By Frank Reeve
People in story;- Myself
Location of story; South Wales
My volunteering for Air-crew duties brought more action than I had seen for the last few months. Within a few hours I had been issued with two kit-bags full of flying kit, far too long to list here, but I guess well over �1.000.00 together with a travel warrant and seven days leave. Then it was off to South Wales to meet up with the other nine volunteers to make up Squad 15 on the very first course of Flight Engineers, all whom were from some branch of engineering. Over the next sixteen weeks we under-went the most intensive training that you could imagine. This was to create from raw mechanics and fitters, air-crew capable of becoming the seventh member of a Lancaster Bomber, the Flight Engineer; Capable of assisting the Pilot in the complex operation of take-off and landing this heavy bomber. We were quickly taught that no Pilot could do either without the assistance of the Flight Engineer. On take-off the Pilot is guiding the air-craft up to 105-110-120mph, that is when the LEFT hand of the F/E follows the RIGHT hand of Pilot and full control of the engines 6,600hp power passes to the Engineer by taking over the throttle levers and giving the Pilot full "thro the gate" power for final lift-off....That is the Lancaster with its crew of seven, fully loaded with 1750 galls of fuel; 150 galls of oil. A magnificent machine, with a wing-span of 102ft and 72 ft in length, standing 20ft tall and when needed it could fly at 287 mph and had a range of 2,250 miles. Our training went well and all ten passed with flying colours. |
