Don Mcvicar
See Post 4 of the current "Feathered Lancaster" story in this section – a link leads you to the "Operation Goodwill 1946" thread from 2010 -
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/410951-operation-goodwill-1946-merged-2.html
Post 33 coincidentally mentions -
"Fate of TW870
In the heavy landing at Gander, the aircraft suffered damage to the centre section and undercarriage and was declared Cat AC on 29.8.46. In the event, probably due to cost and difficulty of repairs on site at Gander, and the large number of spare Lancasters in store, TW870 was re-categorised to Cat E and struck off charge on 31.10.46.
It remained virtually derelict at Gander until October 1950 when it was sold as scrap to Hercules Sales of Toronto, then to Freight Lift Inc (Doug Siple/Don McVicar). After the minimum work necessary, the aircraft was flown from Gander to Dorval (the engineer who rebuilt the Lancaster flew as flight engineer on the trip via Summerside to Dorval. He records that he didn’t have much to do ‘as vandals had stolen most of the instruments’). At Dorval it was converted to become a fuel tanker, including the fitting of a streamlined nose section (this nose cone had once been part of Trans Canada Airlines Lancaster X Passenger Plane KB702/CF-CMT, and had been used as a chicken coup after CF-CMT was scrapped. It was rescued, cleaned up and fitted to TW870!) The plane was then transferred to World Wide Aviation. On 6.5.52 it was registered as CF-GBA and moved to Seven Islands, Quebec where it was used to transport fuel to the outposts of the Iron Ore Company of Canada. On one of these flights the pilot, Capt AR Iba, lost control during an overweight landing in a crosswind on a gravel airstrip at Menihek, and the Lancaster hit a rockpile, caught fire and was burnt out. Both crew members were unhurt. The manifest showed a load of 2,150 gallons of diesel, 300 gallons of petrol and 800 gallons of Avgas (source Bob Hornby).
Them wuz the days !
For more and slightly different information, see here:
Lancaster Bomb Tragedy
The further link "Lancaster Tragedy" tells the tale but seems to be 20 years out.
LFH
Last edited by Lordflasheart; 2nd Jul 2012 at 21:30.