Avro Lancaster B I Bomber
Bomber Plane

The Avro Lancaster is the most famous of the British WW2 Heavy Bombers, it was developed designed by a team led by Roy Chadwick from the existing twin engined, under-powered, Avro Manchester. The prototype Avro Lancaster first flew on the 9th of January 1941 and it's first operational sortie with the RAF in it's original BI guise took place during mid 1942. By the end of Lancaster production, a total of 7,377 aircraft had been built in Britain and Canada.

It is of note that the Avro Lancaster was the delivery system of Barnes Wallis's 1944 super-sonic 12,000-lb Tallboy bomb used in Operation Crossbow against the VI underground factories, and the 22,000-lb Grand Slam "earthquake" bomb successfully used against German U-boat pens protected by 23 feet of reinforced concrete. The best known Barnes Wallis bomb designed for the Lancaster bomber is the famous "Bouncing Bomb" used in the attack on the Ruhr dams Mohne and Eder during May 1943, the mission was led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson who received the Victoria Cross as a result of this raid, later immortalised by the film "Dambusters".

The Avro Lancaster B1 PA474 pictured above was built in 1945 stared in the film ‘The Guns of Navarone’, it joined the RAF's BBMF ‘Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’ in November 1973 and is the only British built Avro Lancaster still flying (one Canadian built Avro Lancaster MkX also remains airworthy).

It is of note that during WW2 Avro Lancasters dropped 608,612 tons of high explosives and in excess of 51 million incendiaries with an average combat life expectancy of approximately 21 sorties per aircraft (about 160 hours mission flight hours).

Avro Lancaster B1 Specifications:

• Crew: Pilot, navigator, flight engineer, wireless operator, bomb aimer/nose turret gunner, mid-upper gunner and rear gunner
• Length: 69 ft 5 in (21.18 m)
• Wingspan: 102 ft (31.09 m)
• Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
• Wing area: 1,300 ft² (120 m²)
• Empty weight: 36 828 lb (16,705 kg)
• Loaded weight: 63,000 lb (29,000 kg)
• Engines: Four 1,280 hp (954 kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin XX V12 engines
• Maximum speed: 240 knots (280 mph, 450 km/h) at 15,000 ft (5,600 m)
• Range: 2,700 NM (3,000 mi, 4,600 km) with minimal bomb load
• Service ceiling 23,500 ft (8,160 m)

Armament:

• Guns: Eight 0.303 in (7.70 mm) Browning machine guns in triple turrets
• Bombs: Maximum of 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) (typical 14,000 lb)