I see no reason why the PBY Catalina has been excluded from the game for this long.
PBY
June 1937-May 1945
4,051 Catalinas, Cansos (Canada), and GSTs (Soviet Union)
Proposed Varient: PBY-5A
October 1941–January 1945
Production: 802
One of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II, Catalinas served with every branch of the United States Armed Forces and in the air forces and navies of many other nations including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Great Britan and Russia with the last active military PBYs retired from service in the 1980s.
Imagine the skinning options to appeal to our players from around the world.
Let's forget temporarily about it's actual seaplane capabilities. Those can be modeled later at an appropriate time.
So now that we've established it, at least temporarily, as a land based plane lets see what could be done with it in the game.
During World War II, PBYs were used in anti-submarine warfare (Catalinas were the most extensively used anti-submarine warfare aircraft in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters of World War II and were also used in the Indian Ocean.), patrol bombing (United States Navy Black Cats attacked Japanese supply convoys at night sinking 112,700 tons of merchant shipping, damaging 47,000 tons and 10 Japanese warships.), convoy escorts, search and rescue missions (especially air-sea rescue) and cargo transport. In addition, both USN and RAAF Catalinas regularly mounted nuisance night bombing raids on Japanese bases.
Catalinas participated in some of the most notable naval engagements of World War II. An RAF Coastal Command Catalina located the German battleship Bismarck, which was attempting to evade Royal Navy forces, a flight of Catalinas spotted the Japanese fleet approaching Midway Island, beginning the Battle of Midway while a Royal Canadian Air Force Canso foiled Japanese plans to destroy the Royal Navy's Indian Ocean fleet when it detected the Japanese carrier fleet approaching Ceylon.
Light bomber, torpedo aircraft (in our case used against task groups until submarines are modeled), armed cargo/troop transport, spotter/observation aircraft (allow it the same GV spotting capabilities as the Storch).
Skinning possibilities expand with the introduction of the Black Cats.
Use in scenarios, particularily Midway.
Let's look at performance.
General characteristics
Crew: 10 — pilot, co-pilot, bow turret gunner, flight engineer, radio operator, navigator, radar operator, two waist gunners, ventral gunner
Length: 63 ft 10 7/16 in (19.46 m)
Wingspan: 104 ft 0 in (31.70 m)
Height: 21 ft 1 in (6.15 m)
Wing area: 1,400 ft² (130 m²)
Empty weight: 20,910 lb (9,485 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 35,420 lb (16,066 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp radial engines, 1,200 hp each
Performance
Maximum speed: 196 mph (314 km/h)
Cruise speed: 125 mph (201 km/h)
Range: 2,520 mi (4,030 km)
Service ceiling: 15,800 ft (4,000 m)
Rate of climb: 1,000 ft/min (5.1 m/s)
Armament
3 .30 cal (7.62 mm) machine guns (two in nose turret, one in ventral hatch at tail)
2 .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine guns (one in each waist blister)
4,000 lb (1,814 kg) of bombs or depth charges (or torpedo racks)
By some measures a hanger queen but, with a unique combination of chachteristics all it's own and the ability to expand on it's uses as the game progresses combined with nearly endless skinning possibilities catering to players from many nations outside the US I'd venture to guess that the Catalina would develop a strong, albeit small, core audience.
For the umpteenth time I think the PBY is long overdue.
