It's now 75 years since that crisp January morning when a small crowd gathered at Manchester's Ringway Airport to see if a new prototype could get off the ground. Its creator, Roy Chadwick, had even brought along his elder daughter, Margaret, to share the moment.
The test pilot, Sam Brown, revved up the four engines and the elegant monster tore down the runway and into the sky. It circled the airfield, banked to left and right, came back down and parked. As the crowd rushed to hear the verdict, the fuselage door flew open.
A beaming Brown did not mince his words. 'It was marvellous!' he declared.
'Daddy, you must be very pleased,' Margaret told her father. 'Yes, I am,' Chadwick replied, 'but one cannot rest on one's laurels.'
His colleague at the Avro aircraft company, general manager Roy Dobson, was less restrained. 'Oh boy, what an aeroplane!' he cried. He wasn't exaggerating. They had all just seen the maiden flight of the mighty Lancaster.
By the end of the war, 7,377 Lancasters would have carried out more than 150,000 missions —including the supremely audacious Dambuster Raids of 1943 — and dropped more than 600,000 tons of bombs on the enemy, a feat unequalled by any other plane. Yet 3,249 aircraft and their crews would be lost in action.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3412842/The-flying-death-trap-helped-save-civilisation-s-75-years-Lancaster-bomber-roared-aloft-leaders-refuse-celebrate-giant-smashed-Nazi-war-machine.html?offset=0&max=100&jumpTo=comment-113488767#comment-113488767
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