Page 28 – Key Publishing

BobKat

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September 20, 2014 at 4:44 pm in reply to: JB117 Lancaster Wreckage, Any help? #873473

BobKat
Participant

Larry,

The fuselage formers and wing ribs will normally have a flanged edge with rivets. The colour would tend to be either plain aluminium, painted green from the internal fuselage, or possibly black from the cockpit end of the fuselage, in the latter two cases with notches for the longitudinal stringers. There is no obvious sign of a flanged edge, except possibly for a tiny piece on Part 2. There does however seem to be a smooth circular edge on both pieces, but the distorted shape of Part 1 makes it a little difficult to work out from the photograph.

I am afraid it is a little difficult to determine because of the relatively small size of the fragments. Sorry not to be of more help.

September 20, 2014 at 11:40 am in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #873530

BobKat
Participant

Many thanks for your response Fouga23. I was hoping that you might have been able to confirm that this design was of wartime vintage. However I suppose there would be no reason to think that wartime antennae would have been radically different in shape from that in your picture, as they served the same purpose?

September 19, 2014 at 11:33 pm in reply to: JB117 Lancaster Wreckage, Any help? #873804

BobKat
Participant

Larry, formers are found throughout the fuselage. Some have identifiable shapes enabling their position to be identified, but many do not. If you post a picture tomorrow, I will have a look.

September 19, 2014 at 3:41 pm in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #874113

BobKat
Participant

Peter, looking at item 33 again, it has ‘collars’ at each end, so I think you may well be right.

I attach a small extract from the diagram in AP2062B showing the di-pole aerial from the beam approach installation.

If this is right we have two aerial pieces from the rear of the aircraft.

September 19, 2014 at 10:55 am in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #874504

BobKat
Participant

That’s marvellous, Peter – many thanks for all your efforts.

After a lot of searching for images on the internet I finally stumbled across the attached picture which appeared on the Aviation Forum! – posted by Fouga23 – on the thread “Items Wanted for Projects” under the heading of ‘transponder’. We seem to have an almost perfect match – the circular end-piece is missing from our item, but the base and antenna look very similar.

Item 33 would appear to be a similar, but not identical, piece, perhaps from another antenna?

I have altered the description of item 77 in the photo-gallery.

If you read this, Fouga23, first many thanks for the picture which I hope you do not mind me copying on this thread for ease of reference; secondly would you be able to provide a little more information about the item pictured please?

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=BCF75E8AD40ADF0D!164&authkey=!AJrxfdmdr6MXSdw&ithint=folder%2cjpg

September 18, 2014 at 11:33 pm in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #874889

BobKat
Participant

Peter, yet another possibility if this was a standard fitting in 1944, which I assume it was?

It is seeming increasingly likely that we will only get a definitive answer with some pictures showing the detail to compare with what we have.

September 18, 2014 at 4:39 pm in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #875416

BobKat
Participant

Many thanks Peter. Our problem is that ED908 was a Mk.III Special – a non-standard aircraft. Its H2S system was replaced by Oboe.

What I do not know is whether that means the entire H2S system was physically removed (including the scanner in the radome) or whether the scanner was left in situ and simply disconnected. There are a number of incidences of Lancaster aircraft being equipped with Oboe for a single mission (presumably experimentally) and then put back into service with H2S re-installed. This would lend strength to the likelihood that the Oboe aerials would not be in the H2S radome, but mounted externally, one on each side of the fuselage – this would make the change-over and back again much more simple. However if the H2S scanner was removed from the radome, then the space would remain empty unless used for for the Oboe aerials. I can understand that the Lancaster Explored CD would be silent on this as it would be an exceptional situation about which information seems very difficult to obtain.

I guess that unless anyone has any authoritative information, we can only continue to speculate!

The one thing we can be certain about is the aircraft did have two Oboe aerials as well as an IFF antenna!!

September 18, 2014 at 3:23 pm in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #875540

BobKat
Participant

You are probably right, Peter. Let’s hope someone can come up with a close-up view of what we are looking for.

Our difficulty is that I have no idea where the Oboe aerials were placed. There were only seven Lancaster ever equipped in this manner, so a very unusual situation. They were presumably outside the aircraft’s skin but, if there were two of them (see the diagram with my last post) where might they have been located? The diagram from AP2893C shows a different shape to others, and so I still wonder whether they could have been back to back in the H2S radome, each facing outwards. Or, perhaps there could have been one on each side of the cockpit in a similar position to that where the Rebecca antennae were located? I would be interested to know where they were positioned in the Pathfinder Mosquitos as this might give us a clue.

September 18, 2014 at 10:35 am in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #875884

BobKat
Participant

Peter, that’s very kind of you. I have been trying to gather information about the antennae we might expect to find on ED908.

We know from Air Ministry records that it was carrying:
ARI 5025: IFF Mk.III
ARI 5083: Gee Mk.II
ARI 5582: Oboe

There is no evidence that the aircraft was also equipped with ARI 5506, Rebecca Mk.II, but all the pictures I have seen of the Rebecca antennae show them as flat rather than rounded.

Oboe replaced the H2S system (ARI 5153) in the aircraft but as the H2S radome was still in place, there may have been some residual pieces of the H2S units that had not been removed. As so few Lancasters were fitted with Oboe, unsurprisingly I have been unable to find any pictures of one (other than the partially obscured one of ED908 in flight to Rollez on 12 July already posted on this thread), or any references as to where the aerials were fitted in the aircraft. The most obvious place would be in the H2S position within the radome. The best I can find is a diagram which shows two aerials (type 316 – 10BB/6099) configured as in the picture below.

I have found a diagram which shows that it was the IFF aerial in the ventral position we have been discussing, and also a reference to the original flat style of that aerial being later replaced by a rounded version. It could be that this is what has been found. Or might we have a piece of the Oboe aerial?

September 17, 2014 at 3:24 pm in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #876933

BobKat
Participant

Many thanks Peter – a definite possibility. I have been scouring the internet for images of antennae, but hadn’t spotted that one. If anyone can find another image with a better (close-up) view, that would be marvellous.

***************

I have now found a few distant images of Lancasters with a ventral antenna which appears to be angled towards the starboard side. Does anyone know when these were first fitted to the aircraft and for what purpose – that is to say whether for a piece of radio or radar equipment? IFF perhaps?

September 17, 2014 at 9:16 am in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #877288

BobKat
Participant

Item 77

Peter, herewith a picture of the other end of the piece. It is not dissimilar to item 33 (also pictured below). At the time we wondered about the use of a copper tube – I think you might be on the right lines with your suggestion of it possibly being connected to an antenna. Maybe the two pieces are part of the same item?

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=BCF75E8AD40ADF0D!164&authkey=!AJrxfdmdr6MXSdw&ithint=folder%2cjpg

September 16, 2014 at 3:53 pm in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #878027

BobKat
Participant

Peter, sorry I have no picture of the other end. I will ask Laurent for a description or another photo.

September 16, 2014 at 9:29 am in reply to: Wreckage Of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z) #878207

BobKat
Participant

New find – Item 77

For some time Laurent has had a friend helping him with his searches and he has found a new piece about 25 metres from the main impact at location 1.

It is a copper tube with a brass head (pictured in close-up) possibly engine-related? Any ideas please, anyone?

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=BCF75E8AD40ADF0D!164&authkey=!AJrxfdmdr6MXSdw&ithint=folder%2cjpg

September 15, 2014 at 10:01 pm in reply to: JB117 Lancaster Wreckage, Any help? #878536

BobKat
Participant

Larry, I cannot find another higher resolution picture of the item you have circled on my picture 1. I cannot tell whether they are similar pieces – yours (the internet picture you found) seems to have a broken flange at one end, whereas the item in picture 1 seems to be cylindrical – I had assumed it was likely to be part of the electronics, but I could well be wrong.

September 15, 2014 at 5:06 pm in reply to: JB117 Lancaster Wreckage, Any help? #878921

BobKat
Participant

Larry, please go ahead and copy whatever might help from ED908 to identify your pieces.
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