Warbird Over Warrington
 

Living under the Liverpool/Manchester corridor I'm used to the sound(and sight) of aircraft passing over. Friday was bit different. A different sort of sound, one that was new to me. I look up and there is a Catalina passing, heading north.

Not seen one of those before. :ok:

It was en route to Oban for an open day there - we have been to visit today and also had a wee look around some interesting light aircraft as well :)
Oban (Connel) must be one of the prettiest settings for an airfield in britain (when its not raining of course) :)

Thanks. Did wonder where it was going.

Hi MG
It was a lovely day out - overnight rain cleared away by mid morning and it was a dry day with blinks of sun,lots of visitors including lots of families with youngsters,there was a long queue all day for inside tours of the Cat (nice to see).
The Cat was supposed to be doing a local flight at 1500 but the wind speed/direction was going to make it a bit of a bumpy approach from the north (bit of a tricky approach anyway for a large aircraft) so quite correctly the Cpt decided not to fly.
We were planning on popping back over to connel this morning to see the departure but the forecast is too dodgy to drive 4 hrs (round trip) and probably get wet into the bargain :).

In Oban, really ??....anyway, you could have nipped into town and sat in comfort in Wetherspoons if the wx was a bit iffy. I like Oban btw

I also heard, and saw, the Catalina serenely bimbling along maybe around 1500-2000ft ...certainly made a few heads turn upwards...made for a lovely moment in passing as it were.

LOL - Connel is a few miles north of Oban town,we tend to avoid Oban in the summer as it is full of bleedin tourists :)
Catalina has just departed Connel and heading southward back to Duxford.

I am aware of the location thank you...:D

However, hopefully, the Cat will return on a reciprocal course and a second sighting results

Sigh ! - maybe next year !
They must have stopped somewhere on the way south as not home yet on the tracker :)

Thanks. It was nice to see you trundling overhead. You didn't seem to be going that fast. Was that the Cat's normal cruising speed?

Hi MG
It was not me trundling overhead - the only trundling we did was in our 17 year old Suzuki Vitara (which is almost as fast as a cat ;) )
The info about the cancelled flight yesterday came from one of the team members.
Not sure what cruising speed the Cat team use but they are pretty slow old birds.
Although I have not read it for many years - in the book 'North Atlantic Cat' by Don McVicar he describes long range ferry flights in Cats using a cruising speed of around (IIRC) 105 - 110 Kt so possibly in that sort of ball park

Another good book on them is, RAAF Black Cats , Secret history of the covert Catalina mine-laying ops to cripple Japan's war machine

I believe the Catalina is scheduled for the Old Buckenham airshow next month (30,31 July).

There is a photo of the Cat after returning to Duxford in the 'Duxford Diary' thread here: https://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewto...921351#p921351

It was lovely day yesterday down in Somerset and aside from a free pass by the red Arrows over Frome around 4 30 ish the skis were unusually busy. Earleir on around 2 i was at an open garden event down the road at Trowbridge when a very noisy radial type noise announced the overhead arrival of a WW2 looking bird that was really scooting along . Acouple of people I was with , my age, said it was WW2 fighter but my money was on a YAk of more recent vintage as the noise sounded more Russian than P&W . Ive heard a lot more Russian radials than American , only a F4 Corsair in the latter case

It was heading roughly East to West and fairly high but still clearly visible and it really was moving, Any ideas

Thanks. That's the sort of speed that it appeared to be.

According to another forum, the Weston s Mare seaside airshow included the Yak3 owned by Bob Davy, so probably that

Bob Davy (@BobdavyDavy) / Twitter

I flew a cat for a couple of hundred hours a couple of hundred years ago. I can’t remember turbulence being a big problem, it was just like a big C182, but you needed big biceps for roll control.

Mending a bike outside my brother's house near Southampton in August '77 (same week that Elvis died I recall) rumble of radials foretold the appearance of a DC-3 - Wrong! A Cat complete with magnetometer or whatever sticking out of its backside bimbled over extremely low. Beautiful... later seen at Gatwick apparently and these days in the USAF Museum. Funnily enough, did I but know it, the Antilles Air Boat Sandringham was visiting Southampton at the time and i did glimpse a far off view of a red finned aircraft trundling along in the distance... didn't ID it at the time but caught up with both some years later...