Consolidated P2Y
The Consolidated P2Y is a twin-engined patrol flying boat developed for the US Navy from the company's Commodore airliner line and first flown in 1932. A sesquiplane whose small lower wing carried its stabilizing floats, it equipped Navy patrol squadrons through the 1930s and made the long-range formation flights — among them the first non-stop formation flight from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor in January 1934 — that taught the Navy how to deploy patrol aircraft across the Pacific. It left front-line service in 1941 and finished its US career as a trainer.
Why It Mattered
The P2Y was the second flying boat Consolidated designed for the US Navy and the first the company produced itself, its earlier XPY-1 having gone to Martin for production after Martin underbid it. J. Rickard's History of War describes the type as generally considered the first modern patrol aircraft to serve with the US Navy. It remained in front-line use for eight years from 1933. In that time the Navy worked out patrol operating procedures on the type that it later applied to the far more numerous PBY Catalina. The National Air and Space Museum notes that the P2Y-1 was an improved version of the Commodore airliner, and that in 1931 it finally drew the Navy's attention.
Design Notes
Consolidated kept the wing of its XPY-1 but made the new aircraft twelve feet longer, and the crew sat in enclosed compartments inside the hull. A small lower wing mounted level with the top of the hull carried the outrigger floats, giving the sesquiplane layout and a much larger wing area than the XPY-1. The prototype was built with three Wright Cyclone engines, two below the wing and a third above it, but flight tests showed the third engine brought no improvement and it was removed. On the XP2Y-2 the engines moved into nacelles on the leading edge of the wing, reducing drag, and P2Y-1s rebuilt to that standard became P2Y-2s. The P2Y-3, ordered on 27 December 1933, kept the same leading-edge nacelles.
Operational History
Consolidated received the contract to develop the new flying boat on 26 May 1931, and the XP2Y-1 first flew on 26 March 1932. Twenty-three P2Y-1s were ordered on 7 July 1931, and the first squadron to receive the aircraft was VP-10S, on 1 February 1933. The type also served with VP-5F, and the two squadrons made a number of long-range formation flights. In January 1934, the Navy News Service almanac records, Patrol Squadron 10F made the first non-stop formation flight from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor, arriving on 11 January. The P2Y-3 entered service in 1935 and survived as a front-line aircraft until 1941. The last P2Y in squadron service, a P2Y-3 of VP-43, was still in use on 31 March 1941. By the end of 1941 all surviving P2Ys had moved to NAS Pensacola, where they were used as training aircraft.
Afterlife
Out of the front line after 1941, the P2Y spent its last American years as a trainer at Pensacola. Vintage Aviation News dates the retirement of the last examples in US Navy service to 1943. A few aircraft went abroad: Wikipedia records one delivered to Colombia in December 1932, one to Japan in January 1935, and six P2Y-3As to Argentine Naval Aviation, listed there as serving from 1936 to 1949. Vintage Aviation News instead gives 1946 for the retirement of the last export aircraft, in Argentina. The design line continued in the XP3Y-1 and the PBY Catalina, the patrol flying boat the National Air and Space Museum calls the US Navy's most successful of the Second World War.