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What does "Guba", the name of Richard Archbold's Catalinas, mean?
Short answer
"Guba" is a male name from Papua New Guinea meaning "a rain squall at sea". Richard Archbold gave this name to the modified PBY-1, registered as model 28-1, that he bought from Consolidated in 1937 to support a planned expedition to New Guinea.
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A name from Papua New Guinea
Guba is a male name from Papua New Guinea meaning "a rain squall at sea". In 1937, Dr. Richard Archbold bought the first commercial PBY from Consolidated, a modified PBY-1 registered as model 28-1, and named it Guba to use in support of a planned expedition to New Guinea.
Canada and the search for Levanevsky
Canadian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins flew the Guba to Coppermine, in Canada's Northwest Territories, on 23 August 1937, and made five search flights during August and September. The Soviet government had asked Archbold to sell them the Guba for $230,000. Archbold agreed, and the Soviets used it to search for Sigismund Levanevsky and his crew, who disappeared during a flight over the North Pole from the Soviet Union to Fairbanks.
The Guba II and the westward flight
The expedition used a PBY-1 Catalina flying boat named Guba II, piloted by Russell R. Rogers. Toward the end of the expedition, in 1939, with Archbold determined to return to the United States by crossing the Pacific, he was contacted by Captain P. G. Taylor. The Guba II turned out to be the only aircraft suited to the task on such short notice, and the Australian government in fact chartered it for the crossing. Except on the first leg, when the aircraft had to divert via Batavia (now Jakarta) after leaving Port Hedland due to bad weather, the flight went off without major problems. In Mombasa, Taylor left the crew to return to Australia, and Archbold continued westward, landing in New York in July 1939.
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