Consolidated PBY Catalina

One of the best, for me, FSX plane.
Any information about this iconic aircraft for MSFS.
Cheers to all

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Freeware here ā†’ French-VFR - Downloads (free.fr)

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I have the French-VFR one and it is very good, but nothing comes close to the Aerosoft version that I used for years in FSX. It had amphibian versions and many liveries from WW2, both PBY-5 and -6.

Unfortunately Aerosoft are showing no signs of converting it to MSFS 2020.

Itā€™s a great pity. We live in hope that perhaps they will be persuaded to make a start, or at least sell the rights to a worthy modern developer. Three years ago I was told by them that they wanted to convert it, and their spokesperson is still saying much the same thing.

I wonder how difficult it would be to convert? Has anybody made an effort to do it, for personal use only of course?

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Iā€™m not sure the point of this comment? The way I read it, it implies the Freeware version is not, but it is in fact amphibious, too (Was there a non-amphibious version of the PBY?). Itā€™s up to version .8 now, and is working on further updates.

No. It was always a flying boat.

I checked one of these out, up close and personal, at Palm Springs Air Museum at KPSP a number of years ago and the PBY Catalina is at the top of my list of aircraft Iā€™d own if I was Ć¼ber wealthy. I like to look at the used aircraft marketplace for them every so often and dreamā€¦

Command of air, land & sea ā€” my kind of aircraft.

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Collings Foundation purchased one a few years ago that theyā€™ve been restoring. Iā€™m not sure the current state.

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+1 for the Aerosoft PBY being updated for MSFSā€¦
What would be great to see is a developer of a certain ability creating a catalog of
flying boats for this sim. Albatross, Catalina, Mallard, Mariner, and so on

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yes. but first need water physics improvements and more seaplane bases / docks :wink:

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They built bothā€¦ started as a flying boat, then Consolidated quickly made an amphibious variant. The PBY-5A ( A for amphib ) were the most produced, followed by the PBY-5 flying boat version.

Iā€™m with you on the Catalina being high on my ā€œwinning the lotteryā€ list of planes :wink:

Youā€™ve seen this, ofc

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I guess I wasnā€™t using my brain here. Of course they are amphibious! The one I checked out was sitting on its landing gear, and my comment:

For whatever reason I didnā€™t connect the meaning of amphibious with water and land. Duh!

No!

Thanks for sharing!! That article seems more about featuring the bathing beauties than the aircraft, ha!

Iā€™m not sure the point of this comment? The way I read it, it implies the Freeware version is not, but it is in fact amphibious, too

Iā€™m sorry if I implied that, of course the freeware French-VFR is also amphibious and it is done very well indeed.

Yes there were non-amphibious versions, the RAAF had many of them during WW2 and they used a wheeled cradle affair to handle them on land. The saving in weight was used to carry more fuel and/or mines on the long haul flights from Darwin to Indonesia.

I would have to go back into FSX to see if the Aerosoft version also had non-amphibious, but gut feeling is that it did.

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yeah, I hesitated about linking that because of the title photo :stuck_out_tongue: but Time/Life from the 1950sā€¦ :wink:

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Est. Reading time: 7 minutes + a couple of hours enjoying those incredible Photos.
Thanks so much for this Brent.

The Last African Flying boat (Catalina)
Another interesting documentary.

Al

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hehe - Iā€™d seen the article years ago - but just skimmed the entire thing again - the photographer / editor definitely had a one-track mindā€¦

but the idea for a flying / amphib RV is pretty sound.

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Hi

Does anyone have a working download link for this plane? The frenchvfr link doesnā€™t openā€¦

Make sure youā€™re not using Google Translate, etc. on the site ā€” it messes up the download password info.

This is the correct english link.

Merci bien :grin::+1:

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Has this project been abandoned? If Iā€™m reading it right, no updates since '22.

Nope. The dev, @LagaffeVFR5476, has been really busy helping build the awesome GAS Stearman.

Now that thatā€™s out the door, he said heā€™ll be doing some updates to the PBY.

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