03-01-2006
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#1 (permalink)
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| Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Warwick,UK Real Name: Barry My Models: Aviation artifacts Visit wonwinglo's Gallery
Posts: 5,626
| Prototypes worth modelling-The Avro Lancaster bomber.
Avro Lancaster.  Avro Lancaster. The Lancaster flew for the first time on January 9,1941 as a four-engined development of the Avro Manchester designed by Roy Chadwick and his team of draughtsmen. The RAF began to equip with Mk Is in early 1942 and used them first on March 10th against targets in Essen. Altogether, more than 7,300 Lancasters were produced in Britain as Mks I to VII and Canada as Mk Xs built by Victory, and they dropped more than 608,000 tons of bombs on 156,000 wartime missions. Some Lancasters were still flying with the RAF in the early 1950s as maritime-reconnaissance, photo-reconnaissance and rescue aircraft before the Avro Shackleton appeared on the scene. Like all successful aircraft the Lancaster not only looked good but its flying characteristics matched its appearance. It is all the more ironic therefore that the birth of Avro's mighty machine owed so much to failure, the failure of its immediate predecessor, the twin engine Avro Manchester. The Avro 683 evolved almost accidentally as a result of recurrent failure of the insufficiently developed Rolls Royce Vulture engines installed in the Manchester. The industrial and military organisation needed to build and operate the Lancaster was huge. Six major companies built 7377 aircraft at ten factories on two continents; at the height of production over 1,100,000 men and women were employed working for over 920 companies. More service personnel were involved in flying and maintaining it than any other British aircraft in history. The Lancaster's operational career is littered with impressive statistics, but it is worth remembering that the average age of the seven-man crew was only 22 years. They endured danger and discomfort and many showed great courage in continuing to fly knowing the odds against survival were high. Bomber Command suffered the highest casualty rate of any branch of the British services in the Second World War,every week in the 'Flight' and 'Aeroplane' magazines there were lists of people lost whilst flying with Bomber Command. As a model subject the Lancaster represents a real challenge to produce an aircraft of such character and history,we owe a lot of our freedom to this aircraft and the brave pilots,gunners and bomb aimers who flew them,so why not treat this subject with the great respect that it deserves in model form, as a great tribute to these men ? If you get the chance then visit the Imperial War Museum collection at Duxford airfield,here you will be able to marvel at seeing a Lancaster at close quarters.
__________________ 'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !' www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/ |
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