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Chas Bunch
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PBY-4 Conversion

September 23, 2023 · in Aviation · 39 · 450

I have a couple of PBY-5As in 1:48 and some years ago I came across an old Monogram PBY-5. I got the Belcher Bits #BB06 PBY-2,-3,-4 conversion kit and settled on a yellow wing PBY-4. The conversion set includes a new tail and rudder, cowlings, spinners, prop hub, wing leading edge intakes, and fuselage insert to replace the blisters on the PBY-5s. For decals I used national insignias from Yellow Wings, I made the 48-star flag for the top of the fuselage and printed it on decal paper, the fuselage codes are from Yellow Wings letters and numbers set. The large "12" was masked and painted on the wings. The vertical striped rudder was used by the Asiatic fleet well into 1941. This aircraft was shot down in flames by Zeros over Luzon on December 10, 1941. A fun build, I'm a Belcher Bits fan!

Reader reactions:
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9 additional images. Click to enlarge.


39 responses

  1. Very attractive build Chas. Your hard work really paid off!

  2. Really nice conversion, Chas @chasbunch
    Well done.

  3. Very nice work on the old Monogram kit, Well done @chasbunch

  4. Well, your result convinces me that is a good conversion set. Looks great in Golden Wings. I'd like to do it as one of the PBY-4s in the Philippines in 1941-42 with the 5-color camouflage they developed in the fall of 1941.

  5. Excellent result, Chas! What a great looking PBY-4!

  6. Man, that's a great looking build, Chas. Nicely done. @chasbunch
    Is the opening photo your model? I honestly can't tell?

  7. Great looking PBY-4! Nice work on the conversion.

  8. Great painting! I love Catalinas!

  9. That is amazing bit of work, it looks beautiful in that scheme. You really did good there.

    I knew of the Belcher conversion kit and like Tom @tcinla had thought of building one of the Philippines PBY-4s that had escaped to Australia. But other projects with quicker payoffs kept presenting themselves. Now back to the TBD-1.

  10. Excellent colorful Cat.
    Wings of Gold, indeed.

  11. Great work, Chas. The Monogram PBY is one of the few really big kits to survive my Great Stash Downsize. I’m going to do mine in yellow wings too.

  12. Very nice of you to include reference photos of the real thing, so we can see just how well you nailed it... 😀 Great work Chas!

  13. Love the yellow wings

  14. Very good looking plane and neat conversion work.

  15. Snazzy build and conversion! Well done.

  16. Love the pre-war stuff, so this conversion just nails it!

  17. Pretty bird. You did a great job with the conversion and early paint scheme.

  18. Really well done. Love the paintwork and those two “in flight”color photos of your PBY flying over one of the Philippine Islands, Chas.

  19. Top conversion job and nice photoshop!

  20. Hello Chas,
    Very impressive (Re) build of this Monogram model.
    As I have mentioned many times before: "Monogranm always good".
    Regards from The Netherlands.

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