The Consolidated PBY Catalina is considered by many
to be the most famous flying boat in the history of aviation. The
Catalina not only worked extremely hard for the duration of WW2, but went
on being put to just as intense and versatile operational use for twenty
years after the war, flying in the colors of half the countries in the
world. The outbreak of the Second World War meant that production
was suddely speeded up, and the Soviet Union had been the first to make
sure of having the PBY by buying the construction liscense for the PBY-3
version in 1938 under which it built about 200 of them.
