Avro Lancaster: 70 Years an Icon and Still Flying

Lancaster B Mk Is of RAF 50 Squadron in spread formation

The four-engined Lancaster bomber, which entered service with the RAF seventy years ago in 1942, is one of the most iconic British aircraft of the Second World War.

The aircraft made its first operational bombing mission on 17 April 1942 and by the height of the war 42 Bomber Command squadrons operated Lancasters. It was the mainstay of Bomber Command and the one aircraft, above all others, that did more to take the fight to the enemy in the skies over occupied-Europe during those dark days of the war.

The Lancaster first entered service with RAF 44 Squadron at Waddington, Lincolnshire, in February 1942 and then with 97 Squadron at Woodhall Spa the following month. The aircraft’s first operational sortie took place on 3 March 1942, when four Lancasters laid mines in the Heligoland Bight. However, the Lancaster’s first major bombing mission took place on 17 April 1942, when twelve aircraft flew more than 1,000 miles across France and Germany, in broad daylight, to attack the MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg) U-boat diesel-engine factory at Ausburg, Bavaria.

When the World's First Jet Airliner Took to the Skies

The first de Havilland DH106 Comet prototype at Hatfield

The British designed and built de Havilland DH106 Comet was the world’s first jet-powered airliner and the first to operate a transatlantic jet-airliner service. The Comet entered service sixty years ago on 2 May 1952 when BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) ran the world’s first fare-paying passenger jet-airliner service on its London to Johannesburg route.

The de Havilland DH106 Comet first flew on 27 July 1949, when test pilot John Cunningham took off from Hatfield Aerodrome and flew the aircraft for just over half an hour. At that time de Havilland’s design was three years ahead of anything else in the world. The design included an all-metal stressed skin that used a revolutionary metal-to-metal bonding system pioneered by the company, a high level of cabin pressurization, hydraulic flight controls and a high-pressure refuelling system.