Ex N999AR, N1022G, CF-VIG, N788C, CF-VIG, N9588C, USN 46662. Still current in 2023, registered to Liberty Aviation Museum, Ohio. Seen here after landing on Plymouth Sound, to celebrate the arrival of a US Navy Curtiss NC-TA flying boat NC-4 in Plymouth on 31 May 1919, and the 75th anniversary of US Naval aviation.

Ex N691RF, CF-OWE, RCAF 11074. Became N222FT and still current in 2023. What I took to be (and hoped was) a flypast before touch down turned out to be a too-high landing approach, which very nearly ended in tragedy when it struck a buoy, tearing off the port wingtip.

In storage at EMA. This aircraft had been used as a water bomber. To US Navy with BuNo 64017. To the US civil register and converted to a water bomber as N2846D then N5555H coded E87. In 1964 to France with the Securite Civile as F-ZBAV. To Avalon Aviation as CF-HNH in 1966 and leased to Haydn Air Charter (Norway) from 1978 until 1985. To the UK as G-BPFY on 23 Dec 88 with Aces High Ltd. To N212DM on 6 Jun 1989 then back to G-BPFY on 05 Mar 1990. To the US as N285RA on 19 Aug 1998. The registration was cancelled on 22 Mar 2006 and the aircraft was exported to Israel where it is currently on display at the Israeli Air Force Museum at Hatzerim Airport.

'Navy Mystery Plane'. This is the prototype of the PBY Catalina. It had just flown non-stop from Coco Solo, Panama to San Francisco in 34 hours and 45 minutes. The aircraft underwent modifications over the winter and became the XPBY-1 as the P3Y was redesignated PBY. The building in the background belongs to the old Alameda Airport, just to the east of the new Naval Air Station Alameda which opened in 1940. Photo from: San Francisco Examiner / UC Berkeley Library

Flown on survey work throughout southern Africa for Geoterrex in the mid 1970s and early 1980s. Subsequently became G-BLSC, VR-BPS and VP-BPS. Crashed in Southampton Water 27th July 1998 and sadly, despite attempts to restore the aircraft, she was scrapped at Dublin, Weston in 2012.

Operated by the Quebec Government.

Photographer was Douglas Slowiak.

This USCG PBY was based at Argentina in Newfoundland and came to the rescue following the crash of a Sabena DC-4, OO-CBG, near Gander. Two early USCG helicopters, a Sikorsky HOS-1 and HSN-1 051, took survivors from the crash site to the shore of Gander Lake where they were transferred to the PBY. 48314 is a retained US Navy BuNo. The V prefix for USCG serials was officially discontinued on 28 December 1945. Photo from: National Archives at College Park, Maryland

Picture was taken by my father (Hendrik Prins) who served within the Navy in Nieuw Guinea till 1959. In August 1956 it was withdrawn from use after encountering an incident.

Ex RCAF 9742

Unknown photographer

American Export Airlines used the aircraft for route surveys. Passed to the US Navy as 99080 in 1944. Photo by: Rudy Arnold / Smithsonian Institution

Flown by Captain P. G. Taylor on the first air crossing of the South Pacific, leaving Sydney in March 1951 for Valparaiso, Chile.

Sunk by a bomb placed in the cockpit while moored on Sydney Harbour on August 27, 1949. Owner of a competing flying boat airline charged but acquitted. Photo from: National Library of Australia