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City of Sheffield Lancaster Bomber painting


dunsbyowl1867

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A bit of poetic license here as I'm sure it has never flown over after the town hall extension was built!

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On my recent trip home I paid a visit to the East Kirkby aviation centre where the "City Of Sheffield" Lancaster lives. On Wednesdays and Saturdays they fire the engines up an taxi down the airfield. It is an awsome experience.

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-14-1180964276.jpg,

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-14-1180964375.jpg,

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On my recent trip home I paid a visit to the East Kirkby aviation centre where the "City Of Sheffield" Lancaster lives. On Wednesdays and Saturdays they fire the engines up an taxi down the airfield. It is an awsome experience.

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-14-1180964276.jpg,

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-14-1180964375.jpg,

Great Photos - drove past at the weekend. They also have a Spitfire now?

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Great Photos - drove past at the weekend. They also have a Spitfire now?

Yes they do. It is a two seat training Spitfire that is fully operational. I took a couple of photos of it that I can post when I get home.

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http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-14-1181015823.jpghttp://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-14-1181015765.jpg

Sorry about the quality of these shots

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A couple of shots i took on 28/08/05, i was in Eckington (just south of sheff:) at the time.

The Lancaster was on its way to do a fly over for a show in Graves Park.

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Lancaster bomber NX-611, City of Sheffield - spotted by the wife and me last week, not able to fly, but seen "doing the rounds".

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Indeed it is where we saw her ... and the Spitfires, Hurricanes and the wooden Chipmunks.

The Lancaster was in the news recently as they are proposing to make her air worthy and fly her again. Visit the website and give them your views whether they should or not!

http://www.lincsaviation.co.uk/home.cfm

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The LANCASTER seems to touch the hearts of many people, young and old. So many families have a story to tell, about someone connected in some way, to one of the best known aircraft of WW2. Mum joined the W.A.A.F. in Jan 1942. After her training, she went to RAF SWINDERBY in Lincolnshire, that's the base where she encountered the 'LANC'. From 29th June '42, 50 Squadron were stationed there till the October, when they returned to Skellingthorpe. Mum was then transferred to Staverton, and finally Finningley, neither of these had Lancasters, but she said there was something about the 'LANC' above all the other aircraft, that just got to you. - On the eve of her Wedding, her Fiance's family got a telegram, saying his Brother-in-law was missing, he was a Lancaster pilot. They found out later, the engines had been shot up after a bombing raid over Germany, he managed to fly back up to a few miles off the coast, when the engines failed. She went down killing all but one crew member, the Tail Gunner who'd jumped out, landing away from where she crashed into the sea. - In 1955 when i was 2, a Memorial Flight came over our cottage, flying very low going up to the Derwent, Mum said I pulled her out of the kitchen to look at it. - This being my story, and having seen the 'LANC' flying past many times, I had the most amazing gift of being able to do the 'TAXI RUN' in 'The CITY of SHEFFIELD' at East Kirkby. Just to feel the power of the engines stirs the emotions. Something I will never forget.  

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I worked with a couple of ex Lanc pilots and also one who had flown the Halifax, The latter reckoned the Halifax was a much better aircraft... but was unable to lift the largest of bombs because of size limitations of its bomb bay.

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On 24/05/2007 at 11:54, dunsbyowl1867 said:

A bit of poetic license here as I'm sure it has never flown over after the town hall extension was built!

 

 

post-513-1180003960.jpg

The Lancaster NX611 at East Kirkby spent the first seventeen years service in the Far East before being donated by the French for preservation and flown to Australia in 1964. It came back in 1965 and had a number of homes till it was specially authorised for its  final three hour flight to Blackpool in 1970, well pre Eggbox.5677 It thereafter remained a static exhibit including thirteen years as R.A.F. Scampton gate guard from 1974. 

Taking up dunsbyowl's point, there is a lot of artistic licence about it.  It  was in good order when it came back  to the U.K..but rarely flew once the owners at the time found out how much an hour it cost to run and maintain. There only seems to have only been one long flight,  to Scampton and back for a Dambusters Anniversary some three years before it was grounded. I had the opportunity to look round inside it at Scampton about 1978 when the R.A.F. were looking after it by arrangement although it was by then privately owned. Being local and on the roadside we passed it most weeks whilst it was there and that causes me a problem. Altogether the picture looks authentic but it isn't.  lt concerns me that it will at sometime be taken as evidence of a real accurrence and  I have a feeling that that has already happened. Earlier in ths thread there are three Lancaster photos posted in 2007  as  NX611 in flight  to  Graves Park. By then mobile yes, able to fly no. This has to be  the other "City",  PA474 City of Lincoln of the B.B.Memorial Flight at R.A.F. Coningsby Again are these going to be accepted. as posted?  I suppose when NX611  gets airborne it could come over, but then the Eggbox is gone so that  painting can't  ever be replicated.

I have to agree about the sound of four Merlins in full voice. During the war at Lincoln everybody got used to two engine noises ; the Lancaster and the Airspeed Oxford. Only something different  like the odd Wellington made you look up. The day it was a Heinkel made everybody  look.

 The Lancaster was THE bomber  in Lincolnshire and remained so for years. We knew the Panton brother's  story and their aspirations from the local press. Suddenly even getting  a static  Lanc. back at Scampton was something but times changed. One  new C.O. of Scampton and it's Vulcans  said in an interview that he wanted it away in favour of something more modern and caused an uproar. Heresy!  Similarly when it came out in 1984 that it would be going, there was something similar until we heard the rest.. The Panton brother's had after sixteen or so  years managed to by it for their new Lincolnshire  museum. Engine overhauls in 1994/5 that allowed it to move under it's own power again pleased everybody. And it has gone on from there. 

One  other view. It was common up to about 1970 for groups from the two remaining stations to visit the local works to see what went on. Most were newly qualified pilots but one occasion l had to do the tour for the new C.O. of R.A.F. Waddington with our M.D. in the rear. We did get round to comparing notes on our respective lives and I ultimately got round to the B.B. Lancaster. Had he flown it and what did he think of it,  he being a Vulcan pilot? It was nice to hear he had a sort of soft spot for the Memorial Flight. However he found the Lancaster something of a handful and devoid of creature comforts. The lack of power assisted controls made him wonder how the wartime crews managed over several hours airbourne. His final opinion  "It was like driving a mobile  crane"  Nice chap. He'd probably done that as well.

 

 

 

 

 

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As a slight aside, I see in the news that the last surviving Dam Busters pilot, Mr. Les Munro, has just died aged 96. Counting back to 1944, that would have meant that he was 23 or 24 when in charge of a machine that was "a handful to fly", responsible for a crew of six or seven, flying a long, difficult and dangerous mission in darkness. We sometimes forget how young these men, to whom our country owes so much, were.

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Hi Athy. You are absolutely right, when the youngsters of that era joined the services, they grew up 'very quick'. When you think that Guy Gibson was the same age or younger than some of his squadron crews, and yet he had all that responsibility. I have heard it said that the average age of pilot back then was 19. A sobering thaught.

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