AVRO Lancastrian
The AVRO Lancastrian was even more of a rush job that the York. Basically AVRO converted Lancaster bombers direrctly off the production line by adding nose and tail cones over over the gun turrets and deleting all military equipment. Lancastrians had a shorter useful working life than the AVRO York but performed the role of stop-gap passenger aircraft, pioneered Air to Air Refueling and flew thousands of gallons of liquid fuel into Berlin during the crisis. They also helped prove many of the early post-war airline routes. No Lancastrians survive although the remains of one was recently found high up in a mountain range in Argentina. The aircraft had been missing since 1947.
A
rare colour photo of Lancastrians modified to carry fuel into the beleaguered
city. These belong to Flight Refueling Ltd, probably photographed at their home
base of Tarrant Rushton in Dorset.
Flight Refueling Ltd, along with Skyways flew in over 40,000(UK) tons of fuel during the operation.
Civil operators during Airlift
| Flight Refueling* | f |
| G-AGWI | G-AKDO |
| G-AGWL | G-AKDP |
| G-AHJU | G-AKDS |
| G-AHJW | G-AKFF |
| G-AHVN | G-AKFG |
| G-AKTB | s |
| Skyways | f |
| G-AKBT | G-AKSN |
| G-AKFH | G-AKSO |
| G-AKMW | d |
* A big 'no thanks' to Flight Refueling who viewed my web a while back and responded snottily that there were many factual errors about their company's work during Planefare, but didn't say what exactly.