Lancastrian freighter ?

Lincoln RE376 conversion

From page 35 of “Avro Lincoln – Warpaint Series no. 34”
Caption:
“Lincoln RE376 rebuilt as Peruvian meat freighter ZP-CBR-97 in 1958-59. It never flew in this form.”
I must have seen this aircraft while cycling with my mates to plane-spot at Tollerton and/or Langar, but don’t remember it!

The middle of the three pictures posted by SPITEFUL is a Charles E Brown image ref P100027, captioned as being fuel oil tankers on the Berlin Airlift 1947/8 with Skyways.

OOOPs Didnt notice this was a old thread.

Unfortunately didn’t keep logs of numbers, somewhere we have a newspaper cutting in a scrap book relating to these Lincolns, will dig it out when I take me mum back to Notty tomorrow.

See my new thread, re my brothers photo album, all were burnt at Tollerton shortly after the pictures were taken.

And the one at Tollerton was one of those that (literally) never got off the ground ?

The meat freighter conversion of Lincoln airframes is a whole new can of worms! When the planned Lincoln U.5 programme, to convert to old bombers to pilotless drones, was cancelled, three of the 40-odd aircraft assembled at Avro’s Langar factory were purchased on 24.9.47 with the intention of producing aircraft to carry meat between Paraguay and Peru.

They were moved to Tollerton for Field Aircraft Services to do the job.

RE376 became the prototype, and is the one photographed with a deep fuselage and fully faired-in nose, much bigger than the Lancastrian nose. This carried the Paraguayan registration ZP-CBR-97. Although the conversion appears to have been completed, there is no evidence that it ever flew and it was sold for scrap in 9.59 at Tollerton, as were RF417/ZP-CBQ-96 and RF458/ZP-CBS-98.

So your photo Pete, must be either… RE376, RF417 or RF458.

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See my new thread, re my brothers photo album, all were burnt at Tollerton shortly after the pictures were taken.

bump-se-daisy

Has anyone got some pics og the Lincoln coversions (Lincolnian?). Also any colour pics of Lincolns (my father was a RAAF armourer with them during the Malay Emergency and I have a soft spot for them)

I can post some pics if people would like (only asking since it is slightly of topic).

It’s apparent to me there’s lots of Lancastrian knowledge here so my apologies for the ignorant question, but perhaps someone won’t mind providing a quick lesson? Mt position is I know next to nothing about Lancastrians – and I thought they were all conversions of Lancasters. Are you saying Robbelc that they, or some of them anyway, were new build? And are you also saying that a coverted ex-miltary Lancaster was less economical to run than a Lancastrian?
I appreciate I’m reading between the lines a fair bit here, butr merely reflects my ignorance on this subject.

Looks like this has been allready answered but what what I know that some were modified from standard Lancs in the early production stages(those in the G-AHBT-HCE series) and a few were conversions of allready used Lancs. Many more were reserved for civil use than actually became civil, many went as Lancastrian III’s to the RAF.
Would be interesting to know how long Alitalia flew their 5 for and on what routes? Any ideas?

Does anyone have a copy of ‘Berlin Airlift’ by Arthur Pearcy/Airlife ?

Actually I do – but I will only be able to check later tonight.

Martin / Swiss Mustangs

Enough. Too much, some might say.

Allan

Indeed, i agree with James, fascinating stuff… a most enlighting thread of an overlooked part of Lanc’ history. 😀

No Allan,
Lovely stuff. Keep it coming. 😉

For Dave T:

The meat freighter conversion of Lincoln airframes is a whole new can of worms! When the planned Lincoln U.5 programme, to convert to old bombers to pilotless drones, was cancelled, three of the 40-odd aircraft assembled at Avro’s Langar factory were purchased on 24.9.47 with the intention of producing aircraft to carry meat between Paraguay and Peru. They were moved to Tollerton for Field Aircraft Services to do the job. RE376 became the prototype, and is the one photographed with a deep fuselage and fully faired-in nose, much bigger than the Lancastrian nose. This carried the Paraguayan registration ZP-CBR-97. Although the conversion appears to have been completed, there is no evidence that it ever flew and it was sold for scrap in 9.59 at Tollerton, as were RF417/ZP-CBQ-96 and RF458/ZP-CBS-98.

Lincoln G-ALPF was long gone by this time, having been scrapped at Southend in late 1952/early 1953. Its pannier was a bit like that on the Halifax A.VII/C.VIII, and as it was only about the length of the bomb bay, it didn’t reach the nose, consequently the faired nose was much more like a Lancastrian nose than the meat freighter nose.

For Gnome – Lancaster or Lancastrian?

I think Eddie (with 682al’s amendment ref Aries) has it right. If the airframe was removed from the Lancaster production line at a very early stage and given a in-depth conversion, or built from scratch as such , then it was a Lancastrian. If it was a Lancaster taken from service or store and given a ‘cosmetic’ conversion ie fairings for nose, bomb bay, rear turret and other relatively minor changes, it remained a Lancaster eg PP690/G-AGUL, PD328/Aries, TW870 and others. ‘Fraid I can’t offer any thoughts on relative running costs.

Having said all that, the Canadian conversions don’t fit that rule above. A number of Lancasters X’s were diverted from the Victory Aircraft production line at an early stage, considerably modified but then identified as ‘Lancaster XPassengerPlane’ or ‘Lancaster XTransport’, not Lancastrian. The X didn’t signify anything experimental or special, it was just a mark number in the Roman numerals used at that time. CF-CMX in the photos supplied by Spiteful was one of those, being FM184 originally.

A few of these Lancasters/Lancastrians had quite colourful careers, some ending with ‘OnzeAir’ in Pakistan, carrying ‘certain stores’ into what was then a war zone. OnzeAir? Onze – the French for eleven; the Eleventh Commandment – “Thou shalt not be found out”!

Enough. Too much, some might say.

Allan

Ooops – it is a proper Lancastrian type conversion though, with full windows on the stbd side etc.

The third aircraft is a Lancastrian – Aries, which was used by the Central Navigation School, and it was the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe, apparently.

Steady, Eddie. Aries was actually a Lancaster, which explains the H2s blister!

Mant thanks Eddie
edit oops – half man, half ant. s/be “many” 😉

I guess I should clarify that the Lancastrians were largely new production aircraft… And I’m guessing that the Lancaster Freighter wasn’t terribly effective because it was rather limited in the volume of cargo that it could carry.

Something I wrote to accompany a project I’m working on at the moment:

“The Avro Lancastrian was descended from the famous Lancaster bomber. Canadian produced Lancasters were built at Victory Aircraft in Toronto. They converted British built Lancaster R5727 into a passenger carrying aircraft for the Trans-Canada Air Lines. In its new specification, as the Lancaster XPP, the aircraft was flown to Britain and further modified by Avro, who began to design a more in depth conversion – the Lancaster Mailplane, which was later renamed the Lancastrian. In late 1943 Lancaster DV379 became the first aircraft so converted.

The first aircraft built as Lancastrians were sold to British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) for use on a service to Australia

The Mark 3 Lancastrian was developed for use by British South American Airways (BSAA). The first flight out of Heathrow airport was in 1946, when BSAA Lancastrian G-AGWG “Star Bright” set off on a proving flight to Buenos Aires, with Captain D.C.T. Bennett at the controls. By June, a regular service to Santiago had been established. The Lancastrian G-AGWH “Star Dust” was lost in mysterious circumstances in the Andes, on a flight to Santiago – the aircraft transmitted a Morse code message at 17:41, announcing an ETA of 17:45, followed by the mysterious word “STENDEC”, which was repeated twice. Nothing more was heard from the aircraft, until in January 2000, a Merlin engine emerged from a glacier in the Andes. The aircraft had apparently flown into the summit of Mt. Tupangato, and the wreckage had been hidden ever since by snow.”

according to Putnams ‘British Aircraft since 1919’ all Avro 691 Lancastrains were built, or converted for pax use although some were used for frieght at the end of their lives.
BSAAC had 4 standard Lancaster 1’s converted into freighters. They had the elongated nose but were window less, and had no tail come just a painted over turrett. They only lasted around a year as they were very uneconomical.
However one of these G-AGUM was sold to Airtech Ltd at Thame for fitting of a pannier for the airlift.’GUM was scraped at Dunsfold 1949.

It’s apparent to me there’s lots of Lancastrian knowledge here so my apologies for the ignorant question, but perhaps someone won’t mind providing a quick lesson? Mt position is I know next to nothing about Lancastrians – and I thought they were all conversions of Lancasters. Are you saying Robbelc that they, or some of them anyway, were new build? And are you also saying that a coverted ex-miltary Lancaster was less economical to run than a Lancastrian?
I appreciate I’m reading between the lines a fair bit here, butr merely reflects my ignorance on this subject.

Whoops – just noticed the first Lancastrian of Spiteful’s pics is still in Trans Canada colours, not in Flight Refuelling colours!

Civil Lancs & Lincolns

I don’t have a copy of Arthur Pearcy’s book, but for what it’s worth, I think that the aircraft you describe is indeed Lincoln G-ALPF/RE290. The nose fairing on G-ALPF was built on the original Lincoln fuselage, not the deepened fuselage developed later for the failed meat carrier conversion of the Lincoln. Consequently the appearance of the fairing on G-ALPF was closer to that of the Lancastrians. And the fuselage pannier was a very obvious bolt-on underneath, not faired into the nose. ‘Lincoln at War’ pages 154/5 have a couple of good shots of G-ALPF before and after conversion. It was converted in 1949 and went on to complete 46 operations on the Airlift, 1 freight and 45 hauling fuel oil.

Yes indeed, many thanks Allan and to those posting the pic’s. On Google theres a pic of ZP-CBR with the deeper bomb bay (sealed ?) and also deeper Lancastrian nose fairing blended in to suit. Is this the same as G-ALPF ?

I’ve also seen quoted the following registrations: RE376, RF417, RF458, ZP-CBQ and ZP-CBS. Perhaps the civil & miltary reg’ is one & the same a/c ? But just how many ‘meat hauler’ type conversions were there ?

Going back to the Berlin Airlift, the pic i saw (of G-ALPF ?) showed just the standard Lancastrian type nose/tail fairings but with a square type pannier.

Perhaps this ~was~ a Halifax/Halton pannier grafted on ? But i also recall the text saying it only made one or two flights in this configuration so perhaps it is a pic of ‘LPF ? (Thinx: time to purchase both books perhaps 😮 )