Sorry for linking to another forum but can anyone explain the lanc?
Ferry flight? Weather trials? Familiarisation tour?
By: Slummer - 20th June 2011 at 10:11
Thanks chaps
By: thawes - 17th June 2011 at 16:59
Flight Magazine of 21st December 1944 carried a snippet about a world tour by Avro Lancaster, Aries. (Probably the same trip mentioned in post #2 above).
The Avro Lancaster, Aries, which has been on a world tour partly for training purposes and partly to maintain active liaison with the Air Forces of the Commonwealth, returned to England last week.
Commanded by Wing Cdr. D. C McKinley, D.F.C., of Shropshire, the Aries had a crew of nine, which included three L.A.C.s — a rigger, engine-fitter, and electrician—and also carried Mr. H. C. Pritchard, of the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
The aircraft is attached to the Empire Air Navigation School administered by the Flying Training Command of the R.A.F., and is the first British Service aircraft to fly round the world as a normal job of work. The route was via Montreal, Washington, San Francisco, Honolulu, Canton Island, Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, India and Egypt
By: davecurnock - 17th June 2011 at 16:04
http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafshawbury/aboutus/history.cfm
Recognizing the need to be in the forefront of technology in navigation techniques, the school’s remit was extended to “consider navigation as a science and to carry out research into the problems of world-wide navigation”. This involved a series of long-distance navigation flights, the first and most famous of which was a record-breaking flight made from RAF Shawbury on 21 October 1944 when ‘Aries ‘, a Lancaster bomber, under the command of Wing Commander D C McKinley, took off on the first round-the-world trip by a British aircraft. The purpose of the flight was to establish a practical liaison between the Empire Air Navigation School ( the CNS having been renamed while Aries was away) and operational units under the control of the Royal Australian and Royal New Zealand Air Forces. The following year Aries underwent significant modification in preparation for important research flights, in May 1945, to the geographic and magnetic North Poles. On 31 July 1949, the school’s title reverted to the CNS, but only for a short while as the station was about to take on another important training role.
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That’s all I could find on Aries – anybody ?
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June 17, 2011 at 10:08 am