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Lancaster bomber to touch down in city

Aviation museum to host tours of iconic craft

By: Kevin Rollason

Posted: 07/27/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

The aircraft that helped the Allies win the Second World War is flying to Winnipeg.

A Lancaster bomber -- one of only two in the world still flying -- will land at Winnipeg's Richardson International airport on Aug. 3, and taxi over to the Western Canada Aviation Museum for two days of tours and display.

"I am extremely excited," said Shirley Render, the museum's executive director.

"It's incredible that it's one of two that's all that's left of the planes flying. Even though we produced them in Canada, we don't keep our history."

Render said the aircraft, owned by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum near Hamilton, Ont., will be available for viewing on Aug. 3 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Aug. 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is scheduled to take off from Winnipeg on Aug. 5 at 11 a.m.

Admission to see the four-engine plane is $10 for adults, $25 for a family with up to three children, and $5 for museum members and for seniors and children.

The last time the Lancaster flew to Winnipeg was 1990.

The Lancaster, built by Victory Aircraft in Ontario, was one of more than 7,300 Lancasters produced in Canada and Britain. The planes were flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force from 1942 to 1963.

The aircraft was known as the Dam Buster in the 1943 raids on Germany's Ruhr Valley dams. In total, Lancasters flew 156,000 missions and dropped more than 600,000 tons of bombs between 1942 and 1945.

More than 3,200 Lancasters were destroyed during the war.

With a crew of seven, the plane had machine guns in three turrets, and could hold 6,300 kilograms of bombs or with modifications a 9,979-kg Grand Slam bomb.

The Lancaster is also the same type of bomber in which Winnipegger Andrew Mynarski earned a Victoria Cross for trying to rescue a trapped rear gunner.

"So many young people don't have any idea of what the plane looked like in World War Two," Render said.

"They'll be able to see how narrow the fuselage was. Once you see where Andrew Mynarski walked back to try to free the gunner in the rear, you'll understand the conditions he was in.

"It really is a step back into history," Render said.

Robin Hill, of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, said the museum's flying Lancaster never saw service in the war.

Hill said the plane was built in 1945, and then spent years serving as a search and rescue aircraft in Newfoundland. The aircraft was restored and began flying again in 1988, after spending years serving as a display outside an Ontario Royal Canadian Legion branch.

"It has now flown longer with the museum than it did when it was with the air force," she said.

Hill said this plane is dedicated in memory of Mynarski and is painted in the same colours as the aircraft in which Mynarski flew.

Mynarski, who was honoured posthumously with the Victoria Cross, died in June 1944, after trying in vain to free a trapped rear gunner on a Lancaster before it crashed.

The gunner survived after being thrown from the plane when it crashed, but Mynarski, who parachuted out of the plane with his clothes on fire, died from his burns.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 27, 2009 A2

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