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Double Sunrise Service

jankees

jankees

SOH-CM-2025
In 1943, Royal Australian Air Force personnel were seconded to operate Catalinas under the banner of Qantas. The plan called for flights between Perth, Western Australia, and RAF Base Koggala in southern Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The flights were the longest non-stop air route of any airline, over 3,500 nautical miles (6,480 km) across the Indian Ocean. Navigating without the aid of radio, the crews relied solely on rudimentary navigation by compass and stars during the trip.



Only Catalinas had that kind of range, so five PBY-5 flying boats were converted to make them suitable for the trip.
They received camouflage paint, with a RAAF roundel on the fuselage, but also a civilian registration, since they were officialy operated by Qantas, and they were named after the stars they would be using for navigation:
Vega Star (G-AGFL/FP221 - tail code 1)
Altair Star (G-AGFM/FP244 - tail code 2)
Rigel Star (G-AGID/JX575 - tail code 3)
Antares Star (G-AGIE/JX577 - tail code 4)
Spica Star (G-AGKS/JX287 - tail code 5)


here's Altair Star taking off from the Swan River near Perth:



Though stripped of all non-essential equipment, including de-icing equipment and insulation, the average takeoff weight was 15,900 to 16,000 kg; this included 9,040 liters of fuel, which gave the Catalina a range of 3,600 nautical miles (6,700 km). In fact, they carried so much fuel that if one of the engines would need to be shut down during the first ten hours of the flight, landing on the ocean was inevitable.


The aircraft would follow the Australian coast to the north, before turning for Ceylon








 
Taking between 27 and 33 hours, with departure timed so that the flight crossed Japanese occupied territory during darkness, the crews would observe the sunrise twice, which led to the service being known as "The Double Sunrise".






First sunrise:






After the success of the initial flights, it was decided to run a weekly service, with some services flying over Rottnest Island and then taking a direct line to Kogalla.


 
next sunset:





and at dawn we approach Ceylon:



dependable engines!



and we make land exactly at Lake Kogalla:
 






As part of the Australia-England air route there was a surface component from Kogalla to Karachi that added considerable time to the service. This was later replaced by the Double Sunrise service, with Karachi to England flown by BOAC. Air crews would change in Kogalla taking the next plane in either direction minimising the time taken to complete the journey.


The service made 271 crossings, delivered over 4,500 kg of mail and carried 860 passengers, including among them British MP Edith Summerskill and the journalist Keith Murdoch. 'The Secret Order of The Double Sunrise' was an illustrated certificate given to passengers aboard the flying boats of the Australia-England air link, to attest they had been airborne for more than 24 hours


Qantas, with these flights, still holds the world record for the longest scheduled flight route (in time).
For more information about these flights, I suggest you visit http://www.catalinadoco.com/



As for my paint, (almost ready), of course the aircraft should not have any machine guns, or all those antennae, but alas, I am limited by the model, there is only one flying boat, and that comes with all the guns...


I do apologise for the sheer number of pics, but hey, they took far longer to finish the flight.....














 
I love this sort of post...informative (I had no idea Catalinas undertook these missions) and I suspect there will be some repaints in the offing:encouragement:.
 
Agree Roger:encouragement: I wasn't aware BOAC used Catalina's either. Nicely done Jankees:very_drunk:

ATB
DaveB:)
 
Ya bastard jankees i was only at the QANTAS museum the other day and took a heap of pics of the grey bird

You beat me to it, I had planned to do the fleet when time permitted

Youve done an outstanding job once again
 

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jeansy said:
Ya bastard jankees i was only at the QANTAS museum the other day and took a heap of pics of the grey bird

You beat me to it, I had planned to do the fleet when time permitted
Click to expand...

so sorry mate...

and yes, the fleet:

#1, Vega:


#2 Altair was above
#3 Rigel:


#4 Antares:


#5 Spica:


I still need to sort some odds and ends, but nearly there...
 
Im not bitching if anything im pleased you did them

i look forward to download them when i get back home

Like i said stuning work
 
slowly working my way through the odds and ends, getting there. I flipped the fin flash, changed the roundel, adjusted some distortions with the names, put the correct 'Qantas Empire" line with each aircraft etc etc..

#1, Vega Star:



#2 Altair Star:


# 3 Rigel Star:

turns out it had different font '3' than I originally thought..

#4 Antares Star:

discovered Antares actually had the registration on top of the wing, haven't been able to see this with the others
 
I like the names too, brings back memories of learning where these stars are in the night sky. Fun pointing some out to my children a couple of nights ago.
 
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