Catalinas would be fun for single player campaigns and missions. They could carry a mix of bombs and torpedos and flying the way they do would make it quite a challenging affair to survive a campaign in one.
On the other hand, this would have to be specifically tailored and balanced by the mission designer. For example, in an online environment i wouldn't bet on them being very popular.
They're one of the slowest types ever built, with a normal cruise speed between 95-105 knots IAS, maybe 120 knots for short periods of time before overheating and they don't even have flaps. I did a 10-hour simulated flight in one from Bahamas to St.Martin on a friend's PC, but that was on FSX and we could save mid-flight to continue another day. It's a fun bird to fly, stable, pondering and with a lot of character, but not exactly what i'd like to fly into a flak protected zone
Could work well for patrols hunting U-boats but then again, this would have to be scaled appropriately as not many people would be willing to fly for 10 hours to see a single U-boat or none at all. The range on that thing is insane however, we started that 10-hour simulated carribean tour i did with my buddy on full tanks and after landing it was still more than half-full.
They were used as airliners in Australia back in the day and i think they still hold a record for longest flight times among commercial passenger airlines, with routes as much as 20-22 hours long
I wouldn't mind flying a coastal command campaign in a catalina
