Yes Peter in Garbett & Goulding their book on the Lancasters has some very well missioned Lancs were at first left to lanquish in fields and then chopped without a sigh from anyone, now they are consigned to history and photographs how sad it is.
Image some poor pilot returning at night, shot up, maybe a loss of blood, with a plane on the edge of extinction. It's awful easy, in battle conditions, to get mixed up with all the knobs and levers, especially in a Corsair that was very difficult to land on a carrier deck because the cockpit was located so far aft of the nose. I'll bet the sign was affixed because one or more pilots, perhaps in the state of shock, pulled the wrong lever.
The Corsair was almost seen as a failure as a ship-born aircraft because that massive engine with long nose was so difficult to line up for landing on the deck and to be able to see the arrestor cables so many crash landed because they couldn't easily judge where the arrestor gear were located (Little room for error in WWII era carriers!) As such, many Corsairs were at first mostly used at land based islands and flown a lot by the US Navy and Marines from land only. Many early Corsairs were given to the Royal Navy because of this (perceived) shortcoming. The British quickly devised a steep overhead approach landing method with full flaps where they came in high and banked sharply in a circular overhead approach method so they could line up with the center of the deck while banking sharply just before heading to the arrestor cables... After their success, the pilots of the Royal Navy trained the US Navy how to land the Corsair on ships! After that, the full potential of the Corsair was put to use!
I believe that it is known who asked that the Lancaster which is now in the R.A.F. museum, London be saved but I forget where exactly I heard or saw it. This particular example is interesting not just because of it being the Lancaster with the 2nd highest number of missions to it's name but also I believe that I am correct in saying that the fuselage of this particular aircraft was an Avro Manchester fuselage as many of the early Lancasters had. I believe that on this example the completed fuselage was taken off the Avro Manchester production line but it didn't actually fly as a Manchester.
When you see surviving vehicles, tanks and aircraft it makes you wonder what chance of fate looked kindly on that particular item to survive the gas axe. For instance, who exactly, personally signed-off that the last liberty ship should be preserved for the nation? And which particular person did the same for the top-scoring (but not quite as it later transpires) Lancaster that survives in London? Or that particular Corsair.......... Or ........
Probably the stroke of a genius in Chadwick planting 4 RR Merlins on that aircraft from memory they kept the wings to 100' so it could fit through the hanger doors, the Manchester if it lost an engine assumed the flying ability of a brick, more aircraft were lost or aborted than were lost on actual missions. The only real draw back for crews was the main spar which separated the crew and was a fair obstacle to negotiate in a burning spinning aircraft but that said it could carry an enormous bomb load.
Some Lanc's were fitted with radial air cooled engines and paddle propellor blades and were referred to by their crews as "Paddle Steamers" they were well liked by the crews no coolant to be lost, they climbed and flew very well, the Lanc was the only WWII aircraft that could carry the 22,000lb Grand Slam bomb the largest non-nuclear weapon dropped in WWII.
CE I love the crib in Pic 6 and the emergency stretcher you got a decent amount of room to nosh up as well not like today's commercial jets Thanks for the post.
Torpedo's No only the aerial mine - or bouncing bomb as they did not want to give the game away this in turn led to Highball where a Mosquito could deliver 2 small bouncing bombs at once for ships in the Fjords they carried out tests on an old battleship which I have forgotten the name of but it is there on utube. (HMS Malaya)
The Germans developed one as well but I think it was rocket powered (just to go one better)
Highball ~
The reason that the Lancaster had such a long bomb bay was because one of the design specifications of the Manchester was that it must be able to carry torpedoes and as the Lancaster inherited basically the Manchester fuselage it also inherited the long bomb bay. I have never heard of a Lancaster ever actually caring torpedoes or deploying them; does any-one know if this was ever attempted from a Lanc? It must have been tried from a Manchester as this was a design spec, although it may have only been tried.
Sorry about these two 'late entries', but I didn't think I'd ever find them on my hard-drive again..
This is a painting done by a Texan member of the CAF named Roy Grinnell depicting a Corsair on final with full flaps deployed for landing. Actually, they were usually very close to the carrier, but this gives a cool perspective.
Also in the same folder I located this photo that's pretty cool, as you can see part of the complex operation of the main gear folding up.
The 'History Channel' had a team at our hangar and they asked me if I could try to get a photo of their crew filming them "at work".
I emailed them a high resolution photo of this after they were filming at another location and they really liked the photo... (Lucky shot!)
CINDERS, doesn't the 22,000lb Grand Slam bomb remain the largest non-nuclear bomb to be actually used in anger in warfare and dropped from an aircraft to this day??? Although larger non-nuclear, air dropped, bombs exist I hadn't thought that they had actually been used in anger in warfare???
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Originally Posted by Seaspriter
