Flight path for icon of the sky
This weekend sees the Canberra bomber’s 75th anniversary. Phil Penfold visits the South Yorkshire Air Museum to learn about its history and why it was so important. Pictures by Bruce Rollinson.
THE South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum (SYAM) will celebrate 25 years of being on its site in the new city later this year, and footfall is bouncing back from the dark days of lockdown – it welcomed more than 22,000 visitors last year. You’ll find the museum in the Lakeside area, on what was the old RAF Doncaster base, and only a short distance from the internationally known racecourse where the first competitive air event in Britain was held well over a century ago, conveniently adjacent to what was the Great North Road.
The hangars, huts and open spaces are brimful of artefacts of all kinds – everything from medals and uniforms to complete aircraft. In fact, the latest acquisition is an RAF Hawk, almost the first thing that you’ll encounter in the main hangar. It was decommissioned one day, on a trailer to the museum the next, and on display within days. The museum has only a handful of permanent staff but there are more than 40 volunteers, of all ages. One of them, Marcus, is still only in his mid-teens but he is already working on a major restoration project of his own.
Another of the senior members of this remarkable group made lockdown work for him by deciding to spend his isolation period in a caravan parked in the grounds, where he happily beavered away restoring his Cessna plane. He followed all the rules, and the result is something quite special. At least something positive came out of Covid.
But, before that summertime celebration, there’s another that is specific to one historic British aircraft. Today and tomorrow, everyone is invited to come along and pay tribute to an
‘It was such a special plane that it was exported to, or modified for at least 20 other countries. The word “multifunctional” doesn’t begin to cover it.’
aviation icon – for it is a full 75 years since the Canberra took to the skies, and proved what an exceptional piece of engineering it was. In fact, some survivors still fly, as part of Nasa’s operations in the United States.
The SYAM has no fewer than eight of them – not the full plane but their incredible cockpits – and they are on permanent display. This makes the collection the largest in private hands. Some have been fully restored, others are “works in progress”. Another three cockpits will be on show this weekend, transported from similar air museums. There is a level of co-operation between these enthusiasts that bonds them together.
So what makes the Canberra so special? Its full title is the English Electric Canberra and it is a jet-powered medium bomber, developed in the last days of the Second World War as a successor to the de Havilland Mosquito. In its original state, it topped just about everything else in the air because of its ability to bomb from a high altitude (it actually could fly at an astounding 70,310 feet, and established a world record at that height) and at exceptional speed. It could easily evade other jet interceptors of the day. The Canberra was (and many believe still is) in a class all of its own. And if nothing else, it should remind us that English Electric made, or was involved with, a vast range of technological goods and machines, and not just kettles and cookers.
The Canberra is a hugely versatile plane. It could bomb, it was adapted for aerial reconnaissance, and it also played a vital role in training new pilots.
“It’s a truly multi-functional plane, and one of Britain’s most successful pieces of engineering,” says Sam Scrimshaw, who is a volunteer at the museum. Sam, 26, is so enthusiastic about the place that he frequently travels from his work base in Kent (he works at the old Biggin Hill airfield) back to Yorkshire. He is one of the museum trustees, and he also owns one of its Canberra cockpits and co-owns another. “It was such a special plane that it was exported to, or modified for at least 20 other countries around the globe. The word ‘multi-functional’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” says Sam.
The story of the Canberra begins when English Electric was asked by the then Air Ministry to think of an idea for a bomber airplane – one which wouldn’t have a piston-based engine but would instead run on jet propulsion, a technology that was still in its early stages. The man the company turned to was WEW Petter (Teddy Petter), who had just joined EE from Westland Aircraft.
“The man was a genius, simple as that and he went straight to work,” says Sam.
“Design followed design, until he had it absolutely right. In the end, it was the Ministry of Supply who placed the first contract for the development and production of what was called the English Electric A1.”
So where did the name Canberra come from? Well, Sir George Nelson, then chairman of English Electric, thought that one up because in 1950, Australia became the first export customer – and Canberra, of course, is the capital of that country. The EEA1 had first flown the year before, and the RAF knew that it had something very special. The maiden flight was on May 13 1949, and then there was much tweaking, to improve performance. The first firm order asked for over 130 bombers.
And it was the right plane at the right time, for in 1950 it proved to be highly effective in combat in the Korean War. The crowning glory was that the USAF realised what a superb plane it was, and it then ordered more than 400 of them.
In all, there were 1,352 produced. They could be seen in 35 RAF squadrons, and they were also exported across the globe – from Argentina to Venezuela, Peru to South Africa. Nearer to home, even France and the West German Luftwaffe snapped them up. One of its Canberra aircraft is now on display on the tarmac at Gatow Airport. There are others on show in museums from Queensland to India, from Malta to Norway, and dozens of other locations.
“It’s an incredible aircraft,” says Sam, who is fascinated by aviation history, and has been “since I was just a lad”. Such is the international love for the Canberra that books have been written about it – one author, Steven Beeny, is even flying in from the USA to celebrate with the museum staff and visitors.
Sam adds: “There are a lot of tickets sold to people from some faraway places who are coming to celebrate with us. Not only that, members of the RAF’s 360 and 100 Squadrons are also holding their reunions here in Doncaster. One of our most prized possessions is the autographs of some other RAF lads, who all signed one of the fuselages we have when they arrived for a reunion.”
Sam believes that the museum is increasingly successful, and is a much-regarded visitor destination, “because it tells the stories of human beings with whom we can all relate. Okay, there are a lot of machines of all shapes and sizes on display, but we also reveal who flew them, who kept them in wonderful condition, who designed them, and the part that they played in our history. We are always trying to move forward, with new interactive displays – one of our latest rooms tells the story of the brave Polish pilots who flew and fought in World War Two. We’ve even restored a huge and very colourful mural that was originally in the mess hall of one of their World War Two bases.
“We’ve recreated an operations room of the war years. And yes, were always so grateful for any memorabilia that anyone might discover – even the tiniest scrap of paper might be part of aviation history. We have a lot of family visitors who love the place.”
The museum has a 40-year lease (from the city council) and is, hopefully, set to expand on to some adjacent land in the near future. The aviation roots of this site go back to the First World War, when the Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the RAF, had a base here. “You are standing on history itself,” adds Sam.