Although World War II saw the arrival, success, failure and demise of many bombers, lots of which have gained well-deserved fame and reputation, the British Avro Lancaster shares a proud first place with the American Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress", as the most famous heavy bomber of that sorry period in human history.

 

This tie is the result of each aircraft doing more or less the same, but in such different ways that each excelled where the other didn't, and vice versa. The Boeing B-17 was (much!) better armed than the Lancaster. The Avro Lancaster could carry a (much!) higher bomb load than the B-17. The Lancaster delivered this larger load with a smaller crew. The larger crew of the B-17 had a better chance than the smaller Lancaster crew to get out alive in case the aircraft had to be abandoned by parachute.

 

It's hard to find and ask pilots with "operational hands on" experience nowadays: such a long time after the end or WWII there are increasingly few old-timers left who have actually flown the Lancaster, the B-17 "Flying Fortress" or both, meaning that a direct expert opinion has become almost impossible to get.

 

In this sense I'm lucky, on account of remembering the words of a now long-dead Lancaster pilot who had not only flown Avro Lancasters, but also just about everything else that was more or less capable of taking to the air in World War II: "The Lancaster was the most boring bomber I ever piloted. She had neither character nor temperament, let alone any vices. She was, without any doubt in my mind, the dullest heavy bomber one could imagine flying. Which suited me perfectly, for that's exactly how operational war time pilots like their bombers: docile, trustworthy, doing exactly as they're told, without even the remotest temperament or will of their own".

The Lincoln Aviation Heritage Museum is the only place in the UK where you can see a Lancaster bomber on an original World War Two airfield, and book a taxy ride in it!