PBY Seaplane will get its wings

Oak Harbor’s resident seaplane is about to look like its old self again.

Oak Harbor’s resident seaplane is about to look like its old self again.

The PBY-5A Catalina, the signature piece of the downtown PBY-Naval Air Museum, is scheduled to have its outer wings reattached Saturday, Nov. 28.

The 72-year-old aircraft, once stationed on the Seaplane Base of Whidbey Island Naval Air Station during World War II, has been missing its outer wings since the plane was moved to its present location on Pioneer Way in January.

A team made up of foundation members and retired and active duty naval volunteers will use a crane truck to lift the wings on to the platform of a cargo loader. From there, the platform will be raised high enough to allow the crew to reattach the wings.

The work will start at 9 in the morning and is expected to last much of the day.

“It’s going to be a fun event for people who come to the museum this weekend to come over and watch,” said Wil Shellenberger, president of the PBY Memorial Foundation, the nonprofit group that operates the museum.

The weather is expected to cooperate. In past weeks, high winds and a fuel filter issue with the cargo loader prompted the project to be postponed.

Shellenberger said he was grateful for Oak Harbor Signs, which is donating the use of the crane truck.

“We’ll do the right wing, then have to move over to the left wing,” Shellenberger said. “It is going to be pretty much an all-day evolution.”

The museum is located at 270 S.E. Pioneer Way.