English Electric Canberra End of an Era

This video shows the last days of this graceful aircraft, it also includes the last display and very well documented by its pilots.

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Thanks. Enjoyed that. She was a beauty. Cheers.

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Two things that struck me; didnā€™t realize this superb aircraft has served that many years. Simply amazing. Also, never knew that the navigation/photo officer sat in the nose of the aircraft. Always thought this aircraft only had one crewmember.

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A four/five seater. Two behind the pilot (bang seats) The nose position and a fifth jump seat to the right rear of the back section.

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I remember getting a Matchbox model kit of the Canberra, as a kid. I first thought something was wrong with it, since the canopy was offsetā€¦! :scream:
Since that day Iā€™ve loved the simple, yet elegant, lines of it. The fighter style cockpit and its versatility.
Would be a fun aircraft in DCS, actually!

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I saw one of ours (among other interesting aircraft) at Ellington a few weeks ago!



(Forgive the zoomed iPotato pics, was a ways away from the taxiway, taken on the rollā€¦)

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wow, looks so nose-heavy!

Yeah, NASA keeps operating two of them. Cool things.

I believe they actually have three now, after returning one to service from the boneyard. There are also several civilian ones supposedly still semi-operational in the US, including a handful purchased from the UK after retirement. Two are owned by a ā€˜high-altitude mapping serviceā€™ in Washington, but I donā€™t know if theyā€™re airworthy now. Pretty neat!

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Do you happen to know what those other positions were for? I seem to remember this aircraft was also a bomber and not just a photo recon aircraft.

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This is my personal favourite canberra. Based at Bruntingthorpe and used to (:sob:) do taxi runs etc. Very interesting bird


VICTOR k2 for scaleā€¦

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One was a ā€œbomb-aimerā€ (not a bombardier? :thinking:).

That does look like the kind of aircraft you would like yes :stuck_out_tongue:. As an :a6: fan, I must say that nose is impressive.

What was it used for?

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I was lucky enough to fly in Wyton based Canberras doing PIā€™s. Paired Interceptions training ground radar fighter controllers.

Pilot
Nav + 2nd bang seat for observer (me,) or nav trainer.
Jump seat to right and forward of the two back bang seats. From the jump seat you could see out the front and monitor the pilot. But the crew would eject and leave you behind if they had to. From the second bang seat you could look sideways at the nav - you could not really see anything. The nav could look sideways out a small window.

By 81 there were EW variants and a second squadron that just supported the School of Fighter Control and also acted as air defence targets. The latter is who I flew with

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Radar trials

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