I am very pleased to report that the big electric Lancaster has flown.
The flight took place on Saturday the eleventh of October, at about 6pm.
There were very few people present at the time, and all full size activity had ceased. This is how events unfolded.

Mark transported the Lanc to the field as his is the only car big enough to do so in one go. The Lanc was then put together and the motors were ran to pull down the batteries. Then two more cells per motor were added, then the whole lot was charged using two chargers. This took about an hour, we had to use Clive's car with the engine running to do it, you will see why when I tell you how many batteries and what the capacity is later. 

At last the Lanc was ready to go. She was lined up on the runway and every thing was checked one final time.  The throttle was opened and the Lanc quickly gathered pace,  with about a fifty to sixty yard run she became airbourne. A very gentle climb was initiated and the gear was finally retracted when Mark found the correct switch position. The Lanc really picked up speed with those big draggy wheels tucked away. Gentle left and right turns were tried and these proved to be absolutely predictable. One low pass for the camera was called and then it was time to try a landing. The normal landing pattern was flown (as I tell all my students whether it is a Trainer, Spitfire or Lancaster or whatever always fly the box) the gear was lowered on short base this was done to avoid having the drag of those big wheels on most of the circuit. The lanc was gently banked round onto finals and lined up with the centre of the runway. The speed was kept quite high as you have to be a little bit careful here as this is a big draggy aeroplane. If you come off the power too much or too early the speed quickly decays. The power was gently pulled back when the wheels were roughly about one foot (300mm) from the ground. Slight backstick was applied and those big wheels gently kissed the ground. With a huge sigh of relief the first flight was over.

After that there was a bad outbreak of morale, none more so than my brother Clive who owns the Lanc. He has spent a lot of time and money on this project and sometimes his patience has faltered but his resolve has not.
I think Clive has watched the video of the first flight about a hundred times.
From start to finish this project took nearly six months of very intense work.
Was it worth it? You bet!

We would like this Lancaster to be a flying memorial to the 60,000 plus aircrew of Bomber Command who lost their lifes during World War two.
We would also like to try and raise money for any worthwhile charity 
by putting it on static display etc.

Clive and I would like to thank all of the people who helped us with this project.
Especially: Mark Dyball, for all of the electrical installation CG balancing
and transportation.
James Goff, undercarriage legs.
Tony Haydon, incidence meter and financial support.
Peter Reed, wing fixing.


Hopefully there will be some pictures of the Lanc on the website soon.
There is also at least one other big Lanc being built in this area.
Paul Cook of hobby stores Watton is also building one.
How nice it would be to see two Lancs in the air together.
http://www.nmacwarbirds.freeuk.com

If you would like to see Tony Nijhaus's (electric Lanc designer) Lanc at the Dambusters event held earlier in the year go to:
http://www.rcgroups.com
You need to click on electric then scroll down and then click on scale.
Then go to pages 7 and 8. There is also a Lanc which was built by a South African and there are some nice flying shots of that, our Lanc is there some where.