Lancaster handling properties

[Jwscud]

Recently seeing some aerial photos of the Eder dam and approaches has prompted me to contemplate the handling of the Lancaster. From the perspective of a pilot of medium jets it looks like a bloody hairy approach around the terrain in daylight, let alone with just moonlight to help you out.

A short google around hasn't helped me find any articles discussing handling or flying technique, but I would be interested in any pointers or knowledgable persons giving input. The best I have read say it had "superb handling characteristics" but that doesn't really mean much to me.

How does it handle in comparison to more modern "medium" size mlitary aircraft? What were the control forces like? From the tech sites I can find it doesn't seem to have employed servo tabs to assist with control forces for example.

[Noyade]

Here's one opinion on the handling characteristics of the Lancaster, from Clyde Pangborn...

Clyde Edward Pangborn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia








(I'd like to know more about it's ability to "dive-bomb")

[emeritus]

" I don't know whether it will spin or not "

Seems it would. Back in the old Ansett days I once asked Capt Harry Redwood how he earned his DFC.
On ops over Europe he picked up a load of ice and ended up in a spin,complete with a full load of bombs.

It was a privelige to fly with these guys and watch them operate. A great learning envoirnment.

Emeritus

[Jwscud]

Thanks Noyade - somebody looped it?!? Fairly brave bit of flying, though I imagine the corkscrew manoeuvres pulled in evasion inflicted far higher loads on the structure than a controlled loop in VMC.

[26er]

In 1953 I was a QFI on Meteors and Vampires at Tarrant Rushton. We shared the airspace with the Flight Refuelling test pilots - Tom Marks and Pat Hornidge who flew, amongst other aircraft, a Lancaster. I remember watching Tom, after the rest of us had finished for the day, beat up the the field in the Lanc finally finishing off with what looked like a proper stall turn, not a wingover, from which he joined downwind and greased it. Presumably it was virtually empty and probably helped round the top with asymmetric thrust. Magic !

[MG23]

Originally Posted by Noyade

(I'd like to know more about it's ability to "dive-bomb")

I'm pretty sure 'The Dambusters' mentions dive-bombing to lay flares to mark the target for following waves of bombers. I don't think it mentions actually dropping bombs that way.

[Centaurus]

I am astonished that a Lancaster was deliberately looped. Having flown Lincolns which were beefed up Lancs I can say the aircraft would wash off so much speed in the process of pulling up into a loop that it would likely fall out of the sky on its back before you could get it over the top and into a recovery dive.

But then again, impossible things were done in wartime...

[India Four Two]

Alex Henshaw's views on the Lancaster

Quotes from one of my favourite books, Sigh for a Merlin:

I loved the Lancaster almost as much as I did the Spitfire and in its own way this heavy machine would perform almost as well. It had no vices and I treated it in the same manner as I would a smaller aircraft; I just had to remember to slow up the whole tempo and give the heavy machine time to respond to gentle but firm control. With the small rough airfield of Castle Bromwich, surrounded as it was with obstacles of every kind, there was little room for error on landing, but in a very short while, I found the Lancaster, with light load, could be placed in an exact spot without difficulty. In fact often on approach, after a successful final test flight, the throttles could be pulled back, the machine put into a number of tight gliding turns and, with a few side-slips, put down very much in the manner of a Tiger Moth. In the air, I always felt at home when at the controls, although the enormous size of the cockpit, by comparison with the Spitfire, was demoralising to start with. The control response was slow and ponderous after the rapid movements of the Spitfire but, given time and gentle persuasion, there was little the big bomber would not do. It seemed to me that not only would it execute manoeuvres unusual for a four-engined machine of its size, but it would do them with the utmost grace, smoothness and dignity. If I had any fears about abusing such a remarkable aircraft they were confined to the longitudinal stability at speeds in excess of 360 IAS and concern that the rudder-fins could be ‘shockstalled’ with ‘overload’.

...I was flying with a visiting test pilot who had a strong Yorkshire accent and we had done a clean steady power dive to about 360 IAS and had pulled up gently to a stalled turn in an almost vertical bank position when the pilot beside me said, in broad Yorkshire, “By gum, steady on, chief, or you’ll have the bugger over’. This tickled me so much I couldn’t resist continuing what seemed to me the smooth completion from the attitude we were now in and I pulled the Lancaster gently but firmly into a positively controlled barrel-roll.

Many times I have been asked if rolling a Lancaster put stresses on the machine for which it was not designed. My immediate reply would be that it depends how the roll is executed. Certainly, I have proved many times that it is possible to roll a Lancaster with no more stress than if it were doing a steep turn. In combat use, a pilot taking evasive action would be expected to impose far greater loads on his machine than I did in a roll that produced no negative ‘G’ and no more then 1 ‘G’ positive.

[old,not bold]

My father (Lanc pilot before joining the party in SLIII) told me that his biggest problem with the corkscrew, when done aggressively, was whether or not the aircraft would break up. But it never did. A positive g manoeuvre should have not been a problem, then.

He also said that it was not as nice to fly as a Wellington, but not bad either.

[GQ2]

AADH on the Lanc'.

AADH specifically stated that he never really liked the Wimpey. He also said that he didn't dislike it either. On the other hand, he was always effusive about the Lanc', describing flying it as '..rather like a big Tiger Moth.'

[oxenos]

Its descendant, the Shackleton, was of course regularly looped. At night. In formation. ( Search "Grey Ladies" )