I'm sure it had two engines when I parked it

This was always one of my favourite PBY conversions-

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1953/1953%20-%200956.html

Obviously a guy with too many toys to play with! Great link.

Thanks Truc for the link, that is such an inspiring story and like many, I only knew about the 4 engine Cat.

Dr. Forrest M. Bird

Dr. Forrest Bird is an amazing aviation person who has done work that should qualify him for “Hero” status.

He, like so many others in aviation, are overlooked and to a certain degree under-appreciated. His contributions to the current state of medivac aircraft and equipment is probably not known to the general public – yet formed a lot of the base for what we do today.

Here is a link to his lengthy career and contribution to both the aviation field and the medical field. The Bird Innovator PBY was just one of his many modified aircraft – and he is no slouch at that task!!!

http://www.airportjournals.com/Display.cfm?varID=0301003

Thanks Doc!!!!

Truc

It’s actually the “Bird” Innovator!!

We had 2 aircraft that I worked on that had the airstair door – C-FCRR and C-FGLX – both were modified with the airstair by Canadian Pacific and other than a little bit of extra weight did not impair the flying characteristics in any way. Sure made it a lot easier to load up the self loading freight!!! Going up the ladder into the blister was a pain in the butt and not very modest in windy conditions for ladies wearing skirts and dresses.

The modification of adding a couple more engines was well thought out and was for take off performance – hot and high – for use in remote places. The downside was the fuel consumption in cruise suffers because you don’t need all the extra weight and drag that the extra engines produced. Plus the complexity of having 4 engines and the maintenance of those 4 engines 17 feet off the ground would not have been an easy task.

IIRC the aircraft had provisions for a “boat” to be slung under the wing and this is most likely what would have caused the loss of performance – not that a PBY has much of that anyway – you are basically pushing a semi-streamlined brick through the air and like a displacement type boat adding horsepower to acheive more speed gives you diminishing returns due to the drag curve.

Here is a picture of it without the extra engines:

http://www.airportjournals.com/Photos/0301/X/0301003_4.jpg

I think the object under the left wing is the “boat”

The PBYs’ took me a number of places – around Canada – the States – South America, – and Europe. From a maintenance side of thing they were not an easy aircraft to “Love”.

Truc

Story here – http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleBirdPBY.html

Are Hospital aircraft all self steralizing, I have never heard of it before.

Is it still around ?

Ah yes, the Baird Innovator. It was given two Lycomings to try to boost its performance. Also it had an air stair, the fitment of which probably caused it’s poor performance! You can see the two jockey wheels in the photograph. I saw it at Titusville around the same time and it was for sale. The new owners decided to remove the two Lycomings to restore it back to stock but then ran out of money.

Rgds Cking