Originally Posted by
Herod
To my mind, the "C" class boats were possibly the best airline flying job ever
Unfortunately the C class Empire Flying Boats suffered a considerable attrition in their first few years, to the extent that proposed services had to be curtailed. Landing accidents were a major, though not only, cause. The postwar aircraft, not really that different, did not suffer to anything like this extent, so the issue was eventually mastered.
Although exotic for the time, flights regularly seemed to have exceptionally early starts each day, and as the crew were with the aircraft for several consecutive days, they must have been pretty knackered at the end. Here's a 1939 timetable from the UK to Australia run. Crews were slipped at Karachi and Singapore, normally with a Qantas crew on the last leg and sometimes they worked west to Karachi as well.
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...s/iaw39u-2.jpg
Tiberias, a stop on the Sea of Galilee, is about 820 feet below sea level, and must be about the lowest anyone has ever landed an airliner.
Regarding Catalina endurance, the autobiography of Jack Bamford, Air France's longstanding UK manager from the 1920s through to 1960, "Croissants at Croydon", has a splendid extended description of a flight he took in a Cat during WW2, when in the RAF "for the duration", westward from Prestwick to Halifax NS. That was a 24 hours airborne job as well, with fuel being transferred from ferry tanks at intervals.