Dear Old Annie!

The Anson was about a 1936 acquisition by the RAF. It was the first monoplane acquired by the RAF and the first RAF aircraft with a retractable undercarriage.

In Britain the Annie was used for coastal patrol, but not for long, as it was overtaken by progress.

The Anson in Canada was used strictly as a training aircraft, some for pilot training and some for Nav and wireless training. The training of gunners was soon dropped as the basic manually operated turret and handheld weapon in the Anson had bore no resemblance to any other turret in use at the time, most of which were power operated.

We are about to do some skinning of tail surfaces and we are mystified as to how the 1.5mm (I/16″) ply skin was terminated at the leading and trailing edges. We have a streamlined solid wood leading edge and similar trailing edge. Common sense would dictate that the exposed edge of the ply should not be exposed to the airflow, but the drawings we have do not indicate that any recess was called for in the leading or trailing edges in which to terminate the ply. Anyone out there with any experience or access to any information on the subject?

The gentleman and his aircraft were at the EAA fly-in at Oshkosh a couple of years ago. EAA should be able to help you out with a name.

Alternatively any EAA member should be able to look it up for you in the back issues of Sport Aviation magazine. The system was described in there also. Maybe your local library has copies.

Unfortunately I am in Florida and all my mags are in Canada, so I cannot help you.

Victor XL 191

I was the “Air Boss” of the Hamilton show when the Victor crashed.

It created a major problem for the show as it’s tail impinged on the clearances on the main runway, the only one long enough to take some of the Military jets, which was then closed.

We could not move the aircraft until it had been examined and we had to turf out the Air Attache from Ottawa (Who had been invited to attend but was involved something else.) and he flew in and convened a Court of Inquiry. The CoI group flew in via a VC-10, which we hoped would stay for static display at the show, no such luck!

The bottom line was the aircraft was moved enough to allow the runway to re-open and the diverted aircraft were gathered in from the surrounding airfields. Fortunately the Victor had planned to come in early.

The Victor had flown in from Marham direct and we had requested that they bring a barrel of British beer to sell at the show. The Fire crew said when they got to the aircraft they were amazed to see the crew was pushing out a barrel of beer! Unfortunately the fire crew took the rescued flight crew to their building and somehow the beer never made it to the show!

What happened? According to the story we got from the crew,(before they had time to think a better one up) they had an electrical problem when between Quebec and Montreal and they had to cancel their IFR flight plan, so they descended to below the IFR level (9,500ft?) and flew VFR to Hamilton. This of course significantly increased the fuel consumption!

Unfortunately Hamilton is susceptible to local fogs as the warm moist air from the Lake Ontario drifts in and is pushed up over the airport where it condenses to form a local fog. We got the word from Toronto Control that the Victor was coming in and was going to attempt an approach without it’s approach aids!! The first approach was missed and we got word from the Hamilton tower that they only had sufficient fuel for one more approach and after that they were going to fly over Lake Ontario and eject!

They broke out of the crud to find they were significantly off the runway heading and they tried a quick correction, but they just did not have time to correct and they ran off the runway into a gully, driving the undercarriage oleos up through the wings.

It was our understanding that the aircraft was one of the newer Victors and it had recently had it’s life extended.

We were told the Captain was let go from the Air Force mainly for lack of judgement in that he could have landed safely at Montreal, Trenton or Toronto. The aircraft was scrapped and the nose section was donated to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. I believe they eventually disposed of it as it did not fit into their collection mandate.

It was a long time ago, I hope this fills in some gaps.

Deryck

Crashed Lancs in Northern Canada

I understood that there was a Lanc lying, inverted, alongside the runway at Resolute Bay. At one time we were considering recovering the tailwheel for use on the Halifax.

That seat.

Actually guys it looks like a Wireless Op’s seat to me.

Doesn’t the Nav’s seat fold out of the starboard side, over the forward escape hatch?

Deryck

As FMK.6John says these were common in North America in the late 50s and 60s. I would not want to tackle a moose with one!