Canada trip – highlight 2

At last the great day arrived, and the CWH Lancaster was there, outside and ready (1). We were at Hamilton, Ontario, briefed and ready to board this magnificent machine, four lucky passengers.
I was lucky enough to be the only passenger with a window, a tiny slot just behind the wing, and managed to photograph the lift-off (2) as the four mighty Merlins swept us off the ground. Up to cruising height of 2000 feet and then we could start to clamber around the rather cramped fuselage, including a peek forward from the mid-upper gun turret (3). The weather was perfect, fluffy clouds setting off the bright blue sky.
The amopunt of space for the pilot (4) and second pilot was surprisingly small, from the outside one doesn’t realise what a narrow cockpit there is in a Lancaster. The roar of the engines was intense but not unbearable – all of us passengers took off the ear defenders to savour the sweet sound of Merlins to the left of us (5) and Merlins to the right of us (6).
The fuel gauges are behind the second pilot (7) and on these flights operated by the flight engineer, what appeared to be fairly frequent necessity.
We had flown down south to Port Dover, here is the pilot’s eye view (8) of the coast.
There was no need for the direction finder loop aerial, decorated by an elk (Sweden) or a moose (Canada) (9), depending which country you come from!
Unfortunately the passenger-carrying regulations prevented anyone from descending into the bomb-aimer’s compartment (10) in front of the second pilot’s feet. The thrill of this flight was sufficient anyway, although the view from down there must have been stupendous!
End of part 1.