Flight Refuelling Lancasters conversion – why?

A bit further searching found this video complete with sound –

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/mid-air-refuelled-jet-meteor-fighter-breaks-record

Thanks all for your replies and suggestions. A definitive answer does seem very elusive. In the meantime for anyone interested I stumbled across this video on Pathe – sadly no sound.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/new-record-for-jet-aircraft-made-possible-by-refue/query/gloster+meteor

Air-Britain have a book on the civil Lancasters, Lancastrians and York coming out in 2016, but its author hasn’t come across the reason for the short nose yet (no doubt the enquiry will generate some research). It wasn’t damaged in a ground collision and given a stumpy nose repair, was it?

The long nose of the Lancastrian also removed the turret etc. I didn’t mention CofG at all! I would imagine that any movement of CofG would be balanced by stowing the FU equipment towards the front of the bomb bay

Sorry – lazy grammar on my part – others had mentioned C of G !

The standard Lancaster nose was un-necessary for FL purposes so it’s not at all unreasonable to get rid of it. It does make the Lancaster look a little odd though.

But afaik only one Lanc Tanker had the extreme short nose conversion,which is why I originally wondered whether it had been chopped as part of its intended Tiger Force Tanker role or indeed modded by FRL ?
A company like FRL would only spend money doing absolutely necessary work – a short nose was not required for probe and drogue although I can see it might have been advantageous for downwards vision during the older method of flight refuelling (grapple line).

I doubt it Orion – the civvy lancastrians had a long nose and afaik used it for baggage stowage – also c of g would have tended to move aft with any modifications so I doubt the short nose was fitted for c of g reasons.

The long nose of the Lancastrian also removed the turret etc. I didn’t mention CofG at all! I would imagine that any movement of CofG would be balanced by stowing the FU equipment towards the front of the bomb bay

The standard Lancaster nose was un-necessary for FL purposes so it’s not at all unreasonable to get rid of it. It does make the Lancaster look a little odd though.

Part of the Glamorous Life of a test pilot : ) – shades of long distance glider flights : )

Just to get a more personal angle on the Lancaster/Meteor trials etc – here is an article/pics from Flight Magazine at the time of the 12 hour record breaking low level air refuelling flight around the Isle of Wight – Pat Hornidge (right) was the Meteor Pilot – Tom Marks (left) was the Lancaster Tanker Captain…

Includes a little tech detail on the kerosene tank…

Five standard fuel-booster
pumps were fitted to the 1,250-gall kerosene tank of the
Lancaster used on Sunday, and they transferred fuel at
about 100 gall /min.

I doubt it Orion – the civvy lancastrians had a long nose and afaik used it for baggage stowage – also c of g would have tended to move aft with any modifications so I doubt the short nose was fitted for c of g reasons.

Could it be that as a civvy aeroplane all signs of its military ancestry had to be removed? It would also reduce weight and the maintenance overhead not to mention the draughts!

Regards

The nose was wood, according to that link I posted earlier. Though it doesn’t say if all wood or not!

I’d always assumed it was something to do with forward/downwards vision. The form is so strange, with the nose following the line of the windscreen for much of the way, that there must have been a specific function which predicated it’s shape. Could they have been anticipating the fitment of a refuelling probe in the nose at a later date.

On the other hand I suppose it could have been more prosaic – rather than make a large three dimensional fairing, was it just easier to make much of the nose from a single akuminium sheet only bent in one plane and finish off the rest with a smaller worked three dimensional piece. It was only a trials aircraft after all.

Yes, but blunt noses add drag, reducing payload/range. A more shapely fairing would have been chosen had this been the requirements.

Jets burned Kerosene, and Merlins burned gasoline. The Kerosene was held in a separate tank in the bomb bay. If you want to make an aeroplane lift as much payload possible and fly as far as possible then get rid of all the unused structure and surface area.

As said one would imagine it was plumbed somewhere into a cross feed system or wing fuel system, you may find a lot of the forward plumbing etc threw the c of g out so far the nose was shortened to compensate for it being nose heavy. It may also have been part of a drag reduction programme to bring the lancs speed up to allow for the faster jets it found it was now refuelling.

Just a wild guess but haven’t they tried mounting a probe on the nose of that Lancaster to act as a receiver? Perhaps it was felt that the pilot would have a better view of this during refueling operations. I may have dreamt this up though….

Would seem an unnecessarily complicated way of sorting out C of G when you can just add ballast. Its not as if space or lifting capacity were problems with the airframe. I tend to think improving visbility from the tanker would be more likely

There’s a close up of the nose apparently while the aircraft was being converted here:

http://www.na3t.org/air/photo/GM00235-3

A mystery, indeed.

Was there a separate tank (in the fuselage?) for the refuelling trial?
When I saw that short nose I wondered if it was designed to have a refuelling probe fitted, may be at a later date?
mmitch.

There would have been a significant reduction in empty weight with the tail turret and war fit removed also, could this not just be a really simple CoG mod?

Good forward visibility as there was no need for the baggage long nose. I think the long nose was just for baggage as there was a shortage of space elsewhere, as Britten-Norman later did with the Trislander. Being a tail wheel, it serves no purpose to add a long nose that not needed, giving poorer ground visibility and extra weight.

It’s just a quick fair over job and I would think very much lighter than the original bomber nose with equipment removed.

Receivers received at the tail, not the nose.

Thanks for the info. It is all a mystery indeed!