Avro Lincoln crash 1950s?

[Gainesy]

Something that has been bugging me for years.

As a kid in 1956-7-8(?ish), I saw a Lincoln (they were based at Lindholme) in a spin one summer. It was quite low, about 5,000ft max, and about 3 miles west of Finningley. I did not see what happened to it as I was in a car and it became obscured by buildings etc as we moved along.

Never heard of a crash, anyone know of one around then? I would think deliberate spins were a no-no.

[henry crun]

Gainesy: There were no major Lincoln accidents to fit your description or location in the period 1955-59 inclusive, so it must have recovered.

Lincolns had only a handful of major accidents during that period, which would have made it one of the safest aircraft compared with just about all other types in that period.

Would agree with you, cannot imagine that deliberate spins would have been permitted.

[jimgriff]

Maybe it was a ghost!!!


There seem to be more than it fair share of spooky goings on where Lincolns are concerned.:ooh:

[Centaurus]

Extract from "Lincoln at War" by Brian Goulding and Mike Garbutt.

"One of 97's Lincolns, SX939, was nearly lost on the night of 29 November 1951 when, on a night bombing exercise over the ranges, it got into a spin in thick cloud over Mablethorpe, falling from 9000 to 5000 ft, then spinning in the oppositedirection until being pulled out at less than 2,000 ft. The fuselage was so badly twisted it was declared a write-off, and in December was transferred to No 2 School of Radio at Yatesbury"

While this is not the Lincoln mentioned in the original post, it seems that inadvertent spins can occur in this type. Nice bit of night limited panel spin recovery all the same, because for sure the artificial horizon would have toppled.

[Milt]

Another extract from memoirs.

On another occasion whilst at CFS, I was doing an Instrument Rating Examiner renewal on an RAF exchange pilot from one of the Lincoln Squadrons at RAAF Amberley. He was wearing a hood to prevent him seeing outside and was flying on limited instruments. One requirement was an ability to recover from unusual attitudes and finding attitudes which might be unusual to Squadron pilots was always a challenge. I took control of the aircraft and applied lots of power while pulling the aircraft into about a 60 degree nose up attitude. With the speed quite low I then pulled the throttles on the left engines which caused the aircraft to go into a rapidly rolling wingover. At this time I handed control back to the poor pilot who was quite unaccustomed to such goings on with a Lincoln. He juggled the power to be symmetric but we continued to roll in an incipient spin until we were almost inverted with the nose dropping though the horizon. I took over again and pulled the nose down further to gain speed whilst rolling back right side up.

Fortunately, the whole manoeuvre was relatively smooth and did not involve negative g, as we discovered later that there was an unsecured bomb winch lying in the rear fuselage.

[Gainesy]

Many thanks chaps, it'll still bug me, but not as much.

Jim, you thinking of "Lindholme Willy"? (A supposed spook not a nasty affliction of the nether regions).

Another memory was getting a clip round the ear (pun not intended, honest) after going home with a pocket full of rusty .303 rounds from the Wellington that crashed in the peat bog just east of Lindholme. It used to re-surface every so often in dry summers. There is/was supposedly a Hampden in there as well, but I never saw that.

Ah, nostalgia. Watching five or six Lincolns taxi out with all the hissing & squealing from the brakes and the noise of the run ups...

A lovely old aeroplane.

[Centaurus]

Gainesy. One piece of Lincoln nostalgia I could have done without was attempting to land the Long Nose (Australian Mk 31)version of the beast at night in a 20 knot cross-wind from the blind side. One technique was to whip the landing pilot's side window open on touchdown, pull down one's goggles and stick one's head as far out in the windstream as possible in order to see as many runway lights as possible in order to keep straight.

It was also considered quite important not to have one's oxy mask unclipped and dangling due to the propensity of mosquitos and other sundry tropical bugs attracted by the landing light, sticking to one's bared teeth.
Nostalgia can be a seductive liar.