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Dates |
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Event |
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Constructed as a Catalina IIB. |
Circa 1943 |
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Taken on Strength/Charge with the Royal Air Force with s/n FP216.
Assigned to the Royal Air Force (RAF) as Catalina serial number FP216 but never delivered. |
Circa 1943 |
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Taken on Strength/Charge with the United States Navy with BuNo FP216 as a PBY-5B and operated with these markings: 44.
USN kept the RAF s/n and did not assign a BuNo. |
Circa 1943 |
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Transferred to raining Squadron (VN) 8A, Eighth Naval District (VN-8D8A), NAS Pensacola, FL. |
28 May 1944 |
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Damaged.
Ensign Motter C. Pennypacker, Jr., nearing completion of his first year as a flight instructor with VN-8D8A, manned FP-216 along with five others for a training flight. Everything proceeded normally until the plane water looped while making a landing, which caused severe structural damage to the plane and fortunately only resulted in minor injuries to one of the men on board. Eventually towed ashore, the grounded Catalina, if to add insult to injury, was involved in a ground collision with another aircraft being towed along the seawall. |
1945 |
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To Land Survival Training Center, NAS Pensacola. |
1945 |
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A group of junior officers, among them Lieutenant Jim Morrison, who later would spearhead fundraising to restore the airplane, came up with the idea of using FP-216 [for survival training]. With PBYs then the primary platforms for air-sea rescue, the idea was to expose students to the interior layout of the airplane completely fitted out with survival gear. With some assistance from the Assembly and Repair Division, the wing and skin on the port side of the plane was removed and the grounded PBY was placed into the back wall of the building housing classrooms and exhibits. Interestingly, a period photograph shows an aircraft at the building that has FP-192 visible on the tail section of the airplane. However, in later years the tail section was removed and a data plate inside the cockpit of the fuselage clearly identified the hull as that of FP-216. |
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Photographer: National Naval Aviation Museum |
1997 |
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In the wake of the decision to close the Survival Training Exhibit, a team from the museum ripped the airplane out of the wall and placed it in storage. |
From 2001 to November 2002 |
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Restored.
Received corrosion control, metalwork, and painting. While this process was underway, volunteers and staff refurbished equipment removed from the aircraft while members of the PBY Catalina International Association scoured the world for parts to complete the interior, their efforts resulting in the current display of the airplane that fully depicts the interior of one of the venerable flying boats in its wartime configuration. |
November 2002 |
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Placed on display with National Naval Aviation Museum, NAS Pensacola, Pensacola, FL.
 View the Location Dossier |
11 September 2003 |
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Photographer: Glenn Chatfield |
11 September 2003 |
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Photographer: Glenn Chatfield |
8 October 2011 |
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Photographer: Matt Maranto |
8 October 2011 |
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Photographer: Matt Maranto |
8 October 2012 |
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Photographer: Glenn Chatfield |
8 October 2012 |
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Photographer: Glenn Chatfield |
8 October 2012 |
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Photographer: Glenn Chatfield |
