pensioners from Lincolnshire have restored a rare WWII Lancaster bomber

[Totenhead]

Yeah, but Merlins were common to both!..

Yeah, and I also had SU carbs on my Mini Cooper years ago !!! I have worked on SU carbs quite alot and I am still amazed they worked on those Merlins !!

Just checked, forget that comment, look nothing like an SU carb I have worked on, should have known, silly me ! More like a downdraught webber, what a piece of kit !!

[Danmark]

Always bemuses me that we can get all gushy over a BIG restoration ( plane / tank / car / bike ) but heaven help the man who restores a piece of kit!! ( I know the reasons - the bigger the item, the more unlikely it could still exist in original condition but it still makes me chuckle at our human logic )

So, I guess this lancaster ( if she were a M35 double decal helmet we would cry out in derision ) is really a fake or a "parts plane"!
Cheers lads!
Dan

settle on, it's a larf, innit? .........

[Gunny Hartmann]

Yeah, and I also had SU carbs on my Mini Cooper years ago !!! I have worked on SU carbs quite alot and I am still amazed they worked on those Merlins !!

Not quite the same as the car carbs mate!...

[Totenhead]

Not quite the same as the car carbs mate!...

Yeah mate, just Googled them myself ! Hmm, slightly more complex than my twin SU's, and single HIF 44 I used to play around with, remind me more of a Webber twin 40 downdraught carb we used to fiddle around with . I just couldnt get my head around them using SU carbs and pulling G's on a Merlin !!! I rolled my Mini down the road once, bounced off a hedge and the engine stalled straight away !!!

[Gunny Hartmann]

Nope, no way could you use constant velocity carbs on a plane!...

[HARRY THE MOLE]

I used to see this Lancaster on a regular basis when I was stationed at Kirton in Lindsey in the early 70's. It was loaned to RAF Scampton and used as a gate guardian for a while. I often got up close to it when I used to visit the guard room when on duty driver. Group Captain Leornard Cheshire VC was once allowed to taxi this aircraft back in the 60's or 70's when it was still intended to be displayed at the proposed museum at Blackpool Airport. The owner of the plane was up front with him in the cockpit and recalls how he feared that Cheshire would try to get it airborn again. But fate stepped in, and Cheshire put one of the wheels off the runway and damaged the undercarriage.

[davejb]

I used to watch a Mossie flying over Hatfield in 1976-7, doing all kinds of rolls , dives loops etc, we used to spend all afternoon sitting on the pistol range and hearing those twin merlins thunder away , now I await the four engines of the BBMF during the summer months as it flys pretty low directly over my house

[Totenhead]

Hi Dave,

Hatfield developed Mosqito's during the war, it was a De Havilland site. The Mossie' may have been the one from Broughton, Chester, the Broughton factory was taken over by DH in 1948, later Hawker Siddeley until British Aerospace took over in the later 70's. Both sites were BAE. I do recall the Mossie from Broughton being absent for many weeks from time to time, could have spent time down in Hatfield

[davejb]

I know Hatfield was one of the main production factories for Mossies, we have the Mossie Museum just down the road from me, which houses the original prototype and many other pieces and parts, aircraft etc, they even had the cockpit section used in the film 633 Squadron that Cliff Robertson was filmed in

[Totenhead]

Hi Dave

Did not realise there was a museum there, maybe worth a trip downthere sometime