20-foot Catalina Takes Off

20-foot Catalina Takes Off

After nearly four years (3000 hours!) of building, Australian RC pilot Stephen Thomas had the thrill of seeing his giant-scale project take off at the Darling Downs Soaring Club in Queensland. This 1/5-scale plane is powered by two Desert Aircraft 150s spinning 28×12 Metz props and it has 25kg-rated Hitec servos and custom Century Jet retracts with hydraulic main gear and air nose gear. With a flying weight of 248 pounds, this monster flying boat is an impressive sight on the ground and in the air. We congratulate Stephen on a job well done and thank him for posting his video to YouTube.

Updated: July 23, 2015 — 10:33 AM

11 Comments

  1. Would love to see a water takeoff! 🙂

  2. Great project, outstanding effort! Should be an inspiration to modelers everywhere!

  3. 248 pounds?? Is that a misprint?

  4. Debra, thanks for your work. Was the flying weight of the Catalina correct? 248 pounds?

    1. Believe so … I got that from the first video. Seemed heavy to me, too.

      1. Hi all, I am one of the inspectors for this aircraft and after lifting it many times I can assure all that the weight is correct. 113 kg.

  5. Beautiful Job and appears to fly great! Is it really 248lbs?

  6. Wow! That is an impressive float plane, and a beautiful job of building and flying. I hope to see it take off and land from water in the next video – that would be the ultimate test Great job!

  7. It’s a beautiful plane. If the wing tip floats were down it would be perfect

  8. Beautiful model ,, luv it ,,all the best,,,Paul Rosenberg , New Zealand .

  9. One of my favorite planes. Great job to all! I have a plan that I want to enlarge to .90 4S size and I think this video got me going

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