Hello, and greetings from Australia. I’ve read and enjoyed all of your posts for many years, but this is my first. Upon reading it, you might question my sanity! I’m a vintage aircraft pilot, Tigers, Chipmunks and the occasional Wirraway and Winjeel sortie.
I, and a couple of like-minded friends, have often discussed our dream of obtaining a suitable Lancaster, and returning it to flight. We are well aware of the enormous hurdles, both financial and practical, but would dearly love to have a flying Lancaster here in Australia to remember and to honour the 10000 Australians who served in Bomber Command, and the 3846 who were killed. We have had encouraging and genuine offers of support to make a project viable.
The United Kingdom has one, (and potentially two) flying Lancs, Canada has one. Is there the remotest chance we, (and NZ) could have one? Apart from G-George in the Australian War Memorial, obviously not a candidate, the only other Lancaster in Australia is at Bull Creek in Western Australia.
Are there any other airframes with any sort of potential extant?
I would love to hear some comments.
John
By: WebPilot - 3rd March 2014 at 09:48
Thanks for the correction!
By: richw_82 - 3rd March 2014 at 09:42
None in that picture… that’s FM221.
By: WebPilot - 3rd March 2014 at 07:54
There’s not much left of KB999. 🙁
By: hampden98 - 3rd March 2014 at 07:28
The impression I get though ( and you may know better) is that at that stage it was a fairly viable restoration, but since then its condition has worsened?
Moggy
Is this aircraft now with Kermit Weeks?
Last time I saw it, it was lying on the grass outside a hanger at Biggin Hill.
By: Vital Spark - 3rd March 2014 at 00:44
Given that FM 104 was basically a cheese cloth when she came down from her plinth, it does not seem likely she will ever fly once she is restored to reflection of her former glory. Perhaps we could pry off her data plate and send it to our cousins in the Southern Hemisphere, Re-building a large Avro product from scratch isn’t unprecedented.
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By: androodh - 2nd March 2014 at 22:40
Really, take the time to check out those picture galleries, some fantastic and rare shots there.
Just to update this reference to my KB976 website, I have just added another 300 pictures to the site, so its a bit more thorough now.
By: David Burke - 27th September 2013 at 19:01
I guess you mean third time lucky then?? It doesn’t also follow that an aircraft that has been out of the air for a very long time is also a viable project to restore to flight.
I imagine any application for an export permit would raise the question of the loss of Canadian cultural heritage but also beg the question of why cannot Australia restore a Lancaster like the example at Perth.
By: Arabella-Cox - 27th September 2013 at 18:36
Canada has supplied two Lancasters to foreign interests to be made airworthy. One has been stored in containers in Florida for twenty years and the other is static at Duxford. The track record for sending Lancasters abroad to be restored to fly long term isn’t looking great!
It doesn’t necessarily follow that if another was made available it would not be made airworthy.
Planemike
By: David Burke - 27th September 2013 at 18:18
Canada has supplied two Lancasters to foreign interests to be made airworthy. One has been stored in containers in Florida for twenty years and the other is static at Duxford. The track record for sending Lancasters abroad to be restored to fly long term isn’t looking great!
By: Ghostrider 01 - 27th September 2013 at 17:14
Here’s one
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234947360-lancaster-night-run-in-canada/
By: Mike J - 27th September 2013 at 14:23
You can contact him directly on his Facebook page.
Kermit’s Facebook page is not operated by him directly. He passes content and photos onto a middle man, who edits it and posts on his behalf.
By: Peter - 27th September 2013 at 13:53
Let’s look at them…
FM104 was up to a year or so ago, under long term restoration until the building she was housed in was slated for demolition so now she is in storage..
FM212 Under long term restoration to flight status and owned by the city of windsor..
FM213 Canada’s only flying lanc
FM136 just completed restoration and now painted as “lady Orchid” Owned by the city of Calgary
FM159 Owned by the town of Nanton and the Bomber Comand Museum under restoration to taxi status
KB839 On display at Greenwood Air Museum currently under repair
KB882 On display at the airport in Edmundston awaiting restoration..
KB944 on display in Ottawa at the national aviation museum
Out of all of these I would like to see KB882 brought in from the cold as she is the last intact Lancaster bomber on display outdoors.
So as you can see, all the canadian survivors are in good hands.
By: Arabella-Cox - 27th September 2013 at 13:35
Canada will hold onto her 8 survivor’s thank you very much 🙂 Would be nice to see if a deal could be made with Kermit though…
As for the Lanc KB999 wreck it is no longer viable and the york is protected as is the other two lanc wreck sites.
It would appear that Canada holds roughly half of the world’s surviving Lancasters and you say that one cannot be spared to be made airworthy so it can fly as a memorial in the Antipodes??? Wonder why??
Planemike
By: PanzerJohn - 27th September 2013 at 13:25
You can contact him directly on his Facebook page.Good luck, it would be fantastic is something happens!
https://www.facebook.com/KermitWeeks?fref=ts
Thank you all for your posts, and comments. Also, the terrific links to various aircraft, particularly the ones in Canada. I, and we appreciate that our Canadian friends would be loathe to part with one of their airframes, even though they have so many! LOL. ( I believe I put this in to show I’m attempting to be funny!) I doubt that Kermit would be prepared to part with his, but, Kermit, if you’re reading this, can we talk? I was about 11 when NX611 flew from Australia to the UK. I well remember thinking even then how wonderful and fitting it would be to have a flying Lancaster here in Australia. We live in hope.
John
By: Mike J - 27th September 2013 at 13:14
Silly nationalism doesn’t have (much) of a place in the warbird world.
An interesting comment, coming from the country where they deface anything and everything they get their hands on by plastering them with stars & bars. I’ve seen examples of L-29s, L-39s, Magisters, Strikemasters, Gnats and Iskry given this treatment. If this isn’t an example of ‘silly nationalism’, I don’t know what is!
The other observation I would make is that the US seems to be the only ‘first world’ country where there are still substantial numbers of WWII 4-engined bombers rotting into the dirt unprotected from the elements. I should look a little closer to home before being so openly critical of your cousins to the North!
By: clarkejw - 27th September 2013 at 13:02
Thank you all for your posts, and comments. Also, the terrific links to various aircraft, particularly the ones in Canada. I, and we appreciate that our Canadian friends would be loathe to part with one of their airframes, even though they have so many! LOL. ( I believe I put this in to show I’m attempting to be funny!) I doubt that Kermit would be prepared to part with his, but, Kermit, if you’re reading this, can we talk? I was about 11 when NX611 flew from Australia to the UK. I well remember thinking even then how wonderful and fitting it would be to have a flying Lancaster here in Australia. We live in hope.
John
By: J Boyle - 27th September 2013 at 05:15
my employer??
The information I used is from FlyPast…as a moderator of this site, which funded by the magazine, I assume there is some sort of relationship, even if unpaid.
By: tftoc - 27th September 2013 at 04:26
The problem with an airworthy Lancaster is that it has four merlins which makes the running costs fairly brutal for one airframe. For roughly the same amount of money and hanger space one could operate maybe three or four single seat fighters depending on what one chose. Still, it would be wonderful to see one flying it this part of the world.
Someone mentioned Mr Jackson in an earlier post which reminded of this photo of a prop (bad pun) from the dambusters remake. I’ve no idea of the current status.
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By: Peter - 27th September 2013 at 03:44
my employer??
By: J Boyle - 27th September 2013 at 03:29
Silly nationalism doesn’t have (much) of a place in the warbird world. Right now it’s money and “war prizes” that matter. In an ideal world, they would go where needed and appreciated. That might mean several warbirds leaving the US for Germany and Japan, I’m fine with that.
If Mr. Weeks is never going to do anything with his Lanc, than that should go, if he has plans to make it a major part of his fine facility where it will be seen and appreciated my many (and perhaps fly) then it should stay. In such an ideal (though hypothetical world of warbirds) I’d assume somewhere there should be a Lancaster that could be made airworthy in Australia as a tribute to Aus/NZ’s role in Bomber command. Since Canada has the largest concentration of the type in the world, logically the aircraft might/could/should come from there.
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September 26, 2013 at 11:27 am