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Swords to Plowshares GB / Re: Still a Warrior of Sorts
« Last post by Jeffry Fontaine on Today at 06:02:28 AM »Cannot / Canso
After almost two decades of RCAF service, Canso 11060 (c/n CV-369) was sold off for civilian use. [1] By mid-1965 - after waterbomber conversion plans by Fairey Aviation of Canada through, she was left sitting abandoned in the weeds at Pat Bay airport on Vancouver Island.
Neglected and robbed for parts, Canso CV-360 languished at YYJ until 1971. Then, an anonymous donor stepped forward to purchase the old flying boat for restoration. The new operators would be 'The Don't Make a Wave Committee' which was then in the process of being renamed as Greenpeace.
Re-registered as CF-PAX, the partially-stripped airframe was fitted with new turbine engines to become a 'PBY-T'. [2] This conversion - although quite distinct from the Avalon 'Turbo-Canso' project - fitted twin Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops in place of the original piston engines. The Dart Mk 514 engines and their exhaust systems came from a Hawker Siddeley HS.748 while the cowlings came from an ex-Air Canada Vickers Viscount.
Dubbed 'The Spirit of Amchitka', Greenpeace employed CF-PAX on its intial 'Save the Whales' campaigns. The prototype turboprop conversion proved difficult to source parts and support for once away from Vancouver Island. In the late 1970s, Greenpeace trading in its unique 'PBY-T' for a slower, but easier-to-support piston-engined Catalina - N423RS (c/n 1785).
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[1] Canso 11060 was delivered to the Royal Canadian Air Force under Lend-Lease in April 1944. Serving the RCAF until May of 1961, upon retirement, the amphibian went to Canspec Air Transport of Calgary as CF-NJD.
[2] Canso CV-369 had actually been a PBV-1A built in Montreal by Canadian Vickers to a US Navy contract.
I have to wonder if the Basler turbo-conversion for the DC-3/Dakota/C-47 might work as well on the Catalina/CANSO? A more compact design that would possible help with center of gravity issues created with the R/R Dart package sticking out so far forward of the wing.
