English Electric Canberra
A legend is born…
The Canberra can be classed as one of the greatest aircraft of all times, it was the first jet bomber to enter service with the Royal Air Force, the German Arado Ar 234 “Blitz” being the worlds first. Near the later stages of WW2 the UK Ministry of Aircraft Production was looking for a jet bomber to replace the Hawker Typhoon in the role of fighter-bomber.
The first request for the replacement jet bomber was for an aircraft with approximately 40,000lbs “all-up-weight” that would be powered by a single 12,000lb thrust engine mounted in the rear fuselage. By the end of 1945 these specifications had changed to a high-speed two-crew bomber and given the title B3/45.
In early 1946 a contract was placed with the English Electric Company for four prototypes of the English Electric A.1. The first wooden and cardboard mock-up was produced in a garage in Coronation Street, Preston.
For three and a half years the building of the prototypes continued and by mid 1949 the first of them had been constructed at English Electric’s airfield at Warton and in May of 1945 VN799 was rolled out.
After a number of engine tests, she was fitted with a pair of Rolls-Royce RA1s engines, and undertaking a series of short “hops” down the runway, the big day of the first full test flight of the Canberra A.1 arrived. On Friday 13th May 1949 VN799, painted all blue, took to the skies, flown by English Electric’s chief test pilot, Roland Beamont the flight lasted twenty-seven minutes and the only issue reported during the flight was a very slight over balanced rubber. This was quickly fixed by removing part of the “horn” balance; this gave the aircraft its well known square cut tail fin. The other three prototypes, VN813, VN828 & VN850 were quickly modified before their first flights.
Test flying of VN799 continued throughout 1949, in September of that year she had her first public appearance at the Farnborough Air Show, Roland Beamont undertook a short take-off then put the Canberra into almost vertical climb and then did a number of high and low level high speed passes. The Canberra was the Queen of the show; no-one was left in any doubt of its design and flying merits.
The remaining three prototypes all made their test flights in the final months of 1949.
Because of the way in which the test programme was progressing to well, other problems started coming to light. The bombing radar equipment was well behind in development and as such there were calls for a revised variant of the aircraft. So another four prototypes were constructed under specification B5/47 and called the B.Mk2. The delayed B.1 was to be designed with a crew of two sitting side-by-side, the B.Mk2 variant had a provision of a third crewmember, a bomb aimer. The first B.Mk2 was VX165 which made its maiden flight on 23rd April 1950. She was quickly followed by VX169; both these aircraft were equipped with the Rolls-Royce Avon RA3 engines. These engines would be the type that would be fitted to the Canberra’s already on the production line.
The first “true” production produced Canberra B.Mk2 was WD929, which was part of the initial batch of seventy aircraft. WD929 first flow on 8th October 1950 and was released for RAF service in April 1951. It was WD2929 that was christened “Canberra” by the Australian Prime Minister of the time Sir Robert Gordon Menzies in January of 1951 at RAF Biggin Hill.
On the 25th May 1951 the first operational was equipped with the Canberras, 101 Squadron at RAF Binbrook became the first Squadron in RAF Bomber Command history to be equipped with jet bombers. During this period of time Bomber Command was still equipped with mostly Avro Lincolns and Boeing Washington’s. The dawn of a new era was being written in RAF history.
Main Variants of the Canberra
During 10 years of production 782 were produced by English Electric and her sister companies, 48 were built under licence in Australia, 403 were again built under licence in the USA for the USAF, by Martin Company in Baltimore.
There were a total of forty variants of the Canberra; this includes thirteen for the USAF.
B.Mk1
Crew – Two
Engines – Rolls-Royce Avon Mk.1/RA2, with 6,000lbs thrust each engine.
Total Fuel Load – 10,992lbs
Maximum Bomb Load – Unknown
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I am trying to find examples of “white” Canberras operating from RAF Tengah in 1958. Only clue I have is Operation Grapple and 76 Squadron “sniffer” aircraft, used for checking H bomb cloud.
From memory 76 Sqdn had 2 white Canberras although all the 76 Sqdn Canberras that were used in Air Sampling operations were painted with a white water soluble paint. This was used as after sampling flights it could be washed off removing with it some of the radiation.
The Grapple operation I was involved with was Grapple Z, for this and some prior Grapple operations the aircraft were based at RAAF Edinburgh Field and were deployed to Christmas Island for the actual bomb tests. I have no knowledge of 76 Sqdn aircraft operating from RAF Tengah. I am pretty sure that 76 Sqdn RAAF were operating in Malaya around that time although I think they were operating Sabres (I would check but sometimes if you navigate away from a page when you return you have to start again). Actually the movement of 76 Sqdn aircraft was somewhat restricted due to “fly over” restrictions operating in some countries. This caused resorting to all sorts of subterfuge when the aircraft returned to the UK in 1960. I do have some old b/w photos somewhere if they are of interest to you. For some reason the RAF Squadron Histories have almost no information on operations during 1950′s.
interesting!i was an airframe tech,on b2′s at binbrook from 53 to 55 (demob) we had one painted white underneath i,m pretty sure it was WE111,we gathered it had flown through an atomic cloud somewhere ,.we used to joke about being sterilized.i dont know if anybody remembers the new zealand air race,but just as a point of interest,i was at raf shaibah,refueling and turning round the canberra that won it.maybe it will stir some memories.