The Canadian Armed Forces
then agreed to airlift the fuselage
as a training exercise. All interior
equipment was removed, followed
by the engines and outer wings, and
on November 5, 1979, the aircraft
was slung under a 450 Squadron
CH-147 Chinook helicopter and
transported to Mount Hope. The
flight lasted 1hr 40mins, setting a
new record for distance and weight
lifted by a Chinook.
LONG ROAD
Restoring an Avro Lancaster to fly
would be daunting for the new
museum, and for the first few years
the project concentrated solely on
removing, cleaning and cataloguing
parts while funds were raised
through visitor donations and at
the annual Hamilton Airshow.
A government grant procured
in 1983 enabled the museum
to recruit four young aircraft
apprentices and an appropriately
skilled engineer: Norm Etheridge,
who’d served in the Royal Navy
during the war and moved to
Canada to continue his aviation
career, agreed to lead the
restoration.
The team officially began working
on the project on March 24, 1983.
In an unheated World War Two-
era wooden hangar, their first job
was to strip all paint from inside
and outside the fuselage. This was
followed by exterior corrosion
control, with attention then
switching to the interior.
But Norm and his team were
faced with several obstacles as the
restoration progressed. A crack
was discovered in an undercarriage
casting, for example – but solved
by working with R Mitchell Inc of
Montreal, which cast a new beam.
Air Canada and Dowty meanwhile
assisted in rebuilding all the
hydraulic components.
The Lancaster originally
utilised many wood components,
all of which needed to be
re-created. Chuck Sloat, a CWH
volunteer and master cabinetmaker,
was enlisted to build all the relevant
parts, including the rear canopy,
wing tips, electrical panel and
outboard engine rear
nacelle framework.
The work progressed gradually
and meticulously – with rudders,
elevators, flaps, ailerons, bomb baydoors and attachments inspected
and rebuilt as needed. By May
1985, FM213 started to look like
a Lancaster again. The outer wings
were reattached, tail assembly
completed and bomb bay
doors installed.
The Ministry of Transport
decided the gun turrets need
not be movable in flight, so the
hydraulics controlling them were
removed. To add realism, eight
Browning .303 cal machine guns
were fabricated and installed, and a
new fire detection and suppression
system fitted – relying on fire bottles
from a Handley Page Victor which
crashed at Hamilton in 1986. Tyres,
undercarriage and brake drums
from an Avro Lincoln replaced the
original Lancaster units.
Astonishingly, a total of 22
Merlin engines were collected for
the project. The four that came
with FM213 were inoperable,
so the museum sourced several
alternatives. Four came from
Greenwood, Nova Scotia-based
Lancaster KB839 and another four
from Doug Arnold’s Lancaster
KB889, stored at Oshawa, Ontario
at the time.Above
‘VeRA’ over Lake
Ontario in 2012 with
the Commemorative
Air Force’s B-29 ‘FiFi’
and Cavanaugh Flight
Museum’s P-51D Mustang.Below
A popular event at the
CWH Museum is night-
running of the Lancaster
and other aircraft.September 2018 FLYPAST 63