Lancaster questions

I’m with Peter and Lancman that the yellow indicates armour plating. And as Lancman said there is a lot of armour plate in the Lanc. With every recovery a large number of thick armour plate is found.

I also one heard a former crewmember say that by marking the armour plating with a yellow disk, this would also make it easier to allow for any compass deviation corrections to be made on said card.

Hope this helps

Cees

Could the colour relate to grade/thickness of armour or allocation to a particular type of aircraft ?

Thanks again, everyone!

Regards,

Paul

One of our elderly customers was a Lancaster pilot. I shall ask him next time I see him.

No it is not a gas detection patch. They are on the exterior usually on the nose section.

I have never known the exact reason for the yellow circle on the armour plate behind the pilot’s head.

The FN121 tail turret fitted to the Lanc has two pieces of armour. One piece that is approx. 15″ square and mounted between the centre upright frames, just in front of the gunner’s lower legs. The gunner’s oxygen economiser mounted in front of it!

The other piece (approx. 8 x 12″) was strapped just underneath the gunner’s seat cushion.

I discovered recently on one of the turrets I’m working on that the main armour plate also has a 3″ dia. yellow circle painted on it. Only visible from the inside of the turret.

I would love to hear the story behind this.

Any chance it was gas detector paint? Probably a stupid thought but perhaps someone can confirm?

It’s often stated that the plate behind the pilot’s head was the only bit of armour in the Lanc, but as Peter says, there were actually other bits on some machines. Also in some Lancs, mounted on top of the fuselage roof but under the canopy, on the stbd. side, was a ruddy great thick piece of perspex, which I also believe was ‘armour’ as such, presumably for the Flight Engineer’s head?

Good question as to why the pilot’s piece needed to have a bright yellow circle on it, though- it was kinda like giving the Germans something to aim at, after all…ten points if you hit the middle?!

Ouch.

Thank you very much, Peter!

Regards,

Paul

Hello The yellow marking was to identify that this was armor plate I think.
Some of the later lancs also had an armored door aft of the main spar and there was armor on top of the engines and reinforced leading edge plates to protect against balloon cable damage. W4783 in Australia still has the plates fitted to the wing leading edges.