Warbird Information Exchange

I wonder what "power by the hour" means... I suppose it's a rental arrangement?

Would something like this have ever happened in wartime... RR Merlins having to be used in place of Packard Merlins and vice versa? I take it squadrons would have had access to appropriate spares but there must have been exceptional circumstances on occasion.

I understand Packard & RR Merlins were mixed and matched on a regular basis during the war, at least on British built Lancs. I don't know if there were differences with Canadian built machines that made it more difficult.

SN

LOL, that's funny right there.I don't care who you are.

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Hang The Expense

(Cost of Overhaul + Contingency + Profit) / TBO It's much more common in the commercial turbine world where the cost of the engines can frequently exceed the cost of the airframe (and TBO's are much longer)

The license agreement for Packard to build Merlins called for them to be interchangeable as a unit with the RR equivalent Mark. Identical mounts, control runs, BSP fittings, prop shaft, etc. How often it happened in service, I don't know, but the capacity was designed in from the beginning.

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is the mid upper turret. PA474 has the correct Fraser Nash built turret whereas FM213 has a Martin built turret, same as the B-17. FM213 served with RCAF Maritime Command and as such never had a mid upper turret so the CWHM had to search for one. Failing to find the correct one a Martin was purchased. Somewhat ironic considering she was dedicated to PO Andrew Mynarski, who was the mid upper gunner.

Note the fairing around the bottom of PA474's turret and the shape; the Martin is flat topped and squatter.

Not to be picky here but the Martin 250CE turret was used on many aircraft in WWII including the Lancaster. It was not used on the B-17 except for the aft turret in the YB-40. The upper turret on the B-17 was the Sperry A-1.

I don't know for sure but I would think that they would have put the correct turret in their Lancaster.

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Taigh Ramey
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'KEEP ‘EM FLYING…FOR HISTORY!'

Have you heard of hens teeth ? well, they are easy to find when compared to a fraser Nash upper turret for a Lancaster, if I remember correctly the one on the BBMF Lancaster came from South America.

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
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Matt,

My comments were directed at RobertM not at the CWH restoration folks. I understand that the Frasier Nash turret is quite rare. Since they couldn't fine one it seems to me that the next best choice would be the Martin 250CE since the type was actually used on Lancasters.

Even though turrets in general are rare the most plentiful turret found today is the Martin 250CE and a surprising number of the survivors are 250CE-23A's which are the marks used on the late Lancaster.

_________________
To donate to the PV-2D project via PayPal click here http://www.twinbeech.com/84062restoration.htm

We brought her from: to this in 3 months: Help us get her all the way back

All donations are tax deductible as the Stockton Field Aviation Museum is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Tell a friend as the Harpoon needs all the help she can get.

Thank you!

Taigh Ramey
Vintage Aircraft, Stockton, California
http://www.twinbeech.com
'KEEP ‘EM FLYING…FOR HISTORY!'

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but Canadian Lancasters had the Martin turret from around the mid-production point onwards. The Mynarski Lanc is FM213, so is relatively late production. The Martin turret is mounted further forward than the British FN to improve the field of fire, the British position was closer to the fins and more sky was blocked out. You can't fit a FN turret in place of a Martin because it would be in the wrong place, and the extra bulk of the FN turret would block access to the forward fuselage.

The taxiable Lancaster at East Kirkby, a British built Mk.VII (7), was also built with the Martin turret. For taxi rides they've fitted a cupola that looks like an FN turret, but still in the Martin position. Advantage is you can fit two people in it for taxi rides, disadvantage is that it doesn't look right and is non-airworthy. They're restoring '611 to flying condition and they have a Martin turret ready to be fitted before she flies.

Indeed. In fact Argentina. Ironic in 1982 and since, as it was brought back in the 1970s by the Royal Navy. AFAIK, the BBMF are explicit still about where it came from, though.

So to clarify, the CWH Lanc carries a Martin turret in the correct position - father forward than the Frazer Nash turret on PA474, which, conversely, is also correct for that British model of Lanc.

The CWH Lanc's mid upper is actually a cupola unit and guns and has none of the lower parts, avoiding obstruction in the fuselage and making it easy to stick your head into for a look out (most complete turrets being LOT harder to get in and out of).

As well as his accurate comments on NX611's unique turret set up at East Kirby, LysanderUK may be correct as to the reason for the turret location difference, I understood it was weight & balance issue, but may be wrong.

To put a Frazer Nash turret in C-GVRA would require adding structure to the fuselage where these Canadian Lancs never had any, as well as fitting a Frazer Nash turret you'd have to obtain, and removing the Martin turret support, turret etc. I'm sure the money and engineering effort that would require is usually employed more usefully!

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

During restoration it looked as if they were going with a Frazer Nash. Either they found a hen's tooth or got pretty far in mocking it up.





August

Just to add to the discussion, Lancaster Mk X's were originally fitted with the Frazer Nash FN-50 for the first 155 aircraft (KB700-854), which includes the original Mynarski Lancaster KB726.
There is only one surviving Canadian-built Lanc that was originally fitted with the FN-50, which is KB839 in Greenwood, Nova Scotia.

The last 275 built (KB855-999 and FM100-229) were fitted with the aforementioned Martin 250 CE, which due to it's greater weight was mounted further forward to keep weight & balance in check.

CWH did (still does?) have an FN-50 to mount in FM213 at the time of restoration, however the decision was made to not modify the fuselage to accept the FN-50 as it would have involved building an entirely new turret mount in the 'correct' location further aft.
(as per "Mynarski's Lanc" by Bette Page http://www.amazon.com/Mynarskis-Lanc-Be ... 1550460064)

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As August and Shane have been quicker at the keyboard this morning on there takes, here is my 2 cents on the subject!

The first Canadian built Lancaster to be fitted with a Martin 250CE was aircraft number KB783 .This aircraft was sent to England for trials. The Martin turret was introduced on the production line on aircraft KB855.So of the 430 aircraft production run, 154 aircraft were fitted with the Frazer Nash mid upper turret.The remaining 276 were equipped with the Martin 250CE.
Only one Canadian Lancaster ,to be fitted with the Frazer Nash turret, KB839,survives at Greenwood Nova Scotia. You can still clearly see the turret location on the aircraft today
The change to the Martin turret involved not only the change in position due to weight and balance , but to the aircraft systems as well. The Martin turret was electrically operated while the earlier Frazer Nash was hydraulically operated. The aircraft's electrical system was changed to compensate for heavier electrical demand.
The change in mid upper turrets had also been mandated for the British built Lancasters at the same time, but other priorities had sidelined its introduction to later in the production run.
Interestingly Canadian Lancasters ,built at Malton Ontario,were built with turrets and without. Every fourth aircraft on the production line was built with turrets. On aircraft built without turrets, covers were fared over turret openings , and turrets were installed once the aircraft had been delivered to the UK. Maintenance Units located throughout the UK, took the aircraft on delivery from Canada and fitted the turrets. From the looks of the information the MU's at Kemble and St Athan did most of the turret fitting.
The main reason why this was done, was to ensure deliveries of aircraft were kept up to 6 Group in the UK. The Frazer Nash Turrets were built in the UK and shipped across the Atlantic , which had a certain element of risk , even by 1943/44.

I have yet to see any information(or list) on the which actual aircraft were delivered to UK with turrets or without. The Lancaster X was subject to a large number of modifications over the course of production, which ran from large items, like engines, turrets ,bomb doors and blisters to smaller items like electrical and rivets.

CWH did at one point during the restoration, have a Frazer Nash Mid upper turret, to install in FM213.As the pictures show, it was trial fitted. The work involved would have been significant and kept the aircraft on the ground longer.The Martin ring assembly was fitted shortly after FM213 flew after it restoration. As JDK mentioned, it is a great place to view from in flight !
I am not sure where the turret went, I didn't see it in the storage barn, last time I was in it.


KB839, you can just see were the turret ring is , just in front of beacon light and above the roundel position.






Martin 250CE installed on KB944 in Ottawa

MRP

Last Sunday saw the two Lancasters overflying the East Kirkby-based Lancaster 'Just Jane'. A write up of this very special occasion, together with plenty of images, can be found below.

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/09/09/aviation-event-review-three-lancasters-at-east-kirkby/

Here's the BBC video of the three together:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-linc ... e-29109650

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“Try to fly in the middle of the air. The edges are filled with mountains and oceans and rocks and it’s much harder to fly there.”