Flying the Avro Lancaster is the fourth
programme from the Classic Cockpit series which accompanies Flying the De
Havilland Vampire, DC-3 and PBY Catalina.
Derived from the twin-engine Avro
Manchester, the Lancaster
was designed for one purpose; to carry bombs. Its bomb bay was stressed to take
more than twenty thousand pounds of high explosive. Powered by four Rolls Royce
engines, it carried enough fuel to take it deep into the German heartland,
destroying cities and wreaking havoc on Hitler’s heavy industries.
The Lancaster is probably best known for
the famous ‘Dam Busters Raid’ in May 1943, when aircraft of the RAF’s 617
Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder, Sorpe and Ennepe dams in the Ruhr, using the
revolutionary ‘bouncing bomb’ designed by Dr Barnes Wallis.
In this documentary film the Lancaster is flown from its base at the Canadian WarplaneHeritage Museum
at Hamilton, Ontario
by Don Schofield, a retired Air Canada
captain.
After a detailed cockpit tour and
pre-flight inspection, we join the crew for some local flying in the Hamilton area. Multiple
cameras provide detailed coverage in the cockpit while cameras in accompanying
B-25 Harvard and Bell Jetranger provide spectacular aerial prospective