Since reading this thread on Lancastrian operations England to Australia, it made me wonder if there was any record of the number of occasions an engine was shut down in flight during the whole period the thread has covered.
The reason I am interested if these figures were ever recorded, was that I had extensive piloting experience on flying the RAAF Avro Lincoln within Australia and up to Manus Island north of New Guinea. We had the Rolls Royce Merlin 85 and 102 versions.
During the 3000 hours I flew on type in the 1950's, I counted 32 occasions where in flight engine shut-down was required either because of engine failure or precautionary shut down due to coolant leaks. And that was just my personal events; not counting the engine shut downs by other pilots.
If the Lancastrians had a similar shut down rate during their period of operation, the maintenance costs must have been substantial as well as the overall costs associated with aircraft AOG en-route awaiting a spare engine.