Jonathan

Not sure what you mean … these three references all have dates that DO ALIGN with your chap’s memoires …
– your first reference says June 1943 on the prototype BT308
– the raf/history/lineage ref says that BT 308 was used as a test-bed “later” (meaning later than Sep ’41)
– the wikipedia reference about the Metrovick F.2 says “Flyable versions, the F.2/1, were flown on an Avro Lancaster test-bed in the spring of 1943”

All we’re looking for is a “trusted reference” I assume – and a photo!

Oh, the dates for a “jet engined testbed Lancaster” (BT308) line up perfectly, it’s just that BT308 was not, as far as we can tell, flown with engines in nacelles, which are clearly described by the chap in question. Rather, and like the other examples mentioned, it flew with the engine in the fuselage and (I assume), all four Merlins intact. the first reference to a Lanc with nacelle outboard jet engines is the 1946 one referred to in my first post. The sources also suggest that BT308 retained the Manchester vertical fin. All of which is frustrating! So yes, we are looking for proof, but proof that either BT308 flew in radically different configuration for a time, or that there was indeed another aircraft out there testing pod style engines and using a RATO to get airborne. It’s seeming less likely as we go on, I know.

We’ll see what transpires when I meet the veteran in question. Thanks for all your help on this one.

Sorry, JF, no offence intended, (the intention was self-deprecatory!) but since the first flight (according to Avro/Putnams) of VH742 was August 8, 1946, and this is the first Lancaster mentioned in that configuration by that (probably reliable) source, perhaps your veteran has confused the configuration – could the RATO have been in fact the single tail-mounted turbojet instead?
If there was an outboard nacelle-mounted configuation Lancaster around in 1943, I for one would be extremely interested in reading about it!
Perhaps the answer lies in a book on early turbojets; my tiny library unfortunately does not include such a book.

Hey, none taken! I realise I’m probably asking the impossible here, but it’s an irresistible little tidbit, and I’d like to research it as best I can before I meet the man who wrote it. You never know with this place whether someone somewhere has read something somewhere obscure or spoken to someone in the know. So just in case….

And yes, it’s those two testbeds we’re talking about so far; those pics should be interesting for people that haven’t come across them before. Thanks for the responses so far chaps.

I think the first Lancaster design (Lancastrian 1) to carry jet engines was VH742, first flown at Hucknall by Sqn Ldr R. T. Shepherd on August 8, 1946 with two Nene 1 turbojets in the outer nacelles.
Source Avro/Putnams

I found a web-based reference to an earlier (June 1943 no less, almost spot on the correct date ref the memoirs) example: LL735 http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/Histories/Lancaster/Lancaster.htm

But the first two jets tested in it were held in the fuselage, not on the wings.