This Date in Aviation History: January 6 - January 9

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 01/09/2018 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from January 6 through January 9.

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January 6, 1944 – The first flight of the McDonnell XP-67. Since its creation in 1939, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and later !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , has produced some of America’s most iconic military and civilian aircraft, growing rapidly during WWII from its humble beginnings as an aircraft parts supplier. McDonnell’s first foray into aircraft design came with the US Army’s Request for Proposal R-40C, which was intended to encourage American companies to produce technologically advanced or even radical fighter aircraft to keep pace with modern European designs. McDonnell responded to the request with a truly radical twin-engine aircraft that placed the engine in the fuselage behind the cockpit that turned a pair of pusher propellers via a 90-degree shaft and gearboxes. The Army wasn’t particularly impressed with the arrangement, and McDonnell was not chosen as a finalist in the competition. But the Army nevertheless gave McDonnell $3,000 to continue development of their design.

McDonnell returned in 1941 with the redesigned XP-67, a twin-engine interceptor with engines housed in the wings rather than in the fuselage. While that arrangement was more traditional, it was the shape of the XP-67 that was unique. In an attempt to make the aircraft as aerodynamic as possible, McDonnell housed the engines in tapered nacelles that were blended into the wing, and the wing was blended into the fuselage to create a single structure. The resulting shape looked more than just a bit like a bat, and the XP-67 received its unofficial nickname “Bat” or “Moon Bat.” By employing a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! wing design, McDonnell promised a top speed of 472 mph with a gross weight of 18,600 pounds, although the weight soon ballooned to 20,000 pounds. Still, the Army awarded McDonnell $1.5 million to build two prototypes and test the radical interceptor.

Despite the futuristic shape and promises of high performance, the Bat never quite lived up to its billing. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! inverted, liquid-cooled V-12 engines, like so many engines of that era, proved underpowered, and engine cooling proved problematic, an issue that was never fully resolved. Flight tests showed that the new fighter flew reasonably well, but its climb rate was unacceptable, and it never reached the top speeds promised. An engine fire during a test flight in 1944 destroyed the single flying prototype, and, since the XP-67 showed no real advances in performance over existing designs, the project was canceled. Fortunately, the setback did not deter McDonnell, and the company followed the XP-67 with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first fully jet-powered aircraft to operate from an aircraft carrier and the basis for the extremely successful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (US Air Force photos)

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January 7, 1942 – The first flight of the Supermarine Seafire. As England entered WWII, they faced a critical need for a modern, high-performance fighter to operate from their aircraft carriers. As early as 1938, the government considered adapting the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for carrier operations, but that idea was dropped in favor of the production of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . With the Fulmar, the Royal Navy had a rugged, long-range airframe suitable for carrier use, but it lacked the agility to dogfight with more modern German aircraft. As a result, the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) ended up starting the war with two woefully obsolete fighters, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! biplane and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . To bolster their forces, the British purchased the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from the United States, which was known as the Martlet in British service.

Following the success of converting the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to naval service, the FAA revisited the idea of converting the Spitfire to carrier service, and existing Spits were modified with an A-frame arrestor hook and reinforced fuselage. However, its narrow undercarriage proved unsuited to landing on a moving deck, and the intake scoops under the wings made water ditchings particularly hazardous. But even with these modifications, and increases in fuselage strength, the result was still not a purpose-built naval fighter. Further refinements continued, but the Seafire became heavier and its performance suffered. Range, which was already relatively short since the original Spitfire was designed as a land-based plane, also suffered. And it wasn’t until the third variant that the Seafire finally received folding wings. During 1942 and 1943, the Seafire gradually replaced the Hurricane in fleet service, saw its first action during !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Allied invasion of North Africa. In the Pacific, the Seafire proved to be a match for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Zero), but still not as effective overall as contemporary American fighters that were designed as naval fighters from the beginning.

Unlike many aircraft that were designed before WWII, the Seafire remained with the Royal Navy after the end of the war, but was given a more powerful Griffon engine in place of the Merlin. This gave the fighter a significant boost in performance, but created a new problem. Unlike the Merlin, the Griffin engine swing to the left, and even with full rudder correction on takeoff, the Seafire would move towards, rather than away from, the carrier’s island. This was eventually rectified in the definitive Mk 47 variant, which was fitted with a contra-rotating propeller. Mk 47 Seafires saw service in the Korean War in 1950, but by 1951, all Seafires had been removed from front line service. In all its variants, over 2,300 Seafires were produced. (UK Government photo; photo by Airwolfhound via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; photo by Airwolfhound via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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January 8, 1944 – The first flight of the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star. Though the jet engine predates WWII, technological advances in engine and aircraft design saw the powerplant mature to the point that it could dependably power an aircraft, and the Germans were first to field a jet-powered fighter with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the British were close on their heels with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Americans, however, were much farther behind on jet engine development, so their first efforts in the jet fighter age would be powered by British engines. Nevertheless, the P-80 Shooting Star would emerge as perhaps the best jet fighter of the war period, though it came too late to see combat in that conflict.

The prototype of the second XP-80A, nicknamed the Gray Ghost

The Shooting Star began as a development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , America’s first jet-powered fighter, when Bell was unable to continue its development and the design passed to Lockheed. In just 143 days, Lockheed had redesigned the Airacomet around a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engine, and America’s first operational jet fighter was born. While that engine only provided 2,460 pounds of thrust, the Shooting Star still reached a top speed of 502 mph, the first American aircraft to exceed 500 mph in level flight. Later variants were powered by a General Electric I-40 engine, itself an improvement of another British design, and ultimately produced by Allison as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Air Force was so impressed with the performance of the sleek new fighter that they immediately ordered 5,000 copies, but that number was reduced to 917 with the end of WWII.

Shooting Stars of the 36th Fighter-Bomber Squadron in Korea

The early Shooting Stars were not without teething troubles, and difficulties with fuel pumps led to a spate of crashes, one of which killed America’s top scoring WWII fighter ace !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But once the fuel delivery issues were solved, the P-80, now called the F-80 in the revised Air Force designation system, went on to become an excellent fighter, and the Shooting Star laid claim to the world’s first jet-to-jet aerial victory when it downed a Russian-built !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the skies over Korea. Despite that victory, the Shooting Star was no match for the swept-wig MiG, so air superiority duties were turned over to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , while the F-80 took on ground attack and reconnaissance missions.

The two-seat Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star

Though the F-80's days as a jet fighter ended with the Korean War, the two-seat trainer variant, known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , became America’s first jet-powered trainer and served into the 1980s. A total of 1,715 P-80/F-80 fighters were produced, but over 6,550 T-33s were built before production needed in 1959. (US Air Force photo)

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Lockheed L-1649 Constellation

January 9, 1943 – The first flight of the Lockheed Constellation. With its graceful curves, the Lockheed Constellation, nicknamed “Connie,” is arguably one of the most beautiful aircraft ever designed. But the comely Connie started life as a much more plain Jane aircraft, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a run of the mill, four-engine transport that would never enter production. In 1939, the eccentric billionaire !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the owner of Transcontinental & Western Airlines (which would later become TWA), held a meeting with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the president of T&WA, along with other Lockheed executives. Hughes expressed his desire for a new large passenger airliner, and he felt that the Excalibur wouldn’t meet his needs. So the Lockheed engineers, including !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who was destined to become one of America’s greatest aviation engineers, went back to the drawing board, and just three weeks later they presented Hughes with the initial plans for the Connie, now designated L-049.

The first Constellation, in US Army Air Forces livery, where it was known as the C069

The Constellation was a truly modern airliner, and featured electric de-icing, hydraulic assisted controls and variable pitch propellers. The wings were patterned after the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which had been designed by Kelly Johnson. The Connie was also pressurized to allow for high altitude flight, and was powered by a quartet of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engines. At the time, the Connie was the most expensive airliner ever produced, and Hughes himself funded the purchase of 40 aircraft since T&WA didn’t have the funds to pay for them. But along with the purchase, Hughes got to weigh in on the design, and he brought in famed designer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to redesign the cabin to his liking.

Lockheed C-121 Constellation flying for the US Air Force Military Air Transport Service (MATS)

Production of the Constellation was a tightly held secret, since Hughes didn’t want Pan Am or any other air carriers to know about the new airliner. But the secret was revealed when the US Army came to inspect Lockheed’s production facility a few months before the war. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lockheed’s production lines became the property of the US government, and production of the Constellation would have to wait until the Army got theirs first. Thus, the first flight of the L-049 Constellation is really the first flight of the Lockheed C-69, which was its military designation. The Army ordered 260 C-69s for cargo and troop transport, and even considered converting it into a bomber. But problems with the engines led to delays that caused the Army to reduce its order to 73 aircraft. Eventually, only 22 C-69s were built, and just 15 were delivered.

Lockheed EC-121D Warning Star over Thailand in 1972

Following the war, production returned to the civilian market, with military Connies converted to civilian aircraft. Improvements were made to those already under construction, such as the addition of a luxury interior, more windows, a galley, and crew rest areas, along with better ventilation and heating. And, since the C-69 had already been tested and flown by the Army, Lockheed was far ahead of its competitors, who were still working on their own post-war designs. The first production L-049 flew on July 12, 1945 and was delivered to TWA four months later. The first commercial flight was from New York City to Paris, a trip that took nearly 17 hours with stops in Newfoundland and Ireland for fuel. The Connie proved to be a remarkably adaptable airplane. Future variants to its civilian version added increased speed, passenger space and range, and the improved C-121 Constellation (L-749) joined the Air Force as a transport and cargo aircraft., while the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! electronic surveillance variant served the US Air Force into the 1980s. (NASA photo; Photo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; photo by Mike Freer via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; US Air Force photo)

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January 9, 1941 – The first flight of the Avro Lancaster. In the 1930s, the US and Britain were following different tacks in the development of strategic bombers. The Americans were tending towards four-engine aircraft, while the British, who were concerned with the ability to produce enough engines, put their efforts into twin-engine bombers in the belief that having two very powerful engines was a better arrangement than four smaller ones. In 1936, Avro produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a twin-engine bomber that was powered by two 24-cylinder !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines. Despite the promise of these large !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines, the Manchester was underpowered and only built in small numbers. But it was the Manchester that provided the basis for the mighty Lancaster that followed.

The twin-engine Avro Manchester, which formed the basis for the Lancaster

By 1936, the RAF decided that four engines were indeed better than two. Seeing the results of efforts in the US and Russia, which demonstrated that four smaller engines provided good lifting power as well as better range, the British began work to develop of their own four-engine bomber. Three new heavy bombers came out of this effort: the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the Avro Lancaster. For the Lancaster, Avro chief design engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turned to the Manchester and enlarged it to carry more payload and receive four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines. While not as powerful as the Vulture, the Merlins were more reliable, and would become perhaps the greatest inline engine of the war. The Lancaster also made use of the podded “ !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ” concept developed by the Germans, where entire engines and ancillary equipment could be changed out as a single unit or swapped between comparable aircraft. The first Lancaster prototype featured the twin-lobed tail and stubby vertical stabilizer that was employed on the first Manchesters, but that arrangement was abandoned in favor of removing the third fin and enlarging the lobes. Not only did this improve stability, it also provided a clearer field of fire for the dorsal gunner. Of particular importance to the design of the Lancaster was its enormous bomb bay. With an unobstructed length of 33 feet, the Lancaster was able to carry a wide variety of payloads, including the 12,000-pound Tall Boy and 22,000-pound Grand Slam strategic !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! developed by British engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

A view of the Lancaster’s long bomb bay showing a typical bomb load for a nighttime area bombing raid: one 4,000 impact-fused high-capacity bomb, called a “cookie,” and 12 Small Bomb Containers (SBCs) each loaded with incendiaries.

The Lancaster entered service with RAF Bomber Command in March 1942 with a mine-laying mission near the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and a bombing mission over the German city of Essen. It soon became the principal nighttime bomber in use by the RAF and the RCAF, and, by 1945, Lancasters had dropped 618,378 US tons of bombs over the course of 156,000 sorties. Though the Lancaster was a rugged aircraft, only 35 managed to complete more than 100 missions, and the longest surviving Lancaster, which completed 139 missions, was retired and scrapped in 1947. In addition to its role as a nighttime !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Lancaster also took part in precision daylight raids, including dropping the Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs, the largest non-nuclear bombs deployed until 2017, against German U-boat pens. Lancasters were also modified to carry Barnes Wallis’ bouncing dam buster bombs during !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which attacked dams in the Ruhr Valley in an attempt to destroy German power generation, industrial water use and farm production.

While the Lancaster made a name for itself as a potent bomber, it also performed as a test bed for nascent turbojet engines and early turboprop engines. After the war, the Lancaster was used to ferry prisoners of war back to the British Isles, and continued in Canadian service until 1963. It was also developed into a transatlantic passenger and mail plane known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Lancastrians also took part in the Berlin Airlift, and one took part in a 1945 mission to locate the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Lancaster was further developed into the larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which replaced the Lancaster and was the last piston-powered bomber flown by the RAF. A total of 7,377 Lancasters were built in England and Canada, the most of any British heavy bomber. (Photo by Ronnie Macdonald via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; UK Government photo; RAF photo; Canadian Government photo)

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Short Takeoff

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January 7, 1960 – The first launch of the Polaris missile. The United States, along with Russia, utilize what is known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which is the ability to attack their enemies with nuclear weapons from three sources: aircraft, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), or submarines. The US was the first to drop an atomic bomb from an airplane during WWII, and they followed that with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! land-based ICBM in October of 1959. To complete the triad, the Polaris, a two-stage, solid fuel rocket that could be launched from a submerged submarine, entered service in 1961. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   (SSBN-598) became the first ballistic missile submarine and carried sixteen Polaris A-1 missiles. Forty more SSBNs were launched from 1960-1966, and the Polaris was removed from service in 1996. (US Navy photo)

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January 7, 1947 – The death of Helen Richey. Born in 1909, Richey was a pioneering aviatrix and the first woman to be hired as a commercial airline pilot in the US. Richey obtained her pilot’s license at age 20, and, with the help of pilot Frances Marsalis, she set an endurance record by staying aloft for 10 days with midair refueling in 1933. She also competed in air races, toured with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and set an altitude record of over 18,000 feet. In 1934, Richey was hired by Central Airlines of Pennsylvania, where she flew a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though she was eventually forced to quit her job by the all-male pilot’s union. Richey was also the first woman to be certified as an airmail pilot, and one of the first women to serve as a flight instructor. She died in 1947 of an apparent overdose, and her death was ruled a suicide. (Photo via the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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January 8, 1959 – The first flight of the Armstrong Whitworth AW.650/660 Argosy, a post-war, medium transport developed for the RAF and the final aircraft produced by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Armstrong Whitworth was perhaps best known for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber, which served as a large frontline bomber with the RAF throughout WWII. The Argosy arose from an RAF request for a freighter capable of carrying 25,000 pounds of cargo at a range of up to 2,000 miles. However, the RAF was initially uninterested in Armstrong Whitworth’s design, so the company forged ahead on their own with a civilian version, the AW.650, eventually developing the AW.660 militarized version when the RAF needed to replace their obsolete WWII-era freighters. A total of 74 Argosys were produced. (Photo by RuthAS via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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January 9, 1963 – The first flight of the Hawker Siddeley HS 121 Trident, a short- to medium-range airliner and the first to feature a third engine on the fuselage centerline. While the Trident’s design was unique for its era, political infighting in the British government over what form the new airliner would take delayed delivery until after the appearance of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a similar tri-jet configuration, and seriously hampered sales of the new airliner. Seating up to 140 passengers depending on variant, the Trident flew for the airlines of eight nations, as well as the militaries of China and Pakistan. By the time the Trident ceased production, only 117 had been built, while Boeing would eventually complete over 1,800 727s. (Photo by Christian Volpati via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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January 9, 1951 – The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-85. On four different occasions in 1944, US !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bombers attacking Japan were forced to make an emergency landing in Russia. Rather than return the bombers, the Soviets kept them and Tupolev made exact duplicates which were designated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Tu-85 (NATO reporting name “Barge”) was a greatly enlarged variant of the Tu-4, being nearly 50% heavier and having almost twice the range, though still without the necessary range to attack the US from Russia. After the B-29 proved susceptible to attack by more modern !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters over Korea, the Russians halted development of the Tu-85 after two prototypes, choosing instead to develop the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which remains in service today. (Photo authors unknown)

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January 9, 1900 – The birth of Richard Halliburton. The 1930s was a wild era of barnstorming, exploration and daredevilry, and one of the more famous daredevils was Richard Halliburton (at left in photo). Halliburton initially found fame after swimming the length of the Panama Canal while paying a toll of just 39 cents, and was the first to climb Mt. Fuji in winter. His contribution to aviation history stems from an epic, round-the-world flight in a modified !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named Flying Carpet with pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (eventual co-founder of Northrop Aviation) at the controls. Halliburton called it “one of the most fantastic, extended air journeys ever recorded,” taking 18 months and covering 33,660 miles while visiting 34 countries. Halliburton died (presumed) in 1939 while attempting to cross the Pacific Ocean from Hong Kong to San Francisco in a Chinese junk. (Photo author unknown)

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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random001 > ttyymmnn 01/09/2018 at 12:40

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You do amazing work here.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 01/09/2018 at 13:09

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Another unique feature on the Trident is its front wheel. It’s offset to one side and retracts sideways. Apparently it allowed a little extra luggage space.

I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that but if I’ve ever read it I can’t remember it.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 01/09/2018 at 13:53

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Did not know that. Thanks!

ttyymmnn > random001 01/09/2018 at 13:53

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Thank you. I appreciate that. And thanks for reading.

Mercedes Streeter > ttyymmnn 01/09/2018 at 14:12

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I recently learned something new about a plane I like! Apparently the MD-11 manages to be more unsafe than the DC-10 it’s based on (ignoring cargo door issues). The tail is smaller than the DC-10 and the software is best described as “unfortunate”. It seems pilots aren’t fond of it. The darn thing has a crazy high landing speed too.

From Wikipedia:

The MD-11 has had problems with its flight control systems that have resulted in multiple accidents and incidents since the aircraft’s introduction. [49] The initial design of the slat/flap lever in the cockpit was conducive to accidental dislodgement by crew in flight. The defect has been corrected since 1992. [50] In the early 2000s, Boeing improved the flight control software at the urging of the FAA to reduce the possibility of violent unintentional pitch movements. [49]

In an effort to improve fuel efficiency, McDonnell Douglas designed the MD-11's center of gravity to be much further aft than other commercial aircraft. There was also a fuel-ballast tank in the MD-11's horizontal stabilizer since its tailplane was smaller than the DC-10's to improve fuel efficiency, but this was found to inhibit the MD-11's crosswind performance. [4] These design features significantly reduced the MD-11's margin for error during the takeoff and landing phases, making it more difficult to handle than the smaller DC-10. [5] A number of operators have introduced special training to assist crews in safely handling the MD-11's critical phases of flight. [51] 

random001 > ttyymmnn 01/09/2018 at 14:23

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I don’t always say thank you, but I read almost every one you do.

ttyymmnn > Mercedes Streeter 01/09/2018 at 14:24

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It would seem that all airplane design is some sort of compromise to improve a certain type of desired performance.

I think you will find this article pertinent to your interests:

https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/book-excerpt-flight-981-disaster-180967121/

ttyymmnn > random001 01/09/2018 at 14:27

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I will keep them coming!

Mercedes Streeter > ttyymmnn 01/09/2018 at 20:22

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Indeed! I imagine it’s lot like car building, only on a crazy scale!

Oh my, I have to sub that site!!!

ttyymmnn > Mercedes Streeter 01/09/2018 at 20:51

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It’s the only paper magazine I subscribe to.

The Compromiser > ttyymmnn 01/10/2018 at 21:24

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Having stood in/UNDER A Lancaster bomb bay, I can confirm it’s frigging yuge.

ttyymmnn > The Compromiser 01/10/2018 at 21:33

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And still not as big as the Stirling. I’d love to get overseas sometime to take in an air show.

The Compromiser > ttyymmnn 01/10/2018 at 21:38

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I also remember it was quite shallow as well. And you can see one without leaving the continent. Ours is back from England and resting comfortably for the winter.