Fantastic line-up and photos.
I can recognise most of the DH types there, but is the rotary engined type 2nd from left?
How come it will be the Mosquitos’ final show in NZ?

Edit, DH5 just seen the answers at bottom of post!:o

The SMR Lancasters had 2nd pilot wheels, I assumed (probably wrongly!) that OTU, LFS aircraft had them as well, or was it just Coastal Lancs?

Would the Harrier exist without the Short SC.1? Yes.

The P.1127 Harrier was an early (maybe the first?) departure from the multiple lift and seperate propulsion engines idea by using just one powerplant combined with vectoring thrust for both its forward speed and VTOL needs.
BE53/Pegasus layout owes more to Frenchman Michel Wibaults propulsion theories than to the existing lift engine ideas, something that Bristol Engines’ Sir Stanley Hooker picked up on very early on, and Sir Sydney Camm not long after.
This was the master stroke that effectively turned heavy and very complicated and inefficient aircraft designs and prototypes into a lighter and combat capable machine.
Nothing is designed in isolation of course, and I dare say some systems like the puffer jet controls of the TMR & SC.1 influenced the Harrier design teams.

In propulsion terms I view the SC.1 as the end of one idea and the P.1127 as the start of a new one.

BTW I like your callsign AT, bit of a Richard James fan myself!

how are her two sister a/c getting on?

One of them, XH131, went to the museum at Long Kesh, N.Ireland in 2010.

Thanks Jack, found a nice pic of 207 B.I FE (A, possibly SW303) after I posted!

Just to clarify about the turrets, the FEs retained the mid upper turrets in squadron service.
Whether the initial idea of the Tiger Force mods was to remove them to save weight I really don’t know, but when that idea was cancelled the Lancasters retained the armament.
One quick way to tell a B.I FE from a B.IIV FE is by the large shrouded upper turret of the early mark, as opposed to the more forward located and smaller turret of the VII.

The saddle tank idea was part of the FE force idea, but unsure if it might have been devised before?

Nice to see a thread about these early post-war Lancasters as you don’t see an awful lot about them.
They are one of my favourite schemed variants in the dramatic white over black undersides.

Has anyone here seen a photo of an FE in the later full roundels?

Didn’t it also have the mid upper turret removed?

The B.I FE retained the mid upper turret.

Two squadrons equiped with the type from 1945 to 1949/50, 7 at Upwood and 35 at Graveley & Stradishall. It was this latter unit that performed the 16 a/c ‘Operation Goodwill’ tour of the ‘States in the summer of 1946. I’m wondering if the extra range of this version facilitated that.

I would agree with Mark, in that these new aircraft would be in storage and available for use.

Edit, 207 at Stradishall might have used the B.I FE as well, but can’t establish if it was that mark or the B.VII FE

Very good, I remember seeing the Su-27 and Tu something arrival at Boscombe, should have pics somewhere.
Funny, but the Phantom between the hangars at Saints will be one of my airfield before and after shots!
I can never tire of that last low-level Spitfire clip!

Some went to St.Athan for scrapping before it closed.

That’s not correct, non of the latest round of VC-10 scrappings have been at or involved St Athan. They are all being broken up at Brunty, though parts are being removed to return to the spares/parts inventry.

All of the K.2s were scrapped at Saints in the early 2000s, along with a C.1K. Most of the K.4s and a C.1K was broken up there in 2006.

St Athan isn’t closed either, DARA/DSG have gone from the site though.