RAF Lancaster bombers - merged posts

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Can I pedantically point out that the body of water is called just 'Windermere'.

There's only one body of water with Lake in its name in the Lake District. Bassenthwaite Lake. All the rest are meres, tarns or waters, along with a few man made reservoirs.

[TaplowGreen]

Is it possible to travel to Lake Windermere on The Flying Scotsman?

[Red Squirrel]

A little while ago when I put up this post, some people complained that they couldn't see the externally-hosted pictures. Well the biter is bit; I can't see Chris from Nailsea's Dad's friend's picture. Odd, isn't it?

[JayMac]

Is it possible to travel to Lake Windermere on The Flying Scotsman?

Of course. Just get yourself an Advanced Purchase ticket. You may also be able to get an expresso coffee and a panini onboard. Then maybe something sweet for desert.

[grahame]

A little while ago when I put up this post, some people complained that they couldn't see the externally-hosted pictures. Well the biter is bit; I can't see Chris from Nailsea's Dad's friend's picture. Odd, isn't it?

Some (most? all?) of these issues come from image hosting sites which have spam-trap and copyright traps in to avoid visitors hot linking / mirroring / needlessly burning up bandwidth. Members and others report that the Coffee Shop is long in the tooth and for reasons I am aware of gives all sorts of concerning messages about potential viruses, etc ... and there is a distant parallel in the case of missing images where a web page displayed by a member calls for an image and the image host decides "I don't think so ...."

[Clan Line]

Can I pedantically point out that ...........

Could I be another pedant ?

The bombs weren't actually tested at Derwent Reservoir. Derwent was used for the extreme low level night flying training. The bombs themselves were tested at Reculver (Kent) and Loch Striven.

Full story here - with some very interesting film clips.

https://www.manstonhistory.org.uk/dambuster-bouncing-bomb-tests-at-reculver-and-manston/

[Chris from Nailsea]

My father served in the RAF^▸ (Royal Air Force), and flew in Lancasters and their successors, Shackletons.  He was a flight sergeant radio operator and aerial gunner.  (Not doing both at the same time, obviously.  )

Recently, he went over to Lincolnshire, where the Lancasters were based, for a public open day, and where a Lancaster was parked for people to walk around it.  My father introduced himself to the staff, explaining that he used to fly in them, and they very kindly invited him up into the aircraft, to sit at his old desk.



His memory of Morse Code is brilliant - but his hearing now is less so: medically diagnosed as being due to flying in those aircraft without ear protection for so long (no PPE in those days). 

[GBM]

One of our morse code tutors was a bomber rear gunner/radio operator.
Tales of winding in the very long aerial wire when going into attack, and landing.
Just thought, he trained in airSHIPS before moving on to aircraft.......