Lancaster WU15 Nose Art Question

The is a famous “cat’s ****” story associated with 138 Squadron from their Valiant days, as was once recounted to me at the Newark Air Museum Tribute to the V-Force event; details can be found in this web-article!

http://www.vforcereunion.co.uk/article2.html

Can anyone explain the cats ass zap further please? A friend who owns a canvas body Austin Seven special has the same image drawn by his late father in the engine bulkhead when the former RAF fitter was building the car. It’d be good to tell him more.

The cat design zap was certainly in use by the Visiting Aircraft Servicing Flight at Muharraq during the 67-68 period whilst I was there.

The other side and the port side. Port side view was taken at Muharraq on the journey to the UK so the ‘M’ was either put on at Muharraq or at another staging post or on it’s arrival at Biggin [ATTACH=CONFIG]256525[/ATTACH]

Folks,

Thanks for posting this – first time I’d seen a close-up of this.

For what it’s worth, my interpretion of these of markings, from top left:-

1. “Cat” design – 74 Sqn RAF ‘zap’
2. Large sponsor design
3. ‘Noddy” zap
4. French Sqn badge
5. Lynx head and dagger – 13 Sqn RAF ‘zap’
6. RNZAF ‘zap’
7. Large “M” zap
8. RAAF stencil
9. “C” Flight, 60 Sqn RAF stencil

I think designs 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 would have been applied using fluorescent orange tape/sheets.

Now my main question – can anyone identify design 7, the large “M” shaped zap?

It possibly looks like a marshaller, with ‘paddles’ – was this from an aircraft servicing flight? Any ideas?

WU15 didn’t have nose art as such, it was applied when she was G-ASXX preparing for her flight back to the UK.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dwhitworth/6486635855 🙂