New Member With A Lancaster Story To Tell And Parts To Identify

Top cowling for sure Hennie.. amazing condition!!

Hi all, a couple of mystery Lanc parts again, but this time from my last visit to St. Ignat. ;

First off, this all steel ‘lever’, about 30 cm long. It obviously pivoted around a shaft at the thickest end and was maintained in position by the torsion spring. The corrosion prevents from seeing if there are any numbers or markings. I’m not totally convinced that it’s aeronautical but it doesn’t look agricultural either and it’s location, in the middle of a cultivated field half way between the collision point and the crash site, excludes domestic pollution. Any ideas would be welcome.

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Next, this interesting little spring-loaded latch. Made from cast brass, it was bolted to a steel support and the compression spring apparently maintained the pointed spindle in it’s location once in place. Again, no numbers that I can see.

As always, thanks for any help.

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It just came to me looking at the pictures again, the first one is a pedal of some description so it may well be agricultural, unless there was a similar pedal on a Lanc !

Hi all, a couple of mystery Lanc parts again, but this time from my last visit to St. Ignat. ;

First off, this all steel ‘lever’, about 30 cm long. It obviously pivoted around a shaft at the thickest end and was maintained in position by the torsion spring. The corrosion prevents from seeing if there are any numbers or markings. I’m not totally convinced that it’s aeronautical but it doesn’t look agricultural either and it’s location, in the middle of a cultivated field half way between the collision point and the crash site, excludes domestic pollution. Any ideas would be welcome.

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Next, this interesting little spring-loaded latch. Made from cast brass, it was bolted to a steel support and the compression spring apparently maintained the pointed spindle in it’s location once in place. Again, no numbers that I can see.

As always, thanks for any help.

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Hennie, the attached diagram confirms the cowling piece. It would be good to find something which confirms the part numbers, then I could determine which piece the part number plate of ED908 belongs to.

Thanks Bobkat, agreed, the parts list would be a great help. Will let you know if we come up with anything.

Hennie, the attached diagram confirms the cowling piece. It would be good to find something which confirms the part numbers, then I could determine which piece the part number plate of ED908 belongs to.

Ah, forgot this one. A riveted assembly entirely of copper. No numbers but there can’t be that many parts made of copper. Any ideas will be welcome.

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Hennie, I agree that the big piece you have appears to be the upper cowling from one of the engines – the brown paint would certainly indicate this. I did not know that the pieces making up the cowling and nacelles had separate part number/serial number plates. The part number plate we have from ED908 must therefore be from one of the other component parts of the cowling or nacelles. This would be consistent with where it was found next to other engine pieces. It would be interesting to hear if anyone has a record of, or knows of a source recording, what these part numbers are.

Here are the only other parts that are perhaps identifiable.

1/ A small switch or other electrical component made from reinforced resin. It was found with a detector so probably has two metallic pins going through it (the ends can be seen on one of the pictures). It’s about 4 cm long. As far as I can tell the number reads 12 H 74 and there’s a verifyer’s stamp. One side has traces of black paint, and one edge has white or pale yellow paint.

2/ A small alloy plate. There are two numbers and a stamp. The top number is 11 00 The lower number appears to be B P, or B R, then maybe Z, then 115

As always, thanks for any help with this.

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Hennie, could you please provide a photo of the complete reverse side of the piece. We have a virtually identical piece (the serial number plate only) from ED908 which was found with several other engine pieces, but I am not convinced it is from the cowling. It seems to relate to a separate piece of equipment – possibly the oil cooler.

Bobkat, that looks very much like the same ID plate. Here’s a picture of the other side with some scale to it. The cowling is probably 6′ long, tapered towards the front, curved and entirely painted brown. We think that it’s the top cowling. It also shows signs of being torn off by
the airflow after the front edge became detached. T here are streaks of molten alloy stuck to the panel near the wingward edge, probably from the explosion.

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Hennie, could you please provide a photo of the complete reverse side of the piece. We have a virtually identical piece (the serial number plate only) from ED908 which was found with several other engine pieces, but I am not convinced it is from the cowling. It seems to relate to a separate piece of equipment – possibly the oil cooler.

No nothing showing for me either.

There is a picture embedded in the message, at least I can see it, but the server was playing up this afternoon. Can you see the two pictures ?

No pictures showing up here 🙁

Hello Hennie. Some interesting stories – we have a similar story about the use of the parachute silk. I can’t see the part number in my Merlin parts list. All parts were numbered with 6 digits beginning with ‘6’, but if this is the cowling it would be numbered differently. Any chance of a picture showing the number?

There is a picture embedded in the message, at least I can see it, but the server was playing up this afternoon. Can you see the two pictures ?

Hello Hennie. Some interesting stories – we have a similar story about the use of the parachute silk. I can’t see the part number in my Merlin parts list. All parts were numbered with 6 digits beginning with ‘6’, but if this is the cowling it would be numbered differently. Any chance of a picture showing the number?

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Hi there, following on from my previous posts, this weekend we went back to the Loire Valley to try to locate the precise crash site and also hopefully collect some exhibits for the village’s 75th commemoration. Initially we found quite a few pieces of shrapnel from the bomb loads, .303 cases etc. and were hopeful of more exciting things for the afternoon. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way and in spite of the fact that we collected lots of fragments there was nothing of much interest and I don’t think that we were on the right spot. It’s a very large area to cover and it was a very hot day so by late afternoon we were all a bit demoralized. But then the mayor turned up with her deputy who told us that he knew someone that had quite a large part covering his woodpile ! This perked us up no end and off we all went to see it.

There’s no doubt what it is, a top engine cowling, complete, a little flattened but otherwise in pretty good shape. The shape, colour and tell-tale half-round inspection hatch are all giveaways. I’m not sure if the part N° 09114 will tell us from what engine it was as I think that they were all identical ?

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The chap has very kindly donated it to the village (he was ready to take it to the tip) who will doubtless hang it on the wall of the village hall when we’ve sent them a framed picture of a Lanc indicating where it came from.

We heard some great stories about two sisters that made dresses from parachute silk, somebody that has the rescue dinghy and leads to both pilot’s revolvers and will be following up on all of that. I’ll post pictures of another couple of interesting little objects that have numbers on them.

Enjoy 🙂

Great job guy’s just saw this.. definitely lanc cowling

Sorry Hennie – I can’t help with the others.

Hennie, to put the matter beyond doubt, I attach a diagram from the Lancaster Mk.X Parts List. Your piece is numbered E1040 (as in your photo) and is described as the inboard panel on the port outboard engine. The starboard nacelle is not illustrated. Everything seems to match! Maybe somebody else can explain the other numbers?

Fantastic BobKat, thanks so much. I will let the owner know what it is he’s been hanging on to for all these years. Do either of the other parts mean anything to you ?

Hennie, to put the matter beyond doubt, I attach a diagram from the Lancaster Mk.X Parts List. Your piece is numbered E1040 (as in your photo) and is described as the inboard panel on the port outboard engine. The starboard nacelle is not illustrated. Everything seems to match! Maybe somebody else can explain the other numbers?

Hennie, I’ve cracked it! By rotating your latest photo by 90 degrees and reversing the image of the outboard engine cowling (to produce a mirror-image of what I assume to be the opposite side), we seem to have a perfect match for the Dzus fasteners as shown in the attached diagram. I think that the small rectangular plate would have been absent from the opposite side. So you have part of the cowling for an outboard engine. I wonder whether “P” represents the Port outboard?