Dad worked on McArhtur’s B-17. The bomb bay was welded shut. In said floored bomb bay were a couch and a refrigerator.
It’s possible that the patron died and it is being sold off. I don’t rightly know.
I happened to find myself in Ephrata several years ago on the way from Minneapolis to Seattle. I’d never seen a Catalina in person until then. She looked a little rougher than in the pictures - not sure if there’s been work done since then or if they just cleaned it up to sell. A PBY would definitely be my dream plane, though.
There used to be one parked at MYF where my mom worked, when I was a kid in the '70s. It wasn’t flying, and was awaiting restoration. I loved it. And Philippe Cousteau was flying one, and I loved seeing it on The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau. I wouldn’t have minded having one when I grew up. But it requires two pilots, so that would take some of the fun out of it.
I know a guy in Maine who bought one just for fun, from a Canadian firefighting outfit. The thing’s been a much bigger money drain than anyone would imagine - he has it restored to wartime appearance, and runs up an engine from time to time, but it’s unlikely to fly again.
The PBY has manual controls, no hydraulic boost, and no flaps either. Reputedly it takes Popeye arms to fly even after it finally gets off the water.
You might want to watch Steelyard Blues sometime - Donald Sutherland, Jane Fonda, and Peter Boyle are hippies who restore a PBY just to go knocking around in. One of them at least must have inherited a fortune.
I had a tour of a B-25 (“Grumpy”) at an air museum in Seattle about a month ago. I was told that the cost of fuel, maintenance, etc. works out to about $2500 per hour of flight time.
Here is some history for Panchito.
Man I could kick around courtesyaircraft.com for a few hours without even trying! Maybe I’ll get a F-8 Crusader and join the Mach 1 club.
But I’d rather have an A-4E Skyhawk and paint it blue angel colors!