Lincoln fire at Halton

Cheers, Allan, yes, it must have been some time after the crash, as the wreck stood complete (as far as I remember) for (two) days afterwards and of course we kids scrambled all over it – none of your Health and Safety nonsense then! Mind you, my Dad (or any of the RAF neighbours) would have probably thrashed me if he found out! I suppose there are laws against that too, nowadays!
I would love to see that photo, any chance of a scan being put up on the Forum, or a photocopy via PM, I could give you my E-mail address there?
Greetings from 93rd Entry Locking, by the way!
Peter

The photo is definitely of RF343 (Serial No. in latter day Bomber Command form – full fuselage height and quite clear). The cockpit section is well ablaze, so presumably it was taken after the lads set the Verey cartridge off, not a wing tank as you remembered, well, not initially anyway.

Regards

Allan

Lincoln crash at RAF Waddington

Yes, Allan, that must be the one! The boy who died was a classmate of mine at Bracebridge Heath Primary School, I remember the shock and sadness of that day now. I myself had walked along the wing of the wreck, which was as far as I remember complete. We boys always thought it was a wing fuel tank that blew up and killed him.
Many thanks for the details, you have solved a 50 year old mystery for me! Considering the angle of the runway, the aircraft crashed at about 45 degrees off, and it surprises me that if the pilot had control he chose to go over the married quarters. On the other hand, as I wrote, the aircraft finished up on a rubbish dump, having slewed 180 degrees, facing the way it came. It didn’t catch fire, so the photo you mentioned must have been of another crash.
Thanks again,
Peter

Papa Lima

That’s quite a task you’ve set for yourself! I asked because I have some Lincoln first flight dates but as they are production airframes, they would be outside the scope of your database.

Sorry to hear of the loss of your family records. It seems to be a ‘stepmother thing’, mine did much the same.

Your Lincoln crash: The most likely candidate is RF343 of 61 Sqdn on 3 Sep 52. My database says: ‘On return to Waddington from a high level bombing training flight, a 3-engine landing was attempted at 1930 hours. The aircraft bounced on touchdown and although overshoot action was taken, only 80 knots could be achieved and RF343 crash landed on the edge of the airfield. The captain was F/O F Hercliffe, two crew members were injured, the remaining crew and passengers were unhurt.’

There is a photo of this aircraft ablaze in ‘Lincoln at War’ by Garbett & Goulding and the caption contains words to the effect that two days later some small boys playing in the wreck set off pyrotechnics. One boy died in the resulting fire.

Does any of this ring bells?

Regards

Allan

CoF:
Sorry about the delay, I’ve been rather busy lately.
Unfortunately my father died while I was in Sweden and by the time I got to his house in the UK my stepmother had thrown away all his photo albums and everything else associated with his time in the RAF and also much material concerned with the childhoods of my sister and myself. I never forgave her for that, until the day she died.
My database, which already runs to several thousand entries, begins with the Wright Brothers and all powered aircraft since.
I try to record the date, time, duration and venue of the first flights of prototypes and first production, for each Mark/major variant. Other entries concern the powerplant, principal designer(s), brief details of the first flight (e.g. crashed on take-off!), subsequent history and eventual fate. I also record (in code) the sources of the information.
This of course is a massive and never-ending project, but it keeps me happy and gives me an excuse to hoard and re-read aviations books and magazines.
The biggest problem is deciding the accuracy of what turn out to be many conflicting reports, with mistakes being obviously carried over from one source to another. That also makes it intriguing and interesting.
Finally, regarding Lincolns, some time around 1952 a Lincoln had problems at RAF Waddington, just missed the roof or our married quarters and came down a few hundred yards away, fortuitously on a rubbish dump! I will never forget watching, startled, as the crew jumped out and ran for dear life towards our married patch! The aircraft did not explode, however, and was eventually presumably cut up for scrap. I would very much like to have more details of this crash, the sight of which became etched on my 10-year-old memory!

The Cranfield Lincoln was PW932 – the 3rd prototype. My interest is in the first prototype, PW925 which was at Halton.

I think the year of the fire was 1947, but that could be + 3 years

Allan

This Lincoln proto at Halton. What year are we talking here?

Is this the Lincoln proto that was at Cranfield in the late 1950’s?

Mark

Papa Lima: Thanks for the Lincoln photos, always good to see. Don’t suppose you inherited any photos or logbooks from your father’s period with 61 Sqdn at Waddington? I presume your database is first flight dates of prototypes, not whole production runs? What are your limits?

682al: I hadn’t visited the British Pathe site before. Fascinating, thanks for that. The Lincoln shown appears to have fairings where it should have turrets, so it’s possibly an ex-Watton aircraft.

Melvyn: I have to agree with you. Apart from thousands of tons of scrap aluminium, at the end of the war, production of new aluminium in Canada was really getting into its stride, so nobody needed more scrap. And much as we are saddened by the sight of an aircraft being incinerated, or dissected at a training school, this usage is factored in to the original cost calculations. A proportion of the buy is intended to be used like this at the end of its flying life, as training is vital. It’s not just official vandalism!

Thanks, chaps, but I still don’t know the date of PW925’s end!

Allan

Melvyn, how dumb am I for not having thought of it like that? Thanks for the lesson in reality…. :rolleyes:

I hope those firemen could sleep at night! 😮

I expect they could. It was only a scrap aeroplane then and there were thousands. An estimate in 1944 put the potential tonnage of scrap aluminium for 1945 to be 440,000 which did not include the aircraft that were, at that point, destined for the Pacific war.

If all Lancasters had survived you would not be in the slightest bit interested in them as they would be way too common.

Search the British Pathe site and you will find a film of a Lincoln being consumed in a fire training exercise.

The film clip’s reference is 281_01, but I have to say that this ref. appears to mean nothing to the site’s search engine, so you have to use keywords such as bomber/rescue/training, etc to find it.

There’s an even sadder clip of two Lancasters being burnt for the same purpose.
One appears to be a veteran which has actually crash landed – bent props etc, and the other is a brand new Mk. VII!

I hope those firemen could sleep at night! 😮

Lincoln PW925 maiden flight

From page 2 of “Avro Lincoln” Warpaint Series no. 34.
This picture is of special interest for me as:
1. I can add it to my “first Flights” project (a massive database).
2. I grew up at RAF Waddington where my late father was a Flight Sergeant in 61 Squadron. If only I had had a camera then! The sound of those Merlins is ingrained in my memory.
The second picture is of course the Lincoln at Cosford.