My dear friend and instructor Desmond flew Catalinas from Castle Archdale in Northern Ireland during WW2, and my close friend Bob Hume was flight engineer on Sunderlands at Pembroke Dock. These are their flying boat memories as they were told to me 50 years ago, so don't take them as gospel when you prepare for first solo in your Sunderland or whatever …
MPN, in calm conditions a Sunderland or Catalina at operational weights could take three miles to get airborne. Usually it was between one and two miles. Wind had most effect of course, but calm water increased suction on the hull due to the Bernoulli effect. In such conditions a couple of launches would zig-zag across the fairway to roughen it up, a task exciting to the boat crews and to the aircrew in the Sunderland thundering towards them at 60 knots.
The flying-boats began their run by 'ploughing' through the water with the stick fully back until the nose rose and the bow-wave began moving aft. In calm conditions it helped to pump the stick gently to encourage this. At this stage the stick was eased forward to encourage the hull to rise onto its step and begin planing at around 50 knots, so decreasing the water drag and enabling the craft to attain flying speed.
The Sunderland in the picture must have had had a long taxi up-river but apparently such visits were not unusual. Earlier that year, 1949, BOAC brought its new Solent up-river for its naming ceremony. Bob said it was nothing to taxi a couple of miles along Milford Haven before takeoff, while for certain wind conditions they used an area off Angle, several miles away, and were sometimes towed by boat to save fuel, adding an hour or more towage each way to a typical 8/9 hour sortie.
Desmond said the Sunderland was much roomier and quieter than the Cat, and rather easier to fly as its behaviour was viceless. The comfy wardroom with four bunks and double Primus stove in the galley was much envied, not to mention the flush toilet in the bow compartment. After a 10-hour exchange trip in Desmond's Catalina the Sunderland skipper said he preferred dogs to cats and the the trip certainly confirmed his view although he fancied the Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasps.
Bob's colleagues liked their Sunderlands although their Pegasus engines sometimes gave trouble because they were consistently overworked and had two-speed VP propellors. Later Peggies developed more power but the Sunderland V had Twin Wasps and constant-speed props as used in Catalina, Dakota and Liberator, enabling the big boat to maintain height on two engines. Another desirable item was a pair of .50 Brownings to replace the Vickers K-guns in the waist mountings, but they never managed to acquire these.
During their long patrols Bob's skipper encouraged his crew to interchange their duties in case of emergencies, making Bob one of the few pilots to transition to Tiger Moth after 20 hours ab-initio in the right seat of a Sunderland, and very well he managed it.
Despite hundreds of hours on Atlantic patrol, neither of my long-gone friends saw any action although in early 1944 Bob's crew did sight a Kurier snooping around a convoy about 100 miles out. “We were all dead keen to have a go, the skipper turned towards it and we opened the Peggies flat-out though we had no chance of catching it, maybe we thought we could sneak up on him. The nav was up in the astrodome giving a commentary: he's going left, no he's going right … dammit he's turning south, the ------'s running away! I don't blame him, said the skipper, first time I saw you lot forming up at OTU I felt like doing the same thing”.