Catalina Villas

Catalina Villas, just off Lawrence Road, Mount Batten, form part of an attractive six-property development which was completed in 2001. The detached luxury homes were designed by the Exeter firm of Kensington Taylor and the development, like most of those recently built around it, takes its name from the area's past.

The twin-engined Catalina maritime patrol flying boat is the most famous aircraft of its type. No other flying boat has been produced in such quantity - more than 4,000 between 1935 and 1945.

The RAF brought them to Mount Batten - an air station they established here as ealry as 1913 - and they were a familiar sight and sound in the city.

Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, its makers, gave it the offical designation PBY, but in RAF service the name Catalina was adopted: though used earlier by consolidated, the US forces didn't start using the name until 1942. The Royal Canadian Air Force knew it as the Canso, and the Russians built their own copy, called the GST

But why Catalina (orginally Porugese, via the Greed for Katherine)? Perhaps the limit of its range from the UK - Catalina in Newfoundland - or fashionable Catalina Island, near the Consolidated plant in San Diego, California.

EH 6 September 2003