So it went from this Avro Bulls Eye
to this Manchester
to this Lancaster
to this Vulcan
Posted on 08/02/2014 12:25:57 PM PDT by Squawk 8888
Matthew Munson, age 34, of Henley-on-Thames, England, is an affable, unpretentious and ridiculously wealthy Brit. By his own admission he is captive to some impulsive spending habits, particularly when the spending involves mechanical things — planes, trains, helicopters, automobiles and the like, but no boats.
His wife Helen is familiar with her husband’s financial proclivities. As she puts it, she’s “a bit used to him doing these sorts of things,” such as buying a $250,000 Ferrari to add to his Ferrari collection (he owns 12) without asking her first.
“I didn’t realize I hadn’t told her,” Mr. Munson says, laughing.
Ms. Munson was duly informed in advance of his latest gambit. She even encouraged it, if not the final price.
The electrical engineer with the thriving international IT business paid $79,000 in an online auction for a seat on an original, Second World War, Canadian-made Lancaster bomber, departing from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Hamilton International Airport Monday for a two-month air show tour of England.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
79,000 for a ride in an Avro Lancaster!?! Don’t get me wrong. I’m a WW2 buff but here in USA you can get a ride in a B-17 for $400.00
That’s for a ride from Canada to the UK.
Wonder how the Lancaster compared with the B-24 and B-17? Heard an interesting review by a 91 year old AAF pilot over a local talk show, (Vicky McKenna WNIB, am 1310 Madison WI.) who flew both. He said the 24 carried almost twice the bomb load and went twice as far but was slower and had a lower service ceiling the “Flying Fortress”.
The ocassion for the talk show was while the 24 along with other WWII aircraft were being exhibited at the Madison airport prior to the EAA convention in Oshgosh WI. Paid for rides on the 24 were being promoted the funding of which would go into WWII aircraft restoration.
On two different occasions here in southern NJ I had the same experience you did. I was at work in Wall Township, NJ, there’s a private airport, Allaire Airport nearby that every few years hosts a “WW2 Warbirds’’ show. I was out by the loading dock when just as you heard that roar so did I. I said ‘’Damn, that sounds like a Pratt&Whittney engine!’’ Well it was four of them and like a giant shadow that momentarily blotted out the sun a B-24 bomber, the only one still flying, swept overhead no more than a hundred feet or so. I could see the pop rivets in the wings and felt the air stream from it’s passing. Took my breath away. And then as gentle and smooth as if it owned the sky it banked slightly to the left(west) to Allaire Airport and was gone. Some years later, recently in fact in the same area coming out of work again I heard that roar and this time it was a B-17. It’s one of a few that are still flying. “909’’ it’s called. Took a tour of that baby! Talk about cramped. You can read all you want about the four engine bombers of WW2 but until you see one actually in flight can you appreciate their grace and power.
for 79K I hope he got to drop some real bombs.
Well in that case ... yeah.
55 Spitfires and 13 Hurricanes are in airworthy condition. By contrast, there are over 150 P-51 Mustangs still in the air, and several dozen others in various stages of restoration.
-ccm
I have to laugh when I read that. I worked in Macon, GA back in the '90s when the "Sentimental Journey", a B-17G flown by the Confederate Air Force, made its appearance there.
I went out to the airport and took a tour, and was blown away at the small interior. It felt like I was walking (stooped) through a highway culvert. They were playing actual combat intercom conversations and I well remember the "Get out of there guys!" as they watched one of their own go down and counting the chutes as they bailed out. Christ, talk about chills!
The guys said their next stop was Savannah and a day later I was in a Big Wheel conference when I heard THE drone. I had seen so many WWI films on B-17s I immediately recognized the familiar sound. I startled everyone by saying "THAT'S A B-17!" and bolted from the room.
I went outside the plant and caught her just as she approached the area at about 1,000 feet. I took of my cap and waved - and by God, the pilot waggled its wings - and I damned near wet myself. For the life of me, I don't remember going back to the meeting, but boy, I will remember that event until my dying day.
A prime reason for the P-51s is that they stayed in use to the Korean War and then became the mainstay of the air-racers. Of course the modifications as air-racers can render some barely recognizable as being derived from the P-51. If Britain hadn't had such a depressed economy post-war, maybe more Spitfires would have been saved but I don't think that the Spitfires were competitive as air-racers even so, the 5+ year difference in basic design just shut the Spit down and of course the Hurricane was even older.
The “Lanc” was easily the best heavy bomber produced by Great Britain in WWII—clearly superior to its predecessors, the Wellington, Stirling and Manchester. In fact, it incorporated lessons learned from those earlier designs; the Lancaster had more power than the Manchester (as a four-engine bomber) and a higher service ceiling than the Stirling.
Contrasting the Lanc to the B-17 and B-24 is really an apples-and-oranges comparison. Both of the American bombers were built around the doctrine of daylight precision bombing, so they were more heavily armored (and armed) than their RAF counterparts, and both the Fort and Liberator were equipped with the Norden bombsight.
By the time the Lancaster entered service, the RAF had long abandoned daylight raids, settling for area attacks at night. So accuracy was less important and the Lancaster didn’t carry as many machine guns to fend off enemy attack.
In fact, the great vulnerability of the Lancaster was that it lacked a ball turret, found on the B-17 and B-24. As a result, Germany began fitting its night fighters with upward firing guns; the standard tactic was to fly beneath the bomber stream and when the fighter was under a Lanc, the pilot would loose a deadly stream of fire that sent many an RAF bomber plunging to the ground. That’s one reason the rear turret gunner was (perhaps) the most important man on the crew; his job was to look for any sign a night fighter was over-taking the Lancaster and tell the pilot to maneuver. More than a few rear gunners asked that the Perspex glass of their eye-level panels be removed from the turret to maximize their visibility.
Despite its deficiencies, the Lancaster was a great bomber. Along with the famous dam buster raid, Lancs were also quite successful delivering Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs against such targets as the U-boat pens in France and sinking the battleship Tirpitz in Norway. A magnificent plane, piloted by brave men; as I recall, Bomber Command had more than 55,000 casualties in WWII; the odds of a crew member completing an operational tour was somewhere between 30 and 40%.
A read-out from the dark recesses of my beady little mind sez that the full name was Avro-Lancaster. FWIW.
So it went from this Avro Bulls Eye
to this Manchester
to this Lancaster
to this Vulcan
In the early days of the Manhattan Project the Lancaster was being considered as the A-Bomb delivery aircraft. But General Groves (head of the Project) nixed the idea — because he wanted a US plane for the purpose.
I knew the head fueler there. I live nearby.
Fun story! Thanks for the imagery.
I’d love to take a flight in a B-24 Bomber. My dad was nose gunner on it in WWII. Of course I don’t want his experience of having to bail out, twice, while still in training here in the states and being injured doing so. Engine fires both times on the “war weary” bombers that were sent back to the states for the new crews to train on, while the new production craft went to Europe and the Pacific for combat missions.
See my post #37 WWII aviation
lol that’s what I first thought.
“The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s over Germany “ Stephen Ambrose
A superb read,
and yes, it’s an homage to his friend George McGovern.
I have been involved in some odd stuff and come from a Mil Spec family but would never consider anything like the old Army Air Force.
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