Stronger in certain settings night etc, but not overpowered. I would not have complained had they originally been a tad higher in cost, like potentially several others Emily, Sparv etc. I have a lot of these at around a point higher. All the various card decks and therefore variants highlight this more. For example a British Catalina in my decks has to be the right points margin from a Sunderland to avoid imbalance one way or another. A few of the original aircraft were either overpriced(Older/fragile types) or slightly under for the beasts.
I don't necessarily blame the unit. Die rolls matter. Sounds like you were hitting on all cylinders and when that happens it doesn't take a great unit to totally mess up a build.