Avro Lancaster

what is it?

The Avro Lancaster, commonly known as the Lancaster Bomber, is a British World War II heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirling, all three aircraft being four-engine heavy bombers adopted by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the same era. The Lancaster has its origins in the twin-engine Avro Manchester, which had been developed during the late 1930s in response to the Air Ministry Specification P.13/36 for a medium bomber for "world-wide use" to carry a torpedo internally and make shallow dive-bombing attacks.

🔎How to recognise it: 4 piston engines with propellers · 31.1 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 454 km/htop speed
• size 30.8 tmax take-off weight
• built 7,377made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 85 years ago, in 1941.
• 🏎️Top speed is 3.5× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 31.1 m: about 7 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 5 African elephants (~6 t each).

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight

1941-01-09

introduced

1942

retired

1964

status

retired

number built

7,377

role

heavy bomber

origin

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

makers

Avro

engines

4× Rolls-Royce Merlin XX / Rolls-Royce Merlin

crew

7

length

21.1 m

wingspan

31.1 m

height

6.3 m

max take-off weight

30.8 t

top speed

454 km/h

cruise speed

322 km/h

range

—

ceiling

6,523 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.