VETERAN LANCASTER RETURNS TO UK
Originally from
http://www.aircrew.org.uk/woking/W_News210401.html - this page is now unavailable.
Members of Woking Aircrew Association at their regular monthly meeting at the Fairoaks Flight Centre were treated to a lively and very humorous illustrated account of the adventures of an ex-Pathfinders crew and a very experienced ground engineer who went to Canada in the late 70s to fly a retired Lancaster back to Britain.
The speaker was Dick Richardson, who had the distinction
of serving for 12 years continuously on the same RAF Station,
rising from Corporal Fitter to Chief Technician, looking after
Mark I and Mark II Vulcans, and subsequently taking on
responsibility for maintaining the Battle of Britain Memorial
Flight Lancaster. Following his RAF career, he became Chief
Engineer to the Strathallan Collection of Vintage Aircraft owned
by Sir William Roberts. It was in this capacity that he was sent
to Canada to survey an ex-wartime Canadian built Lancaster Mk X
parked at Calgary Airport, which had been converted as a Water
Bomber, carrying 2000 gallons at a time to be dumped on forest
fires.
Having scrounged necessary replacement parts from nine other
derelict Lancasters of various vintages which he found dumped at
Edmonton, he was joined by a crew led by Captain P A Mackenzie,
ex-83 Squadron, who was then the Operations Director at British
Caledonian Airways, and other B Cal crew members who had also
flown Lancasters during the war.
They had a tremendous reception at their first port of call, Toronto, where the aircraft was originally built, with huge crowds to see them off, and much media coverage. On departure, the queue of impatient 747s in the takeoff queue were told by Air Traffic Control that "Today it is age before beauty" and had to wait until the Lancaster had completed a requested fly-past for the waiting crowds!
Similar attention was paid to their
refueling stops at Halifax, Gander and Reykjavik, where it turned
out that the British Consul was an ex-rear gunner, and so they
were required to beat up the town before they left. On their
return to UK they were, to their surprise, met and escorted in
over Tiree by a Maritime Reconnaissance Nimrod, with wheels and
flaps down and with 39 people on board, all clustering with
cameras round portholes on the port side, upsetting its trim!
Captain Mac asked the Nimrod Captain to "clean up his aircraft" so
that they could get decent photos, which they subsequently
exchanged to great glee all round.
They had another great reception at Glasgow Airport, after which they had to fly the aircraft onto an 800-yard dirt strip at its future home at the Strathallan collection, where it was repainted in 405 Squadron colours, but sadly, although its Merlin engines "never missed a beat" all the way across the Atlantic, it never flew again.
Dick Richardson finished his presentation with slides of derelict
military aircraft he found all over Canada in various stages of
disarray, but he could name every one, and his whole talk sounded
as if it had happened only yesterday. He was given a heartfelt
vote of thanks by all present, and our Social Secretary was urged
to provide more speakers like Dick, PLEASE!
Above originally from http://www.aircrew.org.uk/woking/W_News210401.html - this page is now unavailable.
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 Leaving Halifax 18th May 1975 |
 Leaving Halifax 18th May 1975 |
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| At Glasgow Airport awaiting favourable
landing conditions at Strathallan. See also http://www.british-caledonian.com/BCal_Spirit_of_Caledonia.html |