scrap that now iv'e read your post properly,third Lancaster obviously not City of Lincoin,think I'll stick to all things American....
scrap that now iv'e read your post properly,third Lancaster obviously not City of Lincoin,think I'll stick to all things American....
Hi Nick,
There was a piece about the plane and its history in a magazine a good while back. it was there that it was mentioned about Leonard Cheshire. There was a picture of him laughing his head off sat at the controls. The plane was moved from Blackpool and loaned to Scampton air base as a gate guardian in the early 1970's, so maybe the incident with Cheshire was late 60's! But I used to see the Lanc on many occasions when I was duty driver at Kirton in Lindsey. Part of the roll of duty driver was to call at Scampton to pick up reports on Russian trawler movements.
As an aside, it was claimed that when Leonard Cheshire went on an HGV course at the old naval base at Stretton - just outside Warrington, he was absolutely hopeless at reversing between cones. It is claimed that in the end he drew a diagram of the rout to be taken and timed himself with a stopwatch to calculate when he needed to make the turns. I suppose it was a bit of a throwback to his days as a bomber pilot!
cheers,
Steve.
The City of Lincoln was the name given to the Lancaster flown by the battle of Britain memorial flight. originally she was operated out of Waddington - again while I was serving in the army. Over the years she has flown under several different names as a tribute to the aircraft of RAF bomber command.
Thanks for the info Nick very interesting..Nice to see her fly again. I was saying to the Missus I might treat myself to a taxi run when I semi retire in 1 & half years!!..Not a big RAF buff but this is a once in a lifetime whizz.. Cheers Terry.
I've just looked up the plane, and the incident with Group Captain Cheshire happened on 30th March 1969 when the plane was at the former USAF base of Lavenham in Suffolk. before Cheshire was let loose at the controls the squadron markings were changed to GLC... For Group Captain Leonard Cheshire...
"In all my years as a soldier, I have never seen men fight so hard." - SS Obergruppenfuhrer Wilhelm Bittrich - Arnhem
It still is the city of Lincoln, they only put the historical markings on the left but it's always been 'City of Lincoln' on the right. The name is in Honour of the ties the RAF and the Lancaster have with the City and County. In my time there I've known it as 'Mickey the Moocher', 'Phantom of the Ruhr' and 'Thumper III'.
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