This PBY-6A, bureau number 64097, was built by Consolidated Aircraft in New Orleans in 1945. It was one of the last PBY’s built!

On September 20, 1945 it was delivered to the U.S. Navy and was assigned to Fleet Air Wing 8. In June 1946 it was put into storage. It was to be overhauled and assigned to the Naval Air Station New York in 1951. Two years later in was back in storage with 988 total hours. Taken back out of storage it was assigned to Naval Air Reserve Training at NAS Atlanta where it served from July 1955 to December 1956. From there it went back into storage in Litchfield Park AZ. Later that month it was removed from Navy inventory and in March 1957 it was sold to Babb Co. registered as N7082C.

In January 1959 it was converted into a water bomber. In June 1959 it was sold to Multiple Management Corp. in Long Beach as Tanker E94. In 1964 the aircraft went overseas to France for use by the Protection Civile at Marseilles. It stayed there known as the “Yellow Pelican” until 1973. In 1976 it was back in North America in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada registered as C-FHNF. It saw active service there until 1987 including a period of time when it was being leased by Haydn Air in Norwayduring the 1976-1977 time period . In 1987 it stored at Perry Sound ,Ontario, Canada. Now carrying the registration N7179Y it was sold to Aircraft Marketing in Albuquerque New Mexico where they attempted to auction it out but it was not sold.

1991 saw it in storage in Fort Lauderdale FL. From there it was acquired by the Confederate Air Force in February 1994. In June of that year it was moved the CAF’s Southern Minnesota Wing. It remained there until 1998 when a windstorm flipped the aircraft over on its back, destroying the wing and vertical tail surfaces. The aircraft was then trucked to Duluth Minnesota as that airport had the only hangar large enough to house the plane in the region. After PBY-6A N324FA ( the second PBY-6A CAF LSS is restoring) was discovered to corroded to be flyable, the decision was made to restore N7179Y.

Restoration started in 2009 with the biggest area being the swapping of the wing. The two aircraft were towed across the airport in Duluth to an, at the time, unoccupied airline service building. There the wing was taken off N324FA and re-installed on 79Y. Then both aircraft were brought back to the Lake Superior Squadron 101’s hangar. Restoration continued until 2018 when hangar 101 was condemned from structural damage sustained in a windstorm. Both N7179Y and N324FA were disassembled for the move to a new location in Superior, WI. Where restoration of N7179Y continues.