Happy Thanksgiving–another Mystery Photo

OK, Readers, y’all had a good time with the post yesterday. It’s Thanksgiving. Here’s another Mystery Photo to identify. It is an airplane.

21 Comments on “Happy Thanksgiving–another Mystery Photo

  1. I also think it’s a Catalina – initially I thought this was corrugated iron (again), which would’ve ruled out the Catalina, but it seems that this look is just an artefact in the picture.

  2. It is not really a trully airplane, but a flying boat (PBY-5) or an amphibian (PBY-5A)

    The photo shows the retractable wing-tip float from a Consolidated PBY Catalina
    On the photo the wing-tip float is not totally retracted in its “up” or “flight” position where it will extend the wing.
    So we can see behind the wing-tip float, the wing of the PBY with the two holes where the two masts supporting the float will be hidden for reduced air-drag

    Sorry for my bad english

  3. The vertical tailplane doesn’t look right for it to be a Catalina. What about a
    Beriev Be-200 Altair with the wingtip missing and the pontoon “hanging loose”?

  4. OV-099 :The retractable wing-tip floats certainly looks right, but what about that protruding “thing” on top of the vertical stabilizer?

    OV-099 – You have a point, I had not seen this “protuding thing” during my first observation

    • DomTom :

      OV-099 :The retractable wing-tip floats certainly looks right, but what about that protruding “thing” on top of the vertical stabilizer?

      OV-099 – You have a point, I had not seen this “protuding thing” during my first observation

      I think that protruding thing is just white skies background which looks like part of the vertical stabilizer thanks to the “striping” artefacts in the scan/photo. If you zoom in on it, you can clearly see that those lines line up exactly throughout the photo, so they’re not a feature on the plane itself.

  5. Sponson, of some sort I imagine.

    Judging the leafy foliage in the background it’s an aircraft stashed away in a field of hashish.

    As to what printer, the graineness of the print & lack of detail leads me to believe it was printed on an early Gutenberg Ink Jet

  6. It’s clearly an old PTY Catalina Flying boat, which I had the joy of flying one day.
    See how old I am?
    Happy Thanksgiving dear friends and thank you Scott, for enabling some of us
    oldies like me, to learn about what’s happening in the aviation world today and
    to share some of our “historical experiences” with younger generation experts in
    this great profession, which is/was more like a hobby than a job for most of us!

    • good catch anfromme!

      Rudy : ” See how old I am? ”

      Oh no, another contest ..

      1928 😉 ? anyway your historic perspective and inside stories (and of other retired aviation collegaes) are highly appreciated

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *