A high school friend is President of Vintage Wings Canada, and flies all kinds of WB like his P51, Hurri, and a bunch of others. A few years back with him having a look at their a/c I got to get an up close look at this Lanc, but never got to fly in her. Still, it was great climbing around in an air worthy Lanc. My hometown in Calgary has 2 good examples nearby, but they're static only. My grandfathers both were involved with the Lanc in WW2, one flew them as a transit pilot, the other worked first on the radio systems, and then later the engines. Over 400 of the BX Lancasters were built in Eastern Canada, being very similar to British built Lancs, having slightly different instrumentation, and Packard manufactured Merlins. My paternal GF spoke at great length about these engines, and how fantastic they were.
Anyhow, it's great to see this bird making the trek to the UK, where the lions share of the actual "work" done by the Lanc was launched from. I can't believe somebody spent 80 grand to be the crew member - good for them, the $ will go to supporting it I'm sure, far worse ways to spend that money. Last time I visited Vintage wings, they were offering rides in many of their a/c for a couple thousand - their P51D in Canadian markings flew out West 2 years ago, and the pilot was very generous, a young 15 year old kid in the province of SK stalked them online, and made his way on his bike to see it land at the local airport, and talked the pilot's ear off about P51s. His enthusiasm got him a free hour long ride - there is video on Facebook of this happening, I'll try and link it in another thread.
