80 years ago this ‘killing machine’ took the war back to Germany. This is its story. & More News Here

That first prototype flew for the first time on 9 January 1941. This early model was quick – with a prime velocity in extra of 300mph. A second prototype flew in May, and Manchester manufacturing was forthwith switched to Lancasters.

According to aviation historians Brian Goulding and Mike Garbett the first production-built Lancaster was fitted with Merlin XX engines able to delivering 1,280 horsepower and flew in October 1941. With an order for 1,000 plane – and extra orders to come – Stockport-headquartered A. V. Roe & Co (Avro) fashioned an alliance of corporations to work collectively on the aircraft.

The RAF’s new bomber had a 102ft wingspan that was over-engineered for energy, thanks in the principal to an aluminium central spar that ran throughout the wings and was connected to the roof of the bomb bay. Intended for night time bombing it was calmly armoured – permitting extra weight for the bombs themselves – and had a particular twin tail fin with rudders, giving the dorsal prime turret a transparent firing line to the rear. It’s energy to weight ratio gave the Lancaster the next payload functionality than any of the RAF’s different four-engined bombers. Moreover, with a prime velocity on the stage of 287mph it might attain 360mph in a dive and was praised for its manoeuvrability, sturdiness and talent to take no matter was thrown at it.

(Concorde: 50 years of the aircraft that pushed the limits – then pushed them too far.)

One of the younger males who discovered themselves at the controls of a Lancaster was Russell ‘Rusty’ Waughman, now 98, who accomplished 30 missions as a Lancaster pilot from November 1943 till June 1944.

‘It was delightful to fly – it really was,’ Waughman tells National Geographic (UK). He grew up in County Durham and realized to fly in Boeing-Stearman and Tigermoth biplanes in Canada earlier than bomber coaching on Wellingtons. ‘It wasn’t a tough plane to fly, and it took super punishment.’

Certainly Waughman’s first Lancaster did: it was concerned in a mid-air collision over Belgium with, because it turned out, one other Lancaster. ‘It chopped the wheel off and broke the back end of the aircraft and we lost our tail. Because our engines were slightly ahead of his we managed to keep flying.’