The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based at RAF Coningsby, plans to once again delight crowds on Buxton Carnival Day and this year the fly past will feature the historic Lancaster Bomber PA474.
Organised by Michael Hilton, owner of Buxton Weather, the flypast which celebrates the The Buxton Well Dressings and the opening of Buxton International Festival.
Scheduled to fly over Buxton at approximately 4pm, eith this large four engined plane, we should get a great view! It was due earlier in the day but they have rescheduled the timing due to a potential storm forecast by the Met Office at around 1pm.
All being well we should hear the roar of four Rolls Royle Merlin engines over Buxton on Saturday afternoon! The pilot will be Flight Lieutenant Paul Wise and the Co Pilot will be Squadron Leader Mat Moore. There will be a flight engineer in the crew, Dave Stanton.
The Lancaster will approach Buxton from the North East (over Tideswell, Wormhill, Fairfield Common). Of course, with this much larger aircraft, they will not do the turns we saw from The Mosquito last July, but they plan to do two passes over the town at around 1000 feet. They will leave Buxton heading out on an easterly direction. There is a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) in place tomorrow therefore – it is an offence to fly a drone over Buxton anywhere around this planned aircraft visit.
About the Lancaster
The Avro Lancaster is the most famous and successful RAF heavy bomber of World War Two.
There are only two airworthy Lancasters left in the world – 7,377 were built.
Lancaster PA474 was built at the Vickers Armstrong Broughton factory at Hawarden Airfield, Chester on 31 May 1945, just after VE day. The war in the Far East ended before she was deployed and she did not take part in any hostilities.
For the last three years of the Second World War the Avro Lancaster was the main heavy bomber used by Bomber Command to take the war to the heart-land of Nazi Germany.
With an impressive performance and excellent flying characteristics it soon established its superiority over other allied four-engined bombers operating in Europe.
The industrial and military organisation needed to build and operate the Lancaster was huge. Six major companies built 7377 aircraft at ten factories on two continents; at the height of production over 1,100,000 men and women were employed working for over 920 companies. More service personnel were involved in flying and maintaining it than any other British aircraft in history.
For more information about The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight go to raf.mod.uk/display-teams/battle-of-britain-memorial-flight
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