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It is ex C-FCRR , now N9767
http://www.aerobuzz.fr/spip.php?article1433 has far more piccies...
Google translation:
The PBY-5 Catalina takes off from Orly
Aircraft Veterans
Published Thursday, December 30, 2010
Ivan Hairon
It had been ten years since the Catalina C-CRRF was stored at Orly airport. 22 December 2010, he left in flight, with new projects ...
It will be spent ten years in a corner of the airport of Orly. First in the shelter of a hangar and a parking lot away.
They had come to believe that none would go back ever.
That his career had ended here.
And then, 22 December 2010, the PBY-5 Catalina took off to the nearby airport of Melun-Villaroche with a new registration N9767.
This nod to his former regimental "9767" of the Royal Canadian Air Force presage a return of more public media coverage of Catalina.
This PBY-5 was at other times the studio wheel of the program "Operation Okavango" by Nicolas Hulot.
After ten years of lethargy, the French flew Catalina Orly, December 22, 2010, to Melun-Villaroche Photo: © Jacques Guillem
This Catalina was built in 1942, Canada, Sea Island, south of Vancouver by Boeing (under license).
It entered service with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) with registration number 9767, then was assigned to Squadron 162 in Iceland.
This, south of Reykjavik, on 17 April 1944, he chased and sunk, with not command the F / O Tom Cooke, the German submarine U-342 U-boats which had the misfortune to surface at this time.
At the time, Catalina was assigned to guarding convoys, the maritime reconnaissance and weather, the laying of mines in search of castaways and hunt submarines.
The N9767 is one of the rare Catalina flying condition to be able to claim a victory in the Second World War.
After the war, from 1946 to 1959, the N9767 will be operated by Canadian Pacific Airlines to transport passengers and cargo.
For the occasion, he receives his first civil registration CF-CRR. He then joins the Northland Airlines and Midwest Airlines and finally the Ilford Riverton.
In 1970, it is transformed into water-bombing with the addition of a center fuel tank of 3000 liters.
Painted orange, it is integrated with the fleet of Avalon Aviation. He spoke on forest fires in Red Deer (Alberta) and in Parry Sound where they will remain stored for several years, following the cessation of Avalon in 1980.
A career already full for this Catalina immortalized by issuing "Opération Okavango" Photo: © Jacques Guillem
In 1994, he became the property of a French, who teamed with television studio wheel.
Painted gray and blue colors of his new opera, he began in 1995, its new mission as the flagship of the television program "Operation Okavango," by Nicolas Hulot.
The filming of the show had to be discontinued due to budget problems after a year and a half, the Catalina is again put to sleep.
It will experience a fleeting moment of glory in 1998 on the Place de la Concorde to the centennial of the Aero Club of France.
On October 15, 1998, called "Princess of the Stars", he flew on "Traces of Aeropostale" with then-CEO Franklin Devaux Proteus Airlines, Patrick Baudry, astronaut and test pilot at Airbus and Patrick Fourticq Commander attendant with Air France.
The journey of 13,000 kilometers, take the "Princess of the Stars" Montaudran, cradle of Aeropostale in Santiago de Chile via Casablanca, Dakar, Fernando De Noronha, Rio De Janeiro and Buenos Aires.
The return flight Catalina "9767" Photo: © Jacques Guillem income just to participate in the hex at the Salon du Bourget 1999, he performs one of his last missions as a platform for filming during the great eclipse of 1999.
It will then be ferried to Orly, where he spent over ten years, until December 22, 2010.
Acquired by French collectors of vintage aircraft, the PBY-5 Catalina "9767" should participate in air shows in the summer of 2011. There are only four Catalina in Europe, three in flying condition in Holland, Britain and France, and Spain temporarily out of service.
Ivan Hairon
Photo: Jacques Guillem
