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Lancs in the Fleet Air Arm

Phil Reeder

By Phil Reeder
in Aircraft WWII

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penfold New Member

penfold

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Ah, not what I was expecting......I've seen footage of an experimental test of an inflatable landing strip (honest) to be used, I assumed, either as an alternative for arresting hooks/nets on carriers, or for aircraft with damaged undercarriage to use in an emergency; the point being that the landings on these giant mattresses are all wheels up belly landings. Aircraft seen participating in these tests certainly included Vampires, and I'm 99% certain, Lancs..... can anyone shed further light ???

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JohnT Completely Obsessed Member

JohnT

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Ah, not what I was expecting......I've seen footage of an experimental test of an inflatable landing strip (honest) to be used, I assumed, either as an alternative for arresting hooks/nets on carriers, or for aircraft with damaged undercarriage to use in an emergency; the point being that the landings on these giant mattresses are all wheels up belly landings. Aircraft seen participating in these tests certainly included Vampires, and I'm 99% certain, Lancs..... can anyone shed further light ???

Was this the experimental flexible landing deck used on HMS Warrior to see if FAA aircraft could do without undercarriage? Eric "Winkle" Brown landed the prototype Vampire on Warrior in proof of concept trials as detailed in his biography. Great pic of him landing the Vampire hook down and no gear. One of his many "firsts". There were many other succesful landings after that but the idea never took hold.

JohnT

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penfold New Member

penfold

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Was this the experimental flexible landing deck used on HMS Warrior to see if FAA aircraft could do without undercarriage? Eric "Winkle" Brown landed the prototype Vampire on Warrior in proof of concept trials as detailed in his biography. Great pic of him landing the Vampire hook down and no gear. One of his many "firsts". There were many other succesful landings after that but the idea never took hold.

JohnT

Sounds very much like it. Unless my memory is playing tricks, the same set-up was tried out on land, with Lancs landing on what looks like a giant Judo mat....Lancs being expendable at that time...'46??

The films were shown about a dozen years ago as part of a programme of test films - I think from the IWM archives - at the National Film Theatre. As well as the above gems, we had catapult launching of 1920's bombers, speedy recovery of ditched aircraft at sea (one pilot seen paddling his dinghy towards camera being unmistakably P/O Whittle) the flying Jeep being towed behind a Whitley, and most terrifyingly, German footage of a steel speedboat-shaped landing craft powered by a Messerschmitt Komet engine. It accelerated so quickly all the passengers flew off, the thing becomes airborne before burying itself in the beach. I think they gave up at that point....

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tonyot Blabber Mouth

tonyot

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I have seen a pic of a Lanc at RAE on either the flexible deck, or the catapult launcher.

I' also sure I have seen a pic of one of the FAA Lancs (albeit it was no different from an RAF one)

Are you mistaking the Lanc on a catapult for a Manchester?

The Manchester was stressed for catapult launching as a way of using smaller airfields and was tested at Fanrborough where a well known photo was taken of it with its tail up mounted in the catapult cradle arms, but I`ve never seen a photo of a Lancaster like this...it would certainly be interesting!

As far as I know the Fleet Air Arm Lancasters were intended to be used as multi engined trainers to teach Naval Pilots how to manage the multiple fuel tanks and engines etc.......and were to have replaced Whitleys which had been used in the same role...however the end of the war brought the units disbandment whilst it was in the process of re equipping with Lancs. Off the top of my head, the unit may have been 734NAS and it was an engine handling training unit based at Henstridge and Worthy Down but the Lanc flight was at Peplow. During 1946 B Flight of 780 NAS also had some Lancs at Peplow for dropping trials !!

Cheers

Tony O

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Dave Fleming Blabber Mouth

Dave Fleming

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Are you mistaking THE Lanc on a catapult for a Manchester?

The Manchester was stressed for catapult launching as a way of using smaller airfields and was tested at Fanrborough where a well known photo was taken of it with its tail up mounted in the catapult cradle arms, but I`ve never seen a photo of a Lancaster like this...it would certainly be interesting!

Yep, I probably am!!

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Seahawk Completely Obsessed Member

Seahawk

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I have seen a pic of a Lanc at RAE on either the flexible deck, or the catapult launcher.

I' also sure I have seen a pic of one of the FAA Lancs (albeit it was no different from an RAF one)

The spec for the Manchester required it to be suitable for catapult launch and I vaguely recall seeing a photo of one on a test installation. A quick look through Bob Kirby's book didn't find the pic though.

Suspect you're right that these FAA Lancs, used for a short time and possibly not very heavily at that, were probably indistinguishable from standard Bomber Command versions (none of those fetching white schemes as seen on some (but not all) FAA Wellingtons). But I'd still love to see that photo of an FAA Lanc if you can find it.

Nick

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tonyot Blabber Mouth

tonyot

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Hiya Folks,

I`ve seen a couple of photos of these naval Lancs from somebody who served with 734 NAS at Peplow (I`ve double checked to see if I had used the correct sqn number earlier!!), which were mostly taken inside a hangar having work done to add test instumentation to them at the end of WW2 and they were just in bog standard Bomber colours......I didn`t even see Royal Navy titles over the serials...although the Whitleys they were replacing did carry the codes W0A+.

However the Royal Navy titles could well have been added later...especially in 1946 whilst serving with 780 NAS...who knows?

All the best and hope this helps,

Cheers,

Tony O

Edited by tonyot
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Seahawk Completely Obsessed Member

Seahawk

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Unfortunately, not really. Unless I'm missing something, all the shots and art are of bog-standard Bomber Command and/or preserved Lancs. And there are obvious errors in the text (eg most Lancs had 8, not 10, guns, only a minority had Martin dorsal turrets).

Nick

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DCRanger New Member

DCRanger

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Here's the Manchester on a catapult. This proposal was made before concrete runways were laid and airfields were too small for the new larger aircraft with longer take off requirements.

Manchester.jpg

From the comments above I think there is some confusion between the flexible deck (Vampire and Winkle Brown) and Lily Pad which was a completely different project for a floating runway. Lily pad was made up from hundreds of 6ft six sided buoyancy cans which could be linked together to form a floating landing and take off strip. This experiment ended with the war but Swordfish had been tested on it and later a couple of other types but I can't remember which.

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