22 RAF CENTENARY CELEBRATION PATROLLERS AND AIRLIFTERS
AVRO
ANSON
1936 TO 1968
ANSON
Type: Three-crew reconnaissance aircraft
First fl ight: March 24, 1935, entered service March 6, 1936
Powerplant: Two 350hp (254kW) Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah IX radials
Dimensions: Span 56ft 8in (17.27m), length 42ft 3in (12.88m)
Weights: Empty 5,375lb (2,438kg), all-up 8,000lb (3,629kg)
Max speed: 173mph (278km/h) at 7,000ft (2,134m)
Range: 790 miles (1,271km)
Armament: One fi xed .303 gun forward and one .303 gun in turret. Bomb load:
360lb (163kg)
Replaced: Flying boat patrollers
Taken on charge: 7,015 Mk.Is, 103 Mk.Xs, 90 Mk.XIs, 263 Mk.XIIs, 297 C.19s, 60 T.20s, 252
T.21s and 33 T.22s.
Replaced by: Lockheed Hudson from May 1939AVRO ANSON MK I
Fondly referred to by many
as ‘Faithful Annie’, the Avro
Anson would serve the RAF for
32 years and was the aircraft that
gave more air cadets their first taste
of flight than any other.
The Anson was a military
derivative of the Avro 652 airliner,
commissioned by the Air Ministry as
a land-based coastal reconnaissance
machine. Prototype K4771
performed its maiden flight on
March 24, 1935 and although it
was broadly similar to the civilian
version, it had a manually operated
dorsal turret. Following testing, an
order for 174 Ansons was placed in
July 1935 and the first production
version entered service with 48
Squadron at Manston, Kent on
March 6 the following year. It was
the first monoplane to join squadrons
as part of the RAF expansion
scheme, and the first with retractable
undercarriage. It famously took an
exhausting 174 turns of a wheel to
retract the heavy landing gear.
By the outbreak of war in
1939 there were 760 Ansons in
service, including 300 in Coastal
Command. The remainder were
used primarily as trainers.On September 5, 1939 an Anson
from 500 Squadron made the first
attack of the war on an enemy
U-boat, and despite their relative age
and obsolescence the type continued
to give a good account of itself on
the front line – even scoring several
victories against German fighters
over the Channel.
The first examples were replaced
by Armstrong Whitley Whitworthsfrom 1940 but it was not until
1942 that they began to be fully
superseded by Lockheed Hudsons.ANSON TRAINER
The first dedicated Anson trainer
(L7903) entered service with 11
FTS at RAF Wittering, in March- Compared to other Mk.I
airframes the training version
had wing flaps and a modified
Above
Anson Mk.I K6285 over
Wales wearing the MW-F
codes of 217 Squadron,
although it is thought
to have been in service
with the Dutch-manned
321 Squadron at Carew
Cheriton by the time
this image was taken in- The aircraft was
lost on August 9, 1940
after it hit an obstacle
while making a forced
landing in the dark on
Pendine Sands, Wales.
1918 2018