Only post Lancaster pictures here.

[Owen]

You might like to see this one Marcus.

Still from film shot in an Avro Lancaster by the RAF Film Production Unit, during a daylight attack on the Luftwaffe airfield and signals depot at St Cyr, France, by aircraft of No. 5 Group. A 4,000-lb HC bomb ('Cookie') and a smaller 500-lb MC bomb are seen just after they were released over the target.

[marcus69x]

Nice one Kev. Taught me something about bombs I never knew before.

Great pic too Owen.

cheers

[Owen]

Marcus,
Good website here showing how different bombloads fitted into a Lanc.
Lancaster Bomb Loads

[David Layne]

This one is my screen saver.

[Harry Ree]

Originally Posted by kfz

Ok what you looking at here ion ther left is chaff. Foil strips to reflect a lot of radar energy and hide aircraft. Im not well up on the subject but the lenght of the strips is vital and related to the wavelenght of the offending rader. Something to do with reflecting back the carrier signal out of phase and ruining the radar return. Still used today.

THe shot on the right is I think a 4000lb blockbuster and a large drop of incenderries. The incenderies buirn very hot and cause fires whereby the blockbuster is a huge thinly cased blast bomb designed not bury itself like a conventional cased bomb but to explode on impact, blasting the fire into a great storm, that caused so much damage to Dresden and Hamburg.

Bombs normally dont explode untill they are armed, that is usually done by some sort of mechncial device that places the detonator into a postion it can explode the man charge, This is normally a little propeler on the front of the case, so the bomb must be falling straight for some degree of time before it is armed , once all the bombs are armed and pressumably falling stright then the chances of hitting each other very small. This is some evidence that the bombs may have hit other aircraft on some occaisions.
if the bomb is dropped to low the propellor wont fully arm the bomb and it does not explode.

Hope this helps.

Kev

The preferred load for Lancasters in the fire raising of German cities tended to be a 4000lb cookie (blast bomb) and the rest of the load made up by 8lb incendiaries dropped in containers as shown in the RH photograph.Until later in the war the 4000lb cookie was more available than the 8000lb cookie and therefore made up the blast bomb feature of the load.

Surprisingly, the raid on Lubeck on the night of 28/29 March 1942 was carried out, as far as I can see, without a Lancaster taking part, the reason being that Bomber Command was in progress of converting to this type had only started to convert in earnest from the New Year, although the there were two squadrons who received their new aicraft before Christmas 1941.

Window, which the Americans referred to as chaff was a secret passed to them after scientists in the British TRE had developed it to combat the German radar defences.It was the prime reason why the large raid on Hamburg on the night of 24/25 July 1943 was successful. It reduced RAF losses on the night to 1.5%.The Lufwaffe air defence system involving ground and air radar was severely disabled during this raid and was the first time that Window was used by the RAF.

[David Layne]

YouTube - Avro Lancaster in action=

[David Layne]

Originally Posted by David Layne

RF 325, the last Lancaster in R.A.F. service. Picture taken on its last flight to the breakers yard.

Found this on U Tube about this flight.

YouTube - Goodbye to the Lancaster=

[David Layne]

Lancasters tour America.

YouTube - 16 Avro Lancasters tour US July 1946

[clive]

A couple of pictures of Lancasters today,the stripped down BBF's Lancaster before its new paint job & a close up of the Lanc in Perth W.Australia.

[von Poop]

Originally Posted by David Layne

YouTube - Goodbye to the Lancaster=

Originally Posted by David Layne

YouTube - 16 Avro Lancasters tour US July 1946

I missed these.
Great stuff.