Avro Lancaster rebuild a riveting restoration at National Air Force Museum

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The restoration team at the National Air Force Museum of Canada have been hard at work restoring a piece of aviation history.

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As visitors make their way through the spotless museum, past the hulking Halifax heavy bomber, they hear the faint soundtrack of grinding and machine work that would be more suited to a factory floor than an aviation museum. Traveling further back, visitors can peer into a workshop and look on as volunteers restore pieces of Canada’s aviation history, much of their handiwork those same visitors passed by as they made their way to the back of the museum.

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The current project on the hands of the restoration team is restoring an Avro Lancaster, serial number KB 882. Lancaster aircraft were developed to take the largest bombs used by the Royal Air Force, including the a payload weighing 22,000 pounds — which is nearly the same weight as the aircraft itself.

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Since first acquiring an Avro Lancaster KB 882 in 2017, the team, led by Restoration Technician Mike Joly, have made considerable progress. The team have reassembled the fuselage – fabricating new transparencies and replacing external fixtures to complete the exterior body of the aircraft. Joly has noted that the process of restoring the exterior body of the Lancaster has been one of the more challenging aspects of the project.

“The skin of the aircraft, you have to replace all of it. Some of them are tricky,” said Joly. “The skin is very thin, only 32,000th of an inch thick.”

Following reassembly, the team got to work on the interior finishes as they waited for paint. Come 2020, the restoration of KB882 was paused due to public health restrictions at CFB Trenton, and it wasn’t until late 2021 that the team was able to continue their efforts in the shop. In early August 2022, the Aerospace Telecommunications and Engineering Support Squadron (ATESS) at CFB Trenton was finally ready to begin work on the exterior of the aircraft. In the following weeks, the restoration team moved the wings, bomb bay doors, and fuselage to the ATESS paint shop.

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While the paint shop might be just across the base, moving the Second World War bomber across to the paint shop was no small feat. The team navigated broken wheels and narrow roadways but eventually dropped the relic off for its new paint job.

Aside from Joly himself, the rest of the team are all volunteers. Joly, who held a similar restoration role during his time in the military, attributes the passion he and his team have to the ability to work with their hands as they restore history.

“[We’re] right in there like a dirty shirt,” said Joly. “At the end, once it’s finished, we’re proud.”

The aircrafts that the team works on at their workshop really are pieces of the past, the  Lancaster KB 882 is no different. First built in 1944 by Victory Aircraft Ltd in Malton, Ontario, the KB 882 was one of 10 Lancasters built under licence in Canada. After its construction it was ferried to England in March 1945 and taken on strength by 428 “Ghost” Squadron, 6 Bomber Group and based at Middleton St. George in Yorkshire. Wearing the Squadron code NA-R, it flew 11 combat missions prior to the end of hostilities in Europe.

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KB 882 returned to Canada in June 1945 as it was destined to become part of “Tiger Force”, Canada’s contribution to the air war in the Pacific. The war ended prior to deployment and KB 882 was placed in storage at MacLeod, Alberta. In 1956, KB 882 was taken out of storage, extensively modified and eventually delivered to 408 “Goose” Squadron at RCAF Station Rockcliffe, Ontario a little more than 12 years since its last operational mission. The most notable modification to KB 882 was to Mk 10 AR (Area Reconnaissance) configuration which included a 40-inch extension ahead of the cockpit in order to house the additional camera and RADAR installations. For the next 8 years, KB 882 flew a wide variety of photo mapping, intelligence gathering, and photo reconnaissance missions including the surveillance of numerous Soviet ice stations. It was also tasked to conduct photo and intelligence gathering during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.

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Struck off strength in 1964, KB 882 was bought by the City of Edmundston, New Brunswick and placed on static display at the local airport until it was handed over to the team in 2017.

Upon its restoration, the Lancaster KB 882 will be put on display joining the museum’s flagship attraction — a Handley Page Halifax NA337. Of the 6,176 Halifaxes built, three complete examples remain with two of them residing in the United Kingdom.

The National Air Force Museum of Canada will be the only museum in the world to have both a Lancaster and Halifax on display. Coincidentally both the KB 882 and NA337 were in the air at the same time while they were still in service.

“They both flew on missions during the same night,” explained Joly. “Not together however, but they were in the air at the same time.”

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As they wait for the painting to be completed, which is expected to be finished by Summer 2023, volunteers are still hard at work restoring the Lancaster. They now have turned their focus on refinishing the nose cones and wing flaps, and will soon begin reupholstering the interior seats.

The team is now on the hunt for instruments to restore the aircrafts interior. Everything from radios, compasses, and dials are needed to fully restore the Lancaster.

The museum currently has a parts list available online that details each needed instrument and the quantity needed. It, along with other information about the museum itself, can be found at www.airforcemuseum.ca.