USS INDIANAPOLIS after being Torpedoed in the Pacific.

Thanks, Patrick, for this above event-reminder. I'll look up this one a bit.

As I was reading about this aircraft's (amazing) role in WWII, there were many such rescue missions mentioned. This aircraft was such a winner, traveling thousands of miles over ocean in such dangerous missions, (low altitude-flying, so must have been subject to adverse weather conditions), capable of landing on water and rescuing the survivors. I also read that the aircraft always met the challenge without any mishaps. Of course, the P&W engines were super-reliable. No wonder, some grateful pilot had coined the phrase, "Trust in God and Pratt & Whitney". These same P&W built engines, would go on to power the military versions of the legendary DC-3(C-47).