This aircraft was built by Consolidated Aircraft Corporation at San Diego, California - 1942

It was allocated the 'Construction Number 122' with the 'Hull Number 808'

It was intended for the Royal Air Force under the 'Lend/Lease' program as 'FP221'

First flown at San Diego - August 05, 1942

Departed San Diego on the ferry flight to the United Kingdom - August 10, 1942

This aircraft was not taken-up by the Royal Air Force but reallocated to British Overseas Airways Corporation

Entered onto the British Aircraft Register as G-AGFL (CofR 9394/1) - October 27, 1942

Registered to British Overseas Airways Corporation, Clifton, Bristol (BOAC's wartime headquarters)

The Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA No. 6946) issued - October 31, 1942

Operated its first BOAC service Foynes - Lagos as 5W135 - November 08 - 13, 1942

Operated its final BOAC service Lagos - Poole as 6W173 - March 12 - 17, 1943

Ferried Poole - Hythe to undergo modifications prior to transfer to Indian Ocean services with Q.E.A.

Departed Poole on the ferry flight to Ceylon as DE186 - April 14, 1943

It arrived at Koggala (Ceylon) on completion of the ferry flight - April 25, 1943

Ferry route: Poole - Foynes - Gibraltar - Cairo - Karachi - Cochin - Trincomalee - Koggala

This aircraft was to be operated by Qantas Empire Airways on the Indian Ocean services from Perth

The aircraft was named 'Vega Star' and allocated the number '1'

Operated its first service with Qantas Empire Airways Perth - Koggala as 1Q2 - July 22 - 23, 1943

Operated its final Qantas Empire Airways service Koggala - Perth as IQ132 - July 08 - 09, 1945

It was withdrawn from service and stored at Nedlands, Crawley Bay, Perth - July 09, 1945

Cancelled from the British Aircraft Register - November 28, 1945

Under the Lend / Lease agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, this aircraft had to

be returned to the United Kingdom or destroyed once it had been withdrawn from service

The Royal Air Force representatives in Australia at that time deemed that the aircraft must be destroyed

It was intended to scuttle the aircraft off Rottnest Island (near Perth)

As the Perth - Fremantle road bridge had been improved it was not possible to tow the aircraft out of Crawley Bay

The R.A.F. directed that the aircraft be made airworthy and flown to a point some 5 - 18 miles off the coast of

Rottnest Island and then scuttled in approximately 200 metres of water

Test flown at Nedlands - February 13, 1946

Flown to a location near Rottnest Island and scutttled in approximately 200 metres of water - February 14, 1946

After the scuttling, the General Manager of Qantas Empire Airways, Hudson Fysh, was scathing that a decision was

made to scuttle a perfectly good Catalina, that had been used on the Indian Ocean service, when the

airline was critically short of capacity following the end of World War II

To view the Operational Record of this aircraft please click 'HERE'