I saw a few Lancasters today

Acually, I prefer to call it “the bomber”, or even better, “THE bomber”.

PA474, as to call it anything else is a bit silly as the srtwork on the port side will keep changing.

I was giving this some thought and remembered that in the olden days the Lancaster PA474 which is currently being referred to in the media and by its millions of fans as “Thumper III” used to be known not by its ever changing port-side nose art identity but by its constant starboard nose art identity, “City of Lincoln”. I wonder why the BBMF have allowed this change to develop away from ‘City of Lincoln’ in media reports.

Yes, I remember that too; in the 80s it was always ‘City of Lincoln’, carried on the port side of the nose before the aircraft started wearing more elaborate nose arts and it had to be moved to the other side. I first noticed the move towards calling it by it’s nose art identity when the facebook page really got going, with references to ‘The Phantom’, but it really seems to have gotten out of hand now with this ‘Thumper’ stuff.

Whether it’s a conscious PR thing to make the aircraft seem more friendly and accessible somehow, or a practice usually kept within the Flight that has slipped out into the PR world, or something else, I don’t know, but although one could argue that it doesn’t really matter, I’m certainly one Lancaster fan/BBMF supporter who doesn’t like it. BBMF, can we not just stick to ‘PA474’, please?

The one on top: F-86 it is! Knew I’d seen that frame before 🙂
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efer_GCo-Ag

I was giving this some thought and remembered that in the olden days the Lancaster PA474 which is currently being referred to in the media and by its millions of fans as “Thumper III” used to be known not by its ever changing port-side nose art identity but by its constant starboard nose art identity, “City of Lincoln”. I wonder why the BBMF have allowed this change to develop away from ‘City of Lincoln’ in media reports.

Thanks Steve you beat me to it.. but would be better to exclude the east ones for now and do Ontario and Alberta…

You could, if you had say a Lear or some such at your disposal, see six intact Lancs in Canada in a 24-hour day…going west to east to take advantage of the prevailing wind… 🙂

FM136, Calgary, Alberta
FM159, Nanton, Alberta (…you’d have to drive from Calgary and back, as Nanton has no nearby airfield)

FM213 (“KB726”), Hamilton, Ontario
KB944, Ottawa, Ontario (plus a nicely-presented forward fuselage)

KB882, Edmundston, New Brunswick
KB839, Greenwood, Nova Scotia

To those, eventually, two more will be added, being FM104 at Toronto and FM212 at Windsor, but both are currently disassembled, with 104 in store awaiting resolution of the status of the former Toronto Aerospace Museum and 212 under rebuild.

I’m not troubled in the slightest by the use of the nicknames for the two Lancs now on the circuit over ‘ome, and had already thought of the nice tie-in with Dame Vera Lynn (who appeared at the 1990 Hamilton airshow BTW)…but I do wonder why VRA’s name suddenly appeared at the start of the Lanc’s tour, twenty-six years into her civilian flying career! For the record I quite like it. Previously she’d always been referred to as the Mynarski Lanc, as VRA, or as FM213. Nobody here ever seems to call her “KB726”. Whatever the nomenclature, I’ve been revelling in the photos and videos presented online showing the pair in flight together. Magnificent. Living in Hamilton I frequently see VRA in the air (and always know when I’m about to: that sound is like nothing else and can be heard for miles)…throat gets lumpy and both eyeballs fog up every time…even if I was born in 1965. What a thrill it must be to see two firsthand.

That scrapyard pic is fascinating and melancholy in equal measure. To think Guy Gibson’s ED932/G ended up like that…

S.

The small a/c sitting on the top right is a Vampire.

John

And the “Thumper” Lanc nose-art is indeed historic:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/news/index.cfm?storyid=48037260-5056-A318-A82DC18C0C7DA123

The RAF BBMF Lancaster, PA474, has taken on a new ‘identity’ as 617 Squadron Lancaster B1, DV385, “Thumper Mk III”. This aircraft was one of the brand-new standard Lancasters issued to 617 Squadron as replacements after the ‘Dams Raid’ in 1943.

DV385 was delivered to 617 Squadron in November 1943, whilst the unit was based at Coningsby, and then moved with the Squadron to Woodhall Spa in January 1944. The aircraft was retro-fitted with bulged bomb bay doors to enable it to carry a 12,000-lb ‘Tallboy’ ‘earthquake’ bomb internally, and it initially wore the code letters ‘KC-A’ (later on it was also coded ‘KC-V’ and then ‘KV-T’).

The “Thumper” nose art features the cartoon rabbit – from the 1942 Walt Disney cartoon ‘Bambi’ – holding a foaming pint of beer.

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Of course, I should be upset over the BBMF stealing an all-American nose-art!

B-29 bomber 497th BG 870th sqn THUMPER nose art 42-24623 Tinian 1945

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In addition to a B-25 & P-40 with the Disney bunny on their nose, I found this strange bird:
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I don’t know – VRA = Vera… and you should, if the name is mentioned, simply state “It is a tribute to the wartime morale-boosting efforts of Dame Vera Lynn!”.

Speaking of “cute & cuddly” aircraft names: http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/noseartnls3.html

And its even Canadian!

[QUOTE]When a brand new Halifax bomber MZ-813 (QB-B) was assigned to Jack Dundas, a pilot with No. 424 Squadron, Dundas and his crew were faced with deciding what sort of nose art beginning with the letter “B” they could decorate her with. The majority of the crew favoured the name “Beer Barrel Betty” with artwork of a female figure to match. However, Jack felt that they needed something different and recalls, “So I exercised my right and told the crew that, as skipper, we were going to do it my way! No. 424 was based within walking distance of the town of Thirsk and one day in a bookstore there, I spied a child’s paint book with the little Walt Disney ‘Bambi’ on the cover. I thought, ‘Dainty little Bambi, bloody great Halifax, what a contrast!’ So I bought the book and had the ground crew nose artist paint the book cover on the nose of the Halifax./QUOTE]

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unless you have really good eye sight, do you even see the serials when the a/c roar overhead? Surely thats more thrilling???

With a teleport, perhaps, otherwise probably not

Tedious, in the extreme.

Makes me shy away from the Thread for fear of the T-Shirt waffle erupting again.

PLEASE. Keep on Track.

With a teleport, perhaps, otherwise probably not

Anyway, my reason for posting is to ask when the last time was that anybody would have had the opportunity to see five fully-assembled Lancasters in a single day. My guess would be the late-50s or early-60s.

If you had fast enough transport, could you do it in Canada?

You mean like ‘The Movie Memphis Belle’?

Embrace the change.

Never mind, it must be due for a repaint soon. What will all the numpties do then, when it has a new name, assume we have another Lancaster flying? 🙂

PA474 has been “Thumper Mk111” since back end of 2012. It’s the markings for the Dambusters 70th representing a 617 Squadron aircraft. Before that she was, of course, “Phantom of the Ruhr”, that doesn’t have the same ring to it!
BBMF used to refer to her as “The Bomber”.
As for “Vera”, she is, of course, C-GVRA and nothing else.
Still, at least MSM is now beginning to report on this, they have been a bit slow.

Embrace the change.

And correct me if I am wrong but PA474 – BBMF Lanc – has never been Thumper until a week or two ago, has it? Why now? In fact most won’t know what is being referred to on first hearing.