Avro Lancaster NX611 'Just 'Jane' has long been the centrepiece of the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre at East Kirkby, Lincolnshire. For several years, the Lancaster's owners have been working towards restoring the aircraft to flight, a major undertaking which would make 'Just Jane' only the third airworthy Lancaster in the world. ElliottElliott Marsh met with Andrew Panton at East Kirkby to shed some light on this historical restoration project. Images author unless stated.

Bomber Command – Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitos – departed from airfields in the United Kingdom and headed east for Nuremberg, Germany. The 68-mile long bomber stream waswas intercepted en route by Luftwaffe night fighters, which inflicted devastating casualties in a sustained assault.

n the evening of 30 March 1944, nearly 800 aircraft from RAF

Amongst the 545 airmen who did not return from the sortie was Christopher Panton, a young Flight Engineer serving on 433 Squadron. Christopher’s Halifax was one of 96 bombers that were shot down in the NurembergNuremberg raid and he was one of those who lost their lives over Germany that night; the single highest loss in Bomber Command history. As horrific a figure as that is to contemplate, it is but a fraction

of the 55,573 airmen of Bomber Command killed in operations over occupied Europe.

Christopher’sChristopher’s brothers, Fred and Harold, were deeply affected by his loss. They made it their ambition to form a lasting memorial to their brother, and the thousands of others whose sacrifices were relegatedrelegated to a mere passing mention in the annals of time. Nightly they had departed

The Avro Lancaster: the beautiful beast of the night

from their homeland and flew into the twilight, knowing not whether they would meet their fate in the emptiness of the night sky. They left behind their hopes, dreams, lives and loves to engage the enemy over theirtheir home turf. Those who survived the trauma of mounting losses and long-term combat stress formed a brethren bound by courage and resolve that was tested with each passing day. The

shattering cost of war was felt by those who were left behind – mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, children and countless friends and comrades. Those who gave their lives, both physically and otherwise,otherwise, have never received the national recognition that, say, the ‘Few’ of Fighter Command have had bestowed upon them.

To that end, the Pantons purchased Avro Lancaster B Mk.VII ‘Just Jane’, serial NX611 – an aircraft with a storied

Avro Lancaster B Mk.VII NX611 was rolled out in April 1945, just too late to see active service in World War Two. In 1952, the Lancaster was acquired by the French Government, flown to New Caledonia and operated in the maritime reconnaissance role. At that time, the Historic Aircraft Preservation Society (“HAPS”) was seeking a suitable aircraft to fly on the British airshow circuit and agreed terms with the French Government to purchase the Lancaster from them, on the proviso that they could ship it back to the UK.proviso that they could ship it back to the UK.

The French flew the Lancaster as far as mainland Australia and, during its tenure in Sydney, HAPS overhauled the aircraft and raised the funds to bring the aircraft back to the UK. Arriving on 13 May 1965, NX611 remained grounded for two years before making a limited number of airshow appearances over a number of years until HAPS was bought out by Reflectair. Basing the aircraft at Biggin Hill the intention to make it the formative exhibit of a museum ultimately never came to fruition, leaving the aircraft’s future somewhat in doubt.leaving the aircraft’s future somewhat in doubt.

NX611 was put up for sale in 1972 and, as a result, registered on the Panton brothers’ radar for the first time. The Lancaster was auctioned at Blackpool but it never reached the reserve value set at the auction, remaining unsold until the Rt Hon Lord Lilford acquired the aircraft. NX611 then became a temporary gate guardian at RAF Scampton; while there, Lilford sold the aircraft to the Pantons, who eventually moved it to East Kirkby by road in 1987. Following reassembly, ‘Just Jane’Jane’ enjoyed some long-awaited deep maintenance and, after a lengthy period of restoration, was returned to ground-running condition. It formed the centrepiece of the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, where it remains to this day.

The Avro Lancaster: the beautiful beast of the night

A Brief History of Avro Lancaster NX611

history that could easily fill a separate article – in 1983 and acquired land on the site of the former RAF East Kirkby in Lincolnshire on which to base the aircraft. Since then, ‘Just Jane’ has formed the centrepiececentrepiece of the Pantons’ Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, which has, up until the construction of the Bomber Command memorial in Green Park, London, been the only major standing, nationally recognisedrecognised memorial to Bomber Command.

In February 2010, following years of extensive planning and discussions with the relevant authoritative bodies, the Pantons announced their intention to return ‘Just Jane’ to flight in a bid to create an airworthy monument to the courage and sacrifices of Bomber Command’s forgotten ‘Many’. Andrew Panton, Christopher’s nephew and managermanager of the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, spoke to GAM to discuss the progress this massive undertaking has had so far, and to take a look at the work that still needs to be done before a second Lancaster graces the skies above the UK.

“We’ve had the feasibility study done by the Civil Aviation Authority (“CAA”) and we know what we need to do to make it airworthy, for a start”, Andrew tells GAM. “The main thing now is to make sure we’ve got everything on the shelf so that when we effectively ‘press the button’ to start the process of restoring it to airworthiness, we have everything – or nearlynearly everything; we’ll never be able to cover all bases – we need.”

The Pantons anticipate a timescale of approximately 18 months for the restoration itself, from the undoing of the first bolt to the final reassembly. Collating a stockpile of spares and equipment will hopefully contribute toward a timely return to flight, and should help the team circumvent the need to put the restoration on hold whilst sourcing additional parts, as AndrewAndrew explains. “The worst thing we could do is to start stripping it apart so that it’s no longer a complete aircraft that can taxi, and then spend 12 months trying to find a part. That would set us back and during that time we’d be trying to pay people’s wages with income that wouldn’t be coming in. It’s a big process, and we need to be ready to do it.”

Indeed, since the formal announcement of the Pantons’ intention to return their Lancaster to flight, they have been spearheading an ongoing drive to lay the groundwork for a future restoration, whenever that may be. While there is little awareness of the project’s current status in the public domain, Andrew confirms that the pre-restoration preparations are in fullfull effect and certainly, plenty has already been done in advance of receiving the go-ahead from Fred and Harold Panton.

“The fourth and final airworthy Merlin engine required to fly the Lancaster – although we’ll have spares, of course – is coming in around June of this year and is well on its way. We’ve sent away an undercarriage set as well, which is being worked on at the moment. The main problem we’re having with the undercarriage is that we’ve got to replace some of the metal tubing, and they don’t make the same metal as they used to during the war. We’ve got to have stress calculationscalculations and other tests done to prove that a new type of metal will do the job.

“People may have seen that the Lancaster was placed back on the civil register as G-ASXX. That’s purely in order to perform these stress calculations, because we can’t work on an aircraft for the CAA without it being on the civil register. The main aim for the undercarriage is to have one or two spare sets on the shelf so that they can be fitted

It could almost be 1944... NX611 surrounded by period RAF vehicles at East Kirkby's Special Photography Event 2012 (Huw Hopkins)

“The fourth and final airworthy Merlin engine required to fly the Lancaster – although we’ll have spares, of course – is coming in around June of this year and is well on its way. We’ve sent away an undercarriage set as well, which is being worked on at the moment. The main problem we’re having with the undercarriage is that we’ve got to replace some of the metal tubing, and they don’t make the same metal as they used to during the war. We’ve got to have stress calculationscalculations and other tests done to prove that a new type of metal will do the job.

“People may have seen that the Lancaster was placed back on the civil register as G-ASSA. That’s purely in order to perform these stress calculations, because we can’t work on an aircraft for the CAA without it being on the civil register. The main aim for the undercarriage is to have one or two spare sets on the shelf so that they can be fitted

It could almost be 1944... NX611 surrounded by period RAF vehicles at East Kirkby's Special Photography Event 2012 (Huw Hopkins)

to the aircraft when it’s airworthy, and the set that is on it now can be sent off for overhaul.”

“We’ve“We’ve got two new tyres out of a batch that Dunlop made for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster PA474. The mid-upper turret that we’ll fit when the Lancaster is flying is going quite well, too. We just bought some new bearings for that; the trouble is, finding parts for wartime aircraft isn’t particularly easy when you’re looking for obscure bearings and things like that! The turret itself was imported from America. The Perspex blister for it is a new one that was blown for the aircraftaircraft and additionally, we have a long list of things we’re looking for in order to complete it. We’re looking for parts in America and a company in Lincoln has just produced some bearings for us, which we received on 30 March 2012.”

All of this work will naturally be fully certified and accounted for insofar as paperwork goes, in order to satisfy the CAA that everything has been completed to the requisite standard which, as Andrew describes, falls strictly in line with the standards set by the BBMF during their operation of PA474. “The CAA has told us that becausebecause the RAF is flying a Lancaster, anything we do will have to be of an equal or better quality than the RAF processes, because they’re effectively the benchmark. The original thought was that the wings would have to come off and things like that, but because we’ve got to follow the RAF’s way of doing things, there are certain processesprocesses and procedures in place that mean we won’t have to remove components, provided we can visually inspect them.

“One example is the transportation joints in the fuselage, where bits are bolted together to form the fuselage. The thought was that they’d all need to be taken apart at those points and everything would have to go through

non-destructive testing (“NDT”), but now there’s a process in place that means we can NDT the joint on its own and see if there’s any corrosion in the join, and then replace the bolts around the joint, which satisfies all the CAA regulations, but it means we don’t have to physically take the aircraft apart.”

SupplementarySupplementary to the essential components and processes needed to make the Lancaster airworthy, steps are being taken to make the aircraft more authentic to its wartime specifications. The Pantons have also commissioned the manufacturing of a set of 250Ibs bombs, which will be hung in the Lancaster’sLancaster’s bomb bay once the bomb racks have been re-installed. It is also Andrew’s intention to install original oxygen bottle holders, oxygen bottles and myriad other components to make ‘Just Jane’ as close to authentic as possible, in order for it to become a true and accurate reflection of an operational Lancaster.Lancaster.

Just two examples of the ordnance carried by the Lancaster in operational service

The decision to return ‘Just Jane’ to its World War Two specification plays into a museum-wide strategy that will affect the entire Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre site. “What I’d like to do with the museum is to take it as far back to being a Bomber Command airfield as we can. I’d like to see thethe airfield having bits on it that a Bomber Command airfield had – whether it’s a Link trainer room, a bombing trainer and that kind of thing – so that it’s like you’re stepping back and you can see, to a degree, what it was like. It’s an ongoing process: last winter, we put up four Nissen huts, one of which will bebe a billet hut with all the beds and crew belongings set out. Another will be a briefing hut, so it’ll have all the pathfinder charts and a large map of Europe with the route set out on it. We’re moving towards it all the time, it’s just a gradual thing. We get about 30-40,000 visitors here every year, so we’ve gotgot to spread that income across work on the Lancaster and developing the museum site.”

In preparation for the Lancaster’s return to flight, the airfield at East Kirkby will also need to undergo a series of modifications to facilitate the operation of ‘Just Jane’ within the prescribed safety margins. Currently, the airfield has two runways – a 4,000ft concrete runway and a separate grass strip. Either of thesethese runways would need to be extended to 5,500ft in order for the Lancaster to take-off and land with ample space, regardless of which strip the Pantons choose to utilise. “Logistically for the museum, the easier option is to develop the grass strip”, says Andrew. “To get to the concrete runwayrunway you need to cross a highway, so we’d need to have barriers and lights in place. The preferable options for weather is of course a concrete runway, however, I’d imagine it will end up being a grass strip. We’ve already been in contact with the land owners and we have got the go-ahead fromfrom them to use their land whenever we need to.”

While its restoration will naturally see the Lancaster hangared for the vast majority of the project, Andrew stresses that visitors to the museum will still be able to enjoy seeing the aircraft up close. “The majority of the work will be done in the hangar, which will be sectioned off, in accordance withwith CAA regulations, so that people can still come to the museum and see what we’re doing. The hangar is big enough that without the vehicles in, you can have public access while the Lancaster is being stripped down and the public will always be able to come and see the work being done.done. With the exception of any parts that may be sent away to maintenance or restoration, the Lancaster will remain in the hangar for the duration.”

This will undoubtedly come as a relief for those who questioned, on hearing the 2010 announcement, whether East Kirkby would lose its biggest and most profound drawing point. Equally, Andrew adds, the restoration will not see the end of the Lancaster’s famed taxi runs. “A lot of peoplepeople think that if we fly our Lancaster, people will no longer be allowed to go on board it and we’ll no longer be able to do taxi runs. There are no CAA regulations that suggest that you can’t; it’s purely an operator’s prerogative.

“The main problem with the post-restoration taxi runs is that, when we’ve allowed people on board as part of the taxi run experience, there’s an increased risk of FOD and unintentional damage to the aircraft. All it means is that we’ll have to do a bit more work after the taxitaxi run to make sure the aircraft is fit for flight. There’s no reason why people can’t have the same access to the aircraft as they do now, and the aircraft would have tens, if not hundreds of thousands more people seeing it if it was flying on the airshow circuit, which helps to raise awareness for Bomber Command.” awareness for Bomber Command.”

'Just Jane' has provided a deeply evocative subject matter at the annual East Kirkby night photo-shoots for a number of years

Glenn Beasley

'Just Jane' has provided a deeply evocative subject matter at the annual East Kirkby night photo-shoots for a number of years

Of course, all of the preparation that goes into flying ‘Just Jane’ is arguably rendered meaningless without the availability of suitable pilots to test and later display the aircraft. As you can imagine, there isn’t exactly a glut of qualified Lancaster pilots readily available in the UK, but Andrew assures GAM that there are appropriate aviatorsaviators waiting in the wings, and other options available to cultivate new pilots, to take command of the Lancaster’s controls should she fly.

“We’ll have two pilots, so we’ll need to put in a second control column. We currently have a few pilots who taxi the aircraft who will also be eligible to fly it as well. The majority of our pilots flew the BBMF’s Lancaster and, while there are currency issues, we should be able to satisfy that through sufficient training. Equally, because it isn’t a complexcomplex aircraft like the Vulcan, for example, and it’s under a certain weight, you only need a Private Pilot’s Licence (“PPL”) to fly it; you don’t need a commercial pilot’s licence. For insurance purposes, any PPLs would need Lancaster conversion courses – we don’t yet know whether the BBMF will be able to help us in that respect, or whetherwhether we’d have to send pilots to Canada to train with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Lancaster team, but that’s a lot further down the line.”

Similarly, the restoration will require the expertise of a qualified engineering team, which Andrew clarifies will comprise of ex-BBMF and ex-CAA engineers. “We’ll build our own team of engineers for the restoration of the aircraft. Our current airframe engineer is Bob Mitchell and Keith Brenchley is in charge of engines. They’re bothboth ex-BBMF and both have a lot of experience in the major overhauls of the Lancaster. Bob was in fact at Air Atlantique at the point when it undertook the last major overhaul on the BBMF’s Lancaster, and Keith was in charge of the BBMF engineering staff several years ago, so they’re very capable and should hopefully be able to managemanage the maintenance of the aircraft once it flies. While we may have to bring in additional staff for winter overhauls and the like, we should be okay for the general operation of the aircraft.

“We have also struck a deal with the RAF in that when Al Pinner was OC of the BBMF, he wrote to us expressing the BBMF’s full support and we’ve also been speaking to several people higher up the RAF hierarchy,hierarchy, who have given us access whenever we want it to any tools or paperwork – the standard operating procedures, that kind of thing. The agreement is basically that we can use whatever we need to,to, provided there’s an agreement set out and signed dictating the terms and conditions of using that equipment. The RAF and BBMF have been very supportive and although we haven’t yet exercisedexercised our right to using their materials, the building blocks are there and it will certainly aid the restoration hugely.”

Once ‘Just Jane’ is back in the air, it would almost unquestionably become part of the British airshow circuit and would be available for display bookings. “It’d be more expensive than booking the BBMF’sBBMF’s Lancaster because it wouldn’t be subsidised”, Andrew tells GAM. “But if you try booking the BBMF Lancaster, not 100% of bookings are granted, so there’ll always be people who maymay settle for ours, shall we say! I’m sure that, provided we can come to an agreement with the BBMF, both of the Lancasters will fly in tandem on occasion and we’d hope that the big airshows would like to have that as a spectacle.”have that as a spectacle.”

Bringing a four-engine WWII bomber back to airworthy condition is, putting it mildly, an extremely costly exercise. Other restoration projects have fallen long before the final hurdles due to lack of funds andand sustainable income, and others have made it back into the air only to be grounded by prohibitive insurance, fuel and maintenance operating fees. Indeed, the Lancaster’s descendant, the mighty Avro Vulcan,Vulcan, is a prime example of how a multi-million pound endeavour can snowball into something almost insurmountable due to the ever-present need to generate sufficient and sustainable income.income.

While aircraft like the Vulcan and B-17 Flying Fortress ‘Sally B’ have survived, to an extent, thanks to the generosity of their supporters who have collectively donated hundreds of thousands of pounds towards the aircraft over the years, the Pantons are keen to keep the restoration of ‘Just Jane’ as financially autonomousautonomous as possible going forward. “At the moment, all the work we’ve done has been paid for out of our own pockets and we’ve not had any funding from anyone else. If we were to take Lottery funding and so on, it would certainly dilute what we’ve already done ourselves because people who didn’t know all ofof the facts might think that everything we’ve done here has been achieved only with Lottery money. We’re fairly keen to do as much as we can with our own funds, generated from the museum.”

The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre

welcomes upwards of 30,000 visitors each year and approximately 1,000 people come yearly for either a guided tour or a taxi run, which run from March to November – “That’s a testimony to how people feel about what Bomber Command did, I guess”, says Andrew. The funds from these visitors, combined with income from specialspecial events such as the November night taxi run and the annual air display, will play a vital, if not deciding role in supporting the Lancaster’s return to flight. “We’re also very keen that this aircraft remains ‘the people’s Lancaster’ as far as possible. At the moment we have a supporter’s association and I’m sure that will buildbuild to encompass more things you can do depending on the money you give and things like that. The most we can hope for once it flies is that we can cover the operating costs. You’ll never make any money out of flying an aircraft like this. If you get into it with that idea, then you’re blind to the costs of it.

East Kirkby's period vehicles add to the atmosphere at the March 2012 photo-shoot

That raises an interesting question – given the cost involved and the very nature of operating a historic aircraft, how long could ‘Just Jane’ feasibly be kept flying? “The life on an aircraft in its original state is limited”, says Andrew. “You cannot fly an aircraft on its original airframe for years and years, it will need repairs and it will needneed things changing. A lot of the aircraft flying now, they’re not the aircraft they were when they were built, they’re practically new aircraft. If you look at it from that respect, it would make sense for us to wait until the BBMF can no longer fly theirs before we fly ours, in order to ensure that there is a Lancaster flying in the UK in the longer term.

“A lot of people are of the opinion that we are merely custodians for the next owner and it won’t cease to exist when we stop owning it. It is a national treasure if you like, which is owned by the public in a way. Of course, we’re more than happy for people to give donations towards the aircraft because it helps to ensure that it’ll be herehere for the future generations. The more money people give to it, the longer it’ll be here – unfortunately, things don’t happen without money anymore.”

“The main life issues on the aircraft are the main spar and the engines. Main spars on Lancasters are licensed to 4,000 hours. The aircraft has done 2,424 flying hours, so it’s got about 1,600 official flying hours left. The CAA and British Aerospace said, when they inspected it probably 10 or so years ago now, that they wouldwould not licence it for a further 1,600 hours, they would only licence it for 800 hours and then, on inspection after that, keep increasing the lifespan of the aircraft, which you can understand given how much the aircraft has been taken apart!

“There are still materials left from the main spars that the BBMF used when they renewed their spar, and the Canadians have repaired some of their spar as well, so if you’re happy for the Lancaster to be a percentage original and a higher percentage new, you could fly it indefinitely, to a degree. It’s possible that we maymay fly it for a couple of years and then decide to ground it, but at least the aircraft will be in an airworthy condition for the future.”

While the Pantons are in the midst of preparing themselves for a full restoration to flight, the final decision has not yet been made and there is a long way to go before any definitive action is taken. Since the project’s announcement in winter 2010, many have questioned the ‘need’ for a second flying Lancaster in the UK – after all, thethe BBMF’s aircraft is seen at airshows, private and state events across the country and is a perfectly adequate flying tribute to Bomber Command.

But there’s more to it than that. The project is a deeply personal, emotional affair for the Pantons. The Lancaster honours not only their fallen kin, but the 55,573 airmen of Bomber Command who laid down their lives for our freedom. Regardless of whether it flies or not, ‘Just Jane’ is symbolic of that sacrifice and throughthrough the events at East Kirkby, and through any air display appearances in the distant future, the message of that sacrifice will be passed on to the next generation. That, one must surely agree, is of fundamental importance at a time where we as a nation seem to be increasingly indifferent to the lessons of the past.

“With everything, there’s a negative and a positive, it’s just about weighing up what you want to do”, surmises Andrew. “Of course it’s safer if it doesn’t fly, but then, if it flies, it’ll be in a better condition than if it just stays on the ground. Getting our Lancaster airworthy will also heighten the knowledge of our aircraft and the museummuseum here and if in turn that increases people’s awareness and knowledge of Bomber Command, then it’s surely a good thing.

“When it comes to it, it’s Fred and Harold’s decision. Although the aircraft will be passed down the family and it will at some point be my decision, shall we say, I would not be comfortable making the decision to fly it if Fred and Harold have said that they no longer want

to fly the aircraft. It’s not my decision at the moment, it’s their aircraft and they bought it and set everything up here. If they set out at the end of their time with it that they don’t want the aircraft to fly in future, my hands are tied and I wouldn’t want to fly it either.

“When“When they’re no longer around, the aircraft will be as much in their memory as in Christopher’s. Although public opinion is very important to us, the main reason this museum was set up was in memory of Bomber Command and in memory of Christopher Panton. If Fred and Harold feel that it’s in the best interests of honouring the memorymemory of Christopher to fly the aircraft, who are we to argue with that?”

The author wishes to thank Andrew Panton and the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre.

The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage team provide a very effective illustration of a scenario that would have been repeated across the county nightly during World War Two