Over the past years we have helped the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight financially many times.
In the very early days the Lancaster did not have a mid-upper turret fitted. The turret had been found in Argentina and had arrived in the UK but funds had not been available to manufacture the deflection cam which had to be fitted before the turret could be put into place. The deflection cam can be seen on the aircraft, it fits round the bottom of the mid-upper turret. When the turret rotates, small rollers below the guns lift them at the right moments to stop the gunner shooting into the back of the cockpit or into the rudders.
The word came from HQ Strike Command engineering asking, would we like to undertake this work, which also relied on us to finance the job. We said yes, arranged the production of a postal cover, which we hope would cover the cost, found an engineering firm to do the work, and from plans supplied by the RAF the work was done - paid for by the money we had raised from the sales of the covers.
In a few words this sounds very easy, but the job took about 2 years and generated hundreds of hours of work for the few of us who were involved at the time. When the cam was eventually put into place on the bomber it was such a good fit that one could not get ones fingers underneath it to lift it off. A marvellous achievement by the engineers who worked only from the plans, the fuselage tapering to the tail and curving down at each side from the centre line.
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