Renowned comedian Bruce McCall provided illustrations for a 1971 Playboy magazine article entitled “Major Hody Bixby’s Forgotten Warbird Album.”
The article featured an aircraft catalog highlighting the most extreme aviation designs from various countries, presented in a manner that could be deemed politically incorrect by contemporary standards. Among these designs, the Italian fighter was depicted as a double-decker, enabling rapid switching of allegiance. The Japanese “Kakaka Shirley” was portrayed as an amphibious pedal bomber, while the American entry was described as an economical master aircraft, accommodating 19 student pilots within a 50-meter-long greenhouse.
The British were represented by the Hembley-Patch Gallipoli heavy bomber. “Four Varley-Pandjandrum engines propelled them to a cruising altitude several feet above the legal daily minimum altitude,” the accompanying text reads. “The last survivor now serves as a chicken coop, albeit an impressive one, for the Maharani of Gangipor. It landed on their lawn in 1944, but despite repeated reminders, The RAF still forgot to pick it up.”
Ouch. But it’s not far from the truth. Handley Page Heyford and Hampden, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Fairey Hunton, Vickers Wellington, Short Sterling—1 A long line of dour two- and four-engine bombers, with the elegance of a railway carriage and little better performance, had long been the RAF’s inventory. Too long.
But with this slow bomb truck force came the most useful heavy bomber over Europe during World War II: the Avro Lancaster. While not as stylish or powerful as the Boeing B-17, the lumbering Lanc sacrificed coolness and often carried two to three times the bomb load of the German Flying Fortress.
The Lancaster’s bomb bay was so huge that it was the only World War II aircraft capable of lifting the RAF’s 22,000-pound Grand Slam bomb and carrying it to an altitude of 18,000 feet, an altitude that would allow it to penetrate Near supersonic speeds through concrete. The cost of the Grand Slam was so high – only 41 were thrown to German targets – that Lanc staff were prohibited from throwing them. The special Lancasters they carried not only had bulbous bomb bay doors, but also had special landing gear for extra-heavy landings.
It is difficult to imagine that the Lancaster was a direct descendant of the twin-engine Avro Manchester bomber, the least successful of the RAF’s “heavy” bomber fleet. The Manchester project includes the aircraft manufacturer’s curse, a new airframe and a yet-to-be-tested engine – the Rolls-Royce Vulture. The Vulture is an X-24: four banks of six cylinders, arranged in a star pattern around a common crankcase and crankshaft. The cylinder bank comes from Rolls-Royce’s Peregrine V-12, a smaller 880-hp predecessor to the Merlin.
Rolls-Royce wants the Vulture to produce 1,760 horsepower, with further upgrades inevitable. However, it turned out that arranging all 24 connecting rods around a central crank would cause cooling and oiling problems, and the Vulture would probably never run reasonably reliably above 1,450 to 1,550 horsepower with its bearings spinning frequently. As a result, the Avro remains a good but underpowered twin-engine airframe. Manchester’s designer, the legendary Roy Chadwick, saw this trend and had drawn up plans for Manchester to be equipped with four Merlin engines.
However, the Ministry of Aviation will not hear this news. Avro needed the necessary engines and rare aluminum alloys to build prototypes, and was ordered to sand them by a certain airship colonel. In fact, he told Avro to “dig it.” As for the RAF, it already had four-engine Handley Page Halifax aircraft and no need to complicate the situation.
It turns out Avro has some very good friends at Rolls-Royce and owns four Merlins. Engineers sourced the metal needed for the prototype, and the final Manchester Three was quickly renamed Lancaster to abandon any sign of its unfortunate origins.
Unlike nearly all other World War II aircraft, the Rank was operational when it first entered production. The first Lancaster I to fly combat missions in March 1942 was nearly identical to the last one flown over Germany in late April 1945. Only three versions of Lancaster were produced in series: the Mark I with the British-made Merlin engine and the Mark I with the British-made Merlin engine; approximately 300 Mark IIs with Bristol Hercules sleeve valve centrifugal valves; Mark III with Merlins made by Packard. It’s not that Team Rank is perfect; The Air Ministry decided that unless the changes brought significant benefits, it would be best to continue uninterrupted production of the simple Lancaster aircraft. Ultimately, 7,377 were produced, 430 of which were built in Canada.
Being of Manchester heritage isn’t all bad. When the Air Ministry first proposed the twin-engine bomber, it wanted a variety of unrelated features. The new bombers could be catapulted so that existing RAF lawns could be used. It was intended to be quickly converted into a troop transport and required to carry two large anti-ship torpedoes.
These silly requests were shelved, but Manchester was ultimately given a 33-foot torpedo bomb bay, which she never carried. There is no spar box going through it and no fuselage frame blocking it. This capability became part of the Lancaster bomber, allowing it to carry the bomb load of two B-17s over the same distance, with only a crew of seven instead of ten.
The bomb bay also created the Lanc’s signature multi-pane cockpit, which had to be mounted high to make room for the front of the bomb bay below. The B-17’s bomb bay is located behind the flight deck.
Lancaster rarely operates during daylight hours. Bomber Command’s nighttime tactics were completely different from the daytime formation-controlled attacks of the USAAF. The Lancaster and all other participating bombers flew independently at night in a 200-mile-long “stream,” with each pilot flying alone. The idea was to overwhelm German radar, anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and night fighters to guard a single gate to the objective, rather than attack across a vast front.
Defensive armament was the Lancaster’s Achilles’ heel. It had only three turrets – stern, nose and nose – although they were hydraulically driven, pioneered by the British. The Air Ministry was unwilling to equip the Lanc with a ventral turret, and twin .303 turrets were eventually developed, operated by a gunner located in the belly of the bomber via a periscope. This position was aptly named “The Bin” and when lowered into position, the Lancaster’s speed was reduced by 15 knots.
Since few Rank fighters were equipped with trash cans, the Luftwaffe quickly developed the Schräge Musik, a fixed, upward-firing twin 20 mm cannon mounted behind the cockpit of various night fighters. When the night was so dark that British gunners could not detect them, the Germans would sneak under the bombers from the stern or athwartships, and once they were under the large belly of the Rank bomber, fire without even aiming. It took the RAF a long time to become aware of the Schräge Musik, as few of the victims survived.
Despite being equipped with four rapid-fire guns in the rear turret, each capable of firing 1,200 rounds per minute, they were .303-inch Browning guns. The RAF recognized the need for at least a .50 caliber gun to effectively penetrate most aircraft armor. However, by 1929, the British Army had decided to adopt the Browning .303 rifle as its primary weapon due to a misconception that there was a surplus of .303 ammunition left over from World War I.
The tail gunner, alongside the pilot, was deemed one of the most crucial members of the crew. Their role was more akin to that of a guardian rather than a marksman. If they spotted the shadow of a Luftwaffe night fighter, they were required to immediately initiate the Lancaster’s standard evasive maneuvers, known as the Corkscrew. This maneuver involved a combination of full deflection in both directions, a rollover, and high-performance climb and descent, resembling aerobatic maneuvers.
Anecdotes even recounted Luftwaffe pilots observing a Rank fighter circling to avoid engagement.
Some rear gunners completed their entire tour without encountering a Messerschmitt or Junkers aircraft, while others sporadically spotted them but refrained from firing to avoid revealing their position. There were instances of Lancaster pilots ordering their gunners to open fire upon anything they sighted, sometimes mistakenly targeting other Lancasters.
Initially, some Lancasters were fitted with armor for the rear gunner’s protection, but much of it was eventually removed to enhance visibility. Gunners even removed the entire Plexiglas panel in front of them to ensure an unobstructed view. Despite the abundance of ammunition—2,500 rounds for each gun—stored in large crates behind the wings for weight and balance reasons, during night fighter missions, the tail turret could typically only fire around 1,000 rounds, often fewer.
The tail turret provided a cramped workspace, leading some gunners to remove the inner double access doors, primarily to increase the chances of rescue. The crew access door for the aft gunner, as well as the upper turret gunner’s rescue door, was located near the rear of the fuselage, ahead of the right horizontal stabilizer. All other crew members were expected to egress through a narrow hatch on the flight deck. Consequently, the survival rate of Lancaster crews after sustaining damage was notably low.
There were four men in the Lancaster’s cockpit – pilot, flight engineer, navigator and radio operator – with a bombardier/gunner in the nose, below and a few steps ahead of the flight deck. Two gunners aft – top turret and stern gun – supplemented the crew’s strength. Unlike the fully armored B-17, the Rank entered the war with only a small amount of armor behind the pilot’s head and two armored doors amidships for no apparent purpose.
Although it was initially assumed that the Lancasters would be flown by two pilots, Britain soon encountered a pilot shortage and could only free up one pilot per aircraft. There was nothing better in Britain than America’s civilian pilot training program, which turned tens of thousands of farm boys into pilots before the United States entered the war. University flying clubs were the best thing a British person could do because in the 1930s it was thought that only British gentlemen could become pilots.
Soon the RAF was forced to teach so-called citizens how to fly, and a new generation of Flying Sergeant pilots joined the fight. Whether the son of a Welsh miner or a London taxi driver, a flight sergeant had full command of their Lancaster aircraft, regardless of the officer and gentleman rank of the other crew members.
While the Lancaster’s heating duct may seem like an insignificant system, it is fed by hot air from the engine compartment and is one of the worst mechanical devices on the aircraft. The radio operator and pilot adapted well, the bombardier was blown up and the navigator and gunner were frozen. Sometimes the rear gunner with the turret open was too cold to pull the trigger. A kerosene-powered self-contained heating system was once cobbled together, but it never worked well enough to operate.
Driving the Lancaster requires a lot of upper-body strength because the controls are unreinforced and heavy, although the Lancaster responds strongly and smoothly to control commands. It has been said that control is “like rowing a rowing boat”. Lancasters are very flexible and can roll and circle. Some have simple autopilots, but these are only used on friendly terrain as it takes a few seconds to turn off. This meant that Rank Air pilots were required to fly the aircraft alone or manually for several hours, sometimes even having to do so while injured. These pilots typically have only about 300 hours before flying their first Lancaster.
The RAF soon recognized the value of training an additional crew member, typically a flight engineer, to serve as an “assistant pilot.” This arrangement ensured that there would be someone capable of piloting the large bomber back to the UK and participating in crew rescues over British airspace. In reality, the Lancaster likely had numerous individuals with second-pilot capabilities in every cockpit, as navigators and bombardiers often dropped out of flight training. An anecdote recounts the tale of an exhausted crew member who assumed control of a Lancaster after the pilot’s demise, successfully navigating and landing the aircraft in England during nighttime conditions. Subsequently, he was instructed to reapply to flight school.
Interestingly, maneuvering a Lancaster on the ground is considered more demanding than flying it, with the adage “if you can get it to the runway, you can fly it anywhere” holding true. The Lancaster features traditional British air brakes on each main wheel, activated by the bicycle brake handle on the control yoke and distributed to each wheel via rudder pressure. However, due to the engine-driven compressor providing air pressure and the minimal engine power during taxiing, replenishing the air tank after braking takes time, resulting in a considerable delay before the brakes fully release. John D. Williams, a British author with extensive flying experience, noted during his time piloting the Lancaster at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, “The tank pressure is likely sufficient for most braking situations. Maybe! Most! Such words are not commonly heard.” The Lancaster inevitably encounters icing conditions, but there are no wing or tail de-icing boots, only propeller de-icing devices. The solution to the trouble was a thick paste called Kilfrost, which ground crews applied to the leading edges of the wings before a mission. It is generally believed that the spear handles ice well and has the ability to climb out of the ice.
Although the Lancaster is often thought of as a powerful carpet bomber, it actually helped develop the subtle art of electronic warfare.
When the Ranks first entered service, navigation from England to destinations on the Ruhr was a matter of dead reckoning by sailors who were not old sailors but had completed a three-month course in reading maps and calculating courses. boy. There were no radio navigation equipment and no way to accurately determine upper-altitude winds or nighttime drifts. Many of the Lancs landed 50 miles from their destination.
The first electronic aid was called “Gee” – a Loran-like system that received signals from ground stations, created a cross grid on the cathode ray tube and defined the aircraft’s position. The Germans quickly learned how to stop the Gee, but it remained a tool to help the bombers get home.
Next is the oboe, named for the sound it produces. The oboe is similar to a radio ranging instrument but has a greater range, extending over 300 miles from England to Germany. Oboe was the most accurate radio navigation system used during World War II. It produces a consistent heading tone with left and right heading deviations.
There is also a device code-named G-H, which is an inverted oboe. Planes carrying it can send signals that ground stations use to determine location.
The most advanced radar system, H2S Ground Mapping Radar, owed its development to the British invention of the cavity magnetron, enabling the creation of compact and powerful airborne radar technology. Utilized by Lancaster navigators, it facilitated precise target identification, particularly effective in locating targets near bodies of water. Subsequently, the navigators transmitted the hydrogen sulfide data to the bombardier for integration into the bombsight. However, British forces faced challenges as German night fighters and ground controllers became adept at intercepting H2S signals. This capability complicated the use of the Lancaster’s Monica system, a radar unit installed in the tail turret, which became vulnerable to tracking by enemy night fighters. The night fighters exploited Monica’s beam to aid in targeting the tail turret, posing further threats to the Lancaster’s defensive capabilities.
At one point in the war, the Lancaster may have carried 16 different radar jamming black boxes, as well as three radar warning devices and two navigation/navigation systems.
Without all of Lanc’s radio countermeasures, they would have lost any direct attempt to penetrate the German defenses. The Lancaster was called a “brazen raider” by aviation writer Bill Sweetman and sparked World War II. By 1945, it had become, in Sweetman’s words, “a stealthy intruder, hiding behind a subtle screen of electronic smoke, picking his way along the electromagnetic web… [Lancaster] in the best possible way Representing some of the most advanced ideas in the world. Possibly.” Invading enemy airspace… New British bombers never again carried a defensive gun. Stealth and electronic countermeasures should ensure bombers can penetrate defenses. ”
Lancaster and B-17 advocates will forever debate the merits of these two outstanding bombers, but consensus is impossible, and statistics don’t help because the missions these aircraft performed were so different. B-17s in the European and Mediterranean theaters bombed nearly all countries in Europe and several countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Lancaster carried out bombing missions almost exclusively in Germany, with occasional missions against French targets and German naval capital ships. It is therefore not surprising that Boeing dropped more bomb tonnage than Avro. Fighting against unseen Luftwaffe night fighters was completely different from daytime field combat with B-17s and their escorts, so loss rates were not comparable.
The Manchester/Lancaster was designed after the Fortress and was a second generation heavy bomber of the Second World War. One might argue that it has more in common with the B-29 than with the B-17 – for example, its emphasis on extreme range and maximum bomb load, and its pioneering use of a constant cross-section airframe. The unbuilt Lancaster model Avro Type 684 stratospheric bomber was probably the British Superfort. Its purpose was to mount a fifth Merlin engine on the fuselage, whose sole purpose was to power huge compressors connected by pipes to all four wing engines. The cabin would also be pressurized, presumably via the same fan, and the bomber’s absolute maximum altitude would be over 50,000 feet.
So let us express our praise and gratitude for the Avro Lancaster, which carried more bombs per aircraft over long distances over Europe than any other bomber in World War II.
