A P2Y-1 of Patrol Squadron 10F in flight, 1934.
The lead P2Y-1 of Patrol Squadron 10F during the flight from Alameda, California, to Pearl Harbor in 1934. These aircraft provided the Navy with valuable operational and aircraft design experience prior to World War II.
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

A Flying Boat Progenitor

By Norman Polmar, Author, Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet
February 2020
Naval History Magazine
Consolidated P2Y-3

In many respects the progenitor of the military flying boats of the 1940s and beyond was the Consolidated P2Y.1 After World War I, several U.S. aircraft companies produced flying boats, some based on the PN aircraft, which itself had been developed from the F-5L flying boat.

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1. See Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft since 1911 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1968), 93–94; and John Wegg, General Dynamics Aircraft and Their Predecessors (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 65–67. The latter volume is the more complete.

2. Consolidated, formed in 1923, became Consolidated Vultee in 1943 by a merger of the two firms and was acquired by General Dynamics in 1953–54.

Norman Polmar

Norman Polmar is an analyst, consultant, and author specializing in naval, aviation, and science and technology issues. He has been a consultant or advisor on naval-related issues to three U.S. senators, the Speaker of the House, and the Deputy Counselor to the President, as well as to the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has written or coauthored more than fifty published books and numerous articles on naval, aviation, technology, and intelligence subjects.

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