Which 1/72 Avro Lancaster landing gear are these?

[Guest]

Thanks Chris, how is it aimed? Looks nothing like an American ball turret. In that last image I am not

sure which is stranger looking, the black out shades on the car's headlights or that lower turret. Also

in that last image does the camouflage come down the side of the engine nacelles or is it extra heavy

exhaust staining? You sure have some unique Lancaster images!---John

[Graham Boak]

I suspect that the small wedge below the guns is the fitting for the periscope from which it was aimed.  Such gun positions were tried on most RAF bombers (all the big three) but were generally considered unsatisfactory, and it was concluded that the position was better used for the H2S radar.  Apparently the Canadians using the simpler Preston-Green gondola on their Halifaxes didn't agree, but tough.  As they were removed just as the Germans were switching to upwards firing Schrage Musik, the timing was perhaps unfortunate.

 

RAF Mitchells retained a similar Sperry turret although the US rejected it.

[stever219]

Some early Lancasters were fitted with an FN64(?) ventral turret which, I believe, was aimed by a gunner seated (or kneeling) above the turret using a periscopic sight.  The installation was considered, in the days before the German Luftwaffe discovered schrage musik, by many in Bomber Command to be not worth the weight and drag penalty and was deleted from subsequent production batches.  The location for the turret made an almost ideal home for the H2S scanner mounting on later aircraft.  Why the turret was reinstated on 6 Group's B. IIs I don't know.

 

R5727 just looks to have been rather grubby; the only Lancasters in the bomber role that I can think of with a low camouflage demarcation were the Grand Slam-toting B. I Specials of 617 and 15 Squadrons in the Day Bomber camouflage scheme.

[Graham Boak]

The turret was most commonly seen on Mk.IIs.  The date is a bit early to be a reinstatement, more likely to have preceded it.  I wonder if it was a common fit on early Canadian production?

 

I must admit that I hadn't realised the Frog kit came with a ventral turret, even if without the proper bombbay doors and fairing.  Mind you, the only one I had was found in an old bingo hall without one fuselage half, so I didn't look too closely.  Enough to notice that the dorsal turret was about right for a Blenheim rather than a Lancaster.

[dogsbody]

1 hour ago, Johnv said:

Thanks Chris, how is it aimed? Looks nothing like an American ball turret. In that last image I am not

sure which is stranger looking, the black out shades on the car's headlights or that lower turret. Also

in that last image does the camouflage come down the side of the engine nacelles or is it extra heavy

exhaust staining? You sure have some unique Lancaster images!---John

 

Like this:

 

 

 

That is exhaust staining on the nacelles. 

 

The things on the headlights are to keep any light directed down to the road in front of the car. Britain was under total blackout for the whole war. If you were driving at night, you better have had proper government permission to do so, or you'd be way up the poopy river with no means of propulsion!

 

 

 

Chris

[Guest]

This isn't the gun that made the gunner dizzy or sick is it? I remember hearing of a gun in Lancasters that made

the gunner dizzy. Maybe the one on the Dam Busters---John

[dogsbody]

No, this is the one. On the Upkeep Lancs, it was just a Vickers poking out of the same location as the turret.

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Aeronut]

1 hour ago, stever219 said:

 The location for the turret made an almost ideal home for the H2S scanner mounting on later aircraft. 

With the turret removed the resulting hole was also tested as an exit for paratroops in the same way as employed on the Whitley and Wellington. Interestingly whilst the trials were conducted on a Lancaster the results were also used to give the Manchester clearance to drop paratroops.

[Mancunian airman]

I am tempted to say that those legs look like somebody has cast a set from an old kit . . . .

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Mancunian airman

[Guest]

If they did then they cast the whole kit. ALL the parts are this color. The fellow modeller

also sent me some struts for the landing gear and some gun barrels.---John

[mrp]

Just to add the this discussion, from my research and access to Canadian Lancaster production information, KB700 was the only Canadian built Lancaster to be fitted with the FN-64 turret.

I have a picture of KB701, which clearly shows no underside turret fitted. There was a Canadian designed aft bomb bay fairing designed and built to fit in place, where the turret was ,with the larger 8000 lbs doors.

When Victory Aircraft built the Lancaster, they would fit turrets on the production line to four aircraft , then the next four would be fitted with wooden fairings in the place of the turrets. Turrets would be fitted once the air frame had arrived in the UK at the various MU's that would bring them up to squadron operational readiness.

As the turrets were built by Parnall in the UK and then subsequently shipped over via ship, the supply lines would be tight. Eventually, no turrets , except the US built Martin turret, would be fitted, starting with KB855. The MU's in the UK were spending a lot of time working on the Canadian built Lancasters and particularly disliked the wooden turret fairings, as they were attached with a multitude of small nuts and screws.  So in the case of KB700, the first Lancaster off the production line, it would have had the full compliment of turrets. I am not certain, but I would suspect that the FN-64 turret probably came off the the pattern Lancaster R5727, which is pictured above with the car. The exhaust pattern showing heavy build up , would place the picture being probably taken at Gander Newfoundland, as the Lancaster was flown directly across the Atlantic to Gander, Dorval and then on to Malton, by the US aviator Clyde Pangborn. The first Canadian built Lancasters fitted with turrets at Malton were KB700, KB701,KB704 and KB705. KB706 up to KB709  would be sent out with fairings . KB710  and the next 3 would be fitted the turrets. The process would then repeat again. The Turret fairings designs  were also changed over the course of their use. The fairings were built by a Toronto piano maker to a very high standard.

 

mrp

[JWM]

going back to main question in thread, the doubled supports on each side are not very much of Lancaster style.

 

 

 

I start to think that it is not a Lancaster gear, only very similar one... 

Regards

J-W

 

[Graham Boak]

As described above, these are from the original Airfix Lancaster and stems from a misunderstanding of the door closing linkage.  I didn't recognise the legs, but did these incorrect struts.