Dambuster: Avro Lancaster

Many Lancaster crewmembers considered it the best design they had flown in. The bomber flew higher and faster than the previous generation of mainly twin-engine bombers. The Lancaster was developed from an earlier, unsuccessful twin-engine aircraft called a Manchester, which suffered from unreliable Rolls-Royce “Vulture” engines.

The bomb aimer was responsible for manning the front guns. However, front guns were rarely used because the bombers flew at night. To avoid collisions in the dark, Nazi fighter pilots attacked from the rear and side. 

The first operational flight of a Lancaster was in March 1942, and by the end of the war they had completed an amazing 156,000 operations.

The Lancaster had four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. The V12 engines were the same kind powering Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. The engines were liquid cooled and very powerful compared to others of the 1940s. 

The aircraft was capable of carrying the largest, heaviest bombs available. When large bombs were being loaded, the doors of the bomb bay had to be removed. The doors were operated by a system of hydraulics, controlled by the pilot. 

This entrance was used by the crew. There were a number of exits, including hatches in the roof and in the nose. The rear-gunner could leave the aircraft via the doors at the rear of his turret. 

When the target was reached, the bomb aimer would lie down in the lower compartment and look directly down onto the target before releasing the bombs. The bomb aimer would be skilled at nighttime targeting.

The mid-upper gunner had great visibility from his position. His turret was hydraulically powered and rotated through 360°, with the 2 guns moving up- down in an arc. A device in front of the guns prevented the gunner from accidentally shooting the aircraft’s tail off. 

The gunner had a very rudimentary seat and his legs would hang down in the fuselage, becoming another obstacle to try to get past in an emergency.

The turret had two .303 machine guns. The RAF aircraft guns weren’t as powerful as the enemy’s and often the guns were used as a last resort. It was better to try to evade the enemy than try to shoot him down. 

The Lancaster does not have glass windows: all of the glazing is Perspex, a plastic invented in 1934. Visibility was tremendously important when looking for enemy night-fighters. Many bombers were lost because the crew didn’t see a fighter until it opened fire.

These bags were for collecting the spent ammunition cases ejected from the gun as they were fired. Most Lancasters had three turrets: nose, rear and mid-upper. Some aircraft had a turret underneath to counter German aircraft with vertical cannons. 

Gunners were often the youngest of the crew. They could be trained in a matter of months, whereas a pilot often took more than 2 years to reach operations. Statistically, gunners were more likely to be killed or wounded by enemy night fighters. 

The cockpit of the Lancaster had only one seat: the pilot’s. The flight engineer was to his right, on a small pull-out seat. Normally, a Lancaster had just one set of controls, but this aircraft has been converted to meet modern safety standards.

The Lancaster didn’t have power-assisted controls. A pilot needed strength to use the wheel and pedals. The instruments look very different from those in modern aircraft, such as a Typhoon, which have digital instruments.

If a pilot had to abandon the aircraft, he would leave his seat, pull on his parachute and then make his escape. There was a quick-release panel directly above his head, but this wasn’t designed for a parachute exit. 

Five of the crew were in close proximity to each other: the pilot, the flight engineer and navigator in the cockpit, the bomb aimer just in front of the cockpit, and the wireless operator behind it. The gunners by comparison had very solitary positions.