On checking, no, it didn’t. Oops! 😮 Think I got caught out on that before, as the Cat’s wing is relatively high-aspect ratio and thick; but neither specifically Davis type nor very similar. Apologies for the error, and thanks for the spot, Pagen.

James – I’m not sure that I would go as far as to say that the Catalina’s wing was even ‘relatively’ high-aspect ratio. In answer to the question you asked about other types using the retractable wing-tip float mechanism, Consolidated also used it on the Model 29 PB2Y Coronado. Sometimes when we show people around our Duxford-based Catalina we point out the way that the floats operate and tell them that it is one of the few aircraft designed to reduce its wingspan in flight.

I think the rear fuselage on those airframes is too slender for a Catalina hull which is much broader when viewed from above.

Interesting reference to the Centurion in the cutting above. Don L Brown in his Putnam book Miles Aircraft since 1925 refers to it as the Century Project. Whatever it was, a full size wooden mock up was built consisting of the forward fuselage only ending, if my memory serves, at a point level with the engine exhaust outlets. I’m not sure where it was built but by the start of 1968, and probably before that, it was stored at the back of the Miles Aviation & Research (R&D) Ltd hangar at Ford in Sussex. It was in the same blue and white colours as used on the Student in the 1960s. It could be accessed from a door in the rear and I recall that the cockpit instruments were peeling black and white photographic reproductions stuck onto the dummy instrument panel and that the rudder pedals were rather vintage items with ‘Miles’ on the foot plates, quite possibly taken from a Gemini or similar!

At this time, the Student was stored in a large wooden packing case in the same hangar. The Century/Centurion mock-up was burnt before Miles moved out of Ford and to the old BEAGLE production hangar at Shoreham but the Student went on to fly again as related earlier in this topic.

Very nice shots Elliott. I was fortunate enough to be aboard for the Saturday flights (yours were taken on Sunday judging by the take off direction) and you missed a number of practice displays as various pilots had their authorisation renewed. Glad you like the colour scheme Stangman – it was originally my idea and was chosen not only because it looks pretty good but because the original 44-33915 was based in the UK (Halesworth) and its loss is commemorated on the glass panels at the entrance to the AAF Museum our Duxford base.

In my message two posts above, the dreaded typo gremlin crept in and the date should in fact be 2001 and not 2002. Thanks to Aad van der Voet for picking me up on that.

I lived for all of my childhood and adolescence in Sandfield Avenue, Wick, Littlehampton and I was always told that these houses, built pre-war, were used to billet Canadian soldiers before they went to Europe – not sure if for the Dieppe raid or the D-day landings but I thought the former. We periodically had some troubles with the underground ‘plumbing’ in these houses and my father always maintained these were the result of the Canadians firing flares down the drains to clear a blockage. Apocryphal probably!

Rob – Flying Cats by the late Andrew Hendrie will fit the bill. Although Andrew did not fly them himself, the book is full of personal reminiscences from those who did. It covers other air arms as well as the RAF too. Other books to consider are Arctic Airmen by Ernest Schofield and Roy Conyers Nesbit and Wings of the Dawning by the late Arthur Banks.

Although not in book form, The Catalina News has over the years run a good number of articles that cover this subject matter – contact me off group if you want to know more.