I'm interested in building a Catalina (seems like Academy's 1/72 is the way to go), but I'd like to put a crew in the plane if possible. I don't know if there are any Catalina-specific crew kits, or what US WWII crew kits are available in 72-scale that will work easily with a PBY-5. I can do a bit of "surgery" to make figures fit correctly, but I'm really not that good yet, so the less work I have to do on them, the better. Can anyone tell me what figure kits I should look for to fit in Academy's 1/72 kit? Thanks in advance!

Pretty much any generic seated pilots would do to fill the cockpit,, bonus if they're already USN figures. The gunners in the waist positions would be the most visible, but any generic standing gunner figure would probably work. I can't give you any specific figure recommendation though, because I don't use figures so I haven't been paying attention to what's available.

Don't know if the gunners would wear life jackets or not, but the Revell 1/72nd scale PT. boat came to mind. You could always carve/sand them off if not used onboard. Another thought, Hasegawa has some 1/72nd modern figure sets of pilots and ground crew in coveralls and such that would be adaptable too.