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Lancaster questions


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Anyone know the colors and order of the three ID lights on a Lancaster? These are under the rear fuselage, two of which are under the clear rear section of the H2S radome when fitted. A good picture of the lights would help also.

Also, when were the knobby tires actually fitted? I’ve heard that the knobby times in the Tamiya Lanc were used post war, and that the smooth tread were used during wartime, but when did they start getting fitted with the knobby tires, immediately after the war, or some time later? I’m looking at doing the 35th Sqn. Mk. 1 (FE), which seems to be from ~1946, when they did the goodwill tour of the US. The instructions show the smoothe wartime tread tires.

TIA.

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Hi Dave

I looked this up in my late fathers flight engineer course notes. The switch for the downward ID lights was on the far starboard side of the pilots panel. The 3 position switches were laid out in the following order: green, amber and red, reading left to right. Something like an upside down traffic light on the fuselage with the green the forwardmost light. Sorry, but his notes don't mention anything about tire treads. I had heard that the switch took place when the aircraft started operating from paved runways. Hope this helpls a bit. Cheers.

Brian

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For a wartime Lanc then slick tyres are probably the best bet - I have three volumes of Lancaster at War plus some other Lanc references and there's only a handful of photos that show Lancs with treaded tyres. Even operating off paved surfaces the slick tyres are still common. A post war Lanc would much more likely be fitted with treaded tyres, but even then you will find plenty of post war pictures with them fitted with slicks.

peebeep

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Does anyone have a picture in the nose looking back from the bubble towards the steps showing the rear of the bombardiers compartment and what the area over the escape hatch looks like? I have seen plenty of pictures looking forward through the bubble but they don't help much.

Cheers for any help.

Tony

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Hi Tony

The first thing that you would have seen on the left at the rear of the compartment, while looking into the bubble, would have been the step down into the nose which was also the top of the windscreen de-icing tank. On the right side, the most prominent item would have been the cage for the strike camera located about half way back into the compartment. The couch (pad) for the bomb aimer would have covered up much of the floor and the top of the main parachute exit (escape hatch.) You might want to visit the following site: http://jproc.ca/rrp/rrp3/lanc_bomb_aimer_position_b.jpg

This shows a drawing of the bomb aimers compartment and on the same site is a numbered guide to the various bits.

HTH

Brian

Edited by bmccarron
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