At the time, the PBY was the cleanest flying boat, dragwise, ever designed.
With a beefy continuous I-beam spar and internal bracing, the wing was actually semicantilevered. More important, in combination with four short fuselage struts, it supported the PBY’s glory: the vast ironing board of a wing that was both an enormous fuel tank and a strong, efficient lifting surface. The streamlined pylon put the wing-mounted engines well above spray height, since water can do a surprising amount of damage to prop tips moving at near-supersonic speeds. The PBY’s single shapely central pylon was thus a great leap forward, following first use of the concept on the slightly earlier Sikorsky S-42. Popped rivets and even sprung seams were not uncommon, but crewmen learned to use the navigator’s pencils to plug rivet holes, and pilots soon realized that a touch-and-go or immediate beaching was the only defense against an open hull skin. Open-sea landings required a practiced touch, since the Pigboat asked to be stalled on at minimum speed- a characteristic that soon made it such a superb rough-water boat. Having flown a B-17 of the same era, I can attest that one pilot’s “light and responsive” is another’s “at least I don’t have to go to the gym today.” Old-timers accustomed to the open-cockpit biplane boats that had preceded it laughed and opined that the PBY was light and responsive. New flying boat pilots complained that the PBY was brutally heavy on the controls. Consolidated pointed out that a less robust boat would have sunk, but it quickly added numerous stiffeners and gussets.
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When the prototype made its first rough-water landings, in 4- and 5-foot seas, the impact of one full-stall touchdown blew out the bombardier’s window and the forward hatch, cracked the windshield, wrinkled the hull and damaged all six prop blades. Though the prototype came in over 600 pounds lighter than the contract specified, with a stall speed 10 mph slower and a top speed 12 mph faster with a substantially shorter takeoff run, the vertical tailfin needed to be increased in size to add stability. The PBY wasn’t without its teething troubles, however.
After all, the famous “Attu Zero,” the largely undamaged example of the Japanese navy’s mythic fighter, was discovered by an airsick crewman who had leaned into his PBY’s blister and opened it to vomit just as the crashed Mitsubishi flashed below him.
The Consolidated team that limned its lines knew exactly what to include and what to leave off: a shapely, minimal hull rather than a standard flying boat barge two tightly cowled and wing-faired engines close to the centerline, ideal for single-engine handling, though they made directional control on the water a bit difficult a towering, fish-tail vertical fin to help with the steering both on the water and in the air clean, cantilever, strutless horizontal stabilizers and the colossal, fuel-fat wing that gave the PBY range and endurance far beyond anything else with propellers.Įven the waist-blister goiters that became so much a part of the flying boat’s look when they were added to the PBY-4 might have seemed excessive, but they were effective gunnery and observation posts. And it doesn’t help that the “Pigboat,” as some of its admirers grudgingly call it, didn’t have the warlike mien of the iconic B-17 or the rugged grace of the C-47.īut never mind, the PBY, like all great objects of industrial design, exuded an air of absolute purposefulness. The deeds of the Flying Fortress and C-47 are widely known, but the PBY casts a less obvious shadow across wartime history. It saw the arrival of three enormously capable, ahead-of-their-time airplanes that played a huge part in winning World War II: the Boeing B-17, Douglas DC-3/C-47 and Consolidated PBY flying boat, later to become an amphibian as well. Cat Tales: Consolidated’s PBY Flying Boat | HistoryNet Closeġ935 was a vintage year for first flights.
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