New future for Catalina N423RS
The Tunison Foundation of Poughkeepsie (NY), USA earlier made fame with the restoration of Douglas C-47 42-24064 ‘Placid Lassie’. This transport was one of the planes of the ‘D-day Squadron’ that flew back to France in June 2019 during ‘Daks over Normandy’ to commemorate the 1944 D-day landing.
The foundation has now acquired an interesting new restoration project, Consolidated PBY-5A N423RS (c/n 1785). After a five day trip the fuselage of the Catalina and several trailers filled with components arrived from California in the first week of June 2023.
The Catalina has a long career which started in the US Navy as BuNo 48423. After the end of WW II the amphibian was sold on the civil market as N4002A. From 1965 it was used for geodetic survey, initially for Survair Ltd. in Ottawa (ONT), Canada registered as CF-JJG.
Five years later Canadian Aero Service Ltd. equipped the Cat with a magnetometer and flew her as ‘Explorer’. Other Canadian users were Spartan Air Services and Kenting Earth Sciences. It was then registered as C-FJJG.
In June 1986 the Catalina was sold in the USA where it became N423RS and changed hands several times. It became ‘famous’ in Europe in 1998 when Greenpeace deployed the machine at Palma for a couple of months to fight against illegal fishing in the Western Mediterranean Sea. It received the well-known Greenpeace ‘rainbow’ colours traces of which are still visible today.
N423RS arrived at Duxford, UK in September 1998 and got the current (fake) livery of a wartime RAF Coastal Command Catalina, ‘JV928/Y’ there. It was to have made appearances on the European airshow circuit but this did not happen. The Cat was only flown three times after its arrival at Duxford: from there to Lee-on-the Solent, then to North Weald and finally from North Weald to Biggin Hill.
The owner then decided to have the plane dismantled and it was shipped through Le Havre in France to Jacksonville (FL), USA in January 2015. Last known owner was Wells Fargo Bank which apparently has now sold it to the Tunison Foundation.
Interesting to know (and to avoid confusion): N423RS was not the first Catalina to be addorned with this historic livery of JV928. Plane Sailing Flying Displays flew another Catalina (G-BLSC c/n 1997 ex BuNo 46633) in the same colours. This Cat was tragically lost when it crashed on Southampton Water in 1998, taking the live of two passengers.
Photos: Tunison Foundation