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Key Publishing's "Air Forces Monthly" has an interesting article on the Canberra P.R.9 recon platform.

It's listed as being one of the recon assets that has been most asked for by US units in the recent "unpleasantness" in the Iraq/Middle East area of operations.

Given that it was designed for high altitude recon, one of the favorite pranks in years past was to invite interceptor units - RAF Phantom units - to "intercept" them - at 55K,an altitude at which the Canberras excelled and could outfly them.

Taking off at 80% power (or less) is common, since it's easy to exceed the landing gear's speed limitations - on one engine.

An interesting long-lived airframe (basic design is older than the B-52)


No wonder the British aircraft industry went down the drain - the damn planes refuse to get obsolete!

I always had a soft spot for the old Canberra. It broke many records in the first few years & is a nice looking bird depite all the knobs & bumps it acquired doing different jobs.

One little fact that not many will know is that most types of Canberra are fitted with 7 door locks. These are a pressurised version of the type first used on the lower hatch on the Bristol Beaufighter. The design had to be both strong & foolproof as the rear crew member stood on this hatch during flight. They were also fitted to various aircraft like the DH Dove, Heron & DH.106 Comet among others. Don't tell anyone but I still have a set of keys that would allow me to enter any one of these aircraft.

I know this as I was the last person responsible for their manufacture before production was reluctantly stopped. I met the man who designed these ingenious locks when my company first took over the contract. We even supplied a couple for the pressurised gondola on a high altitude balloon that was going for some record or other.

PS. On the rare occasion I spot a Canberra flying over I can proudly say: "Ah, there goes another 7 of my door locks".

Another British classic that is still going strong The Canberra must be one of the few types that is still flying with the RAF whilst also being operated on the disply scene by civilian operators.

RAF Wyton is (was?) the place to be. When I was up there as an Air Cadet (back in the 80's) they had the PRs working hard (we even got to do work in the photographic interpretation section, I learnt some amazing things!)
Some A-10s were stuck with us as they were having their runway done up, and they were showing off doing close pairs flying an aerobatics and trying to wind-up the RAF pilots. So two Canberras took off and promptly proved they could do anything the A-10 guys could, with half the spacing. There were a lot of USAF pilots paying for beer that night

Ozzy

RAF Wyton is (was?) the place to be

It was indeed, just noisy Grobs now...

Interesting to see that early on the day President Bush visited London, and Canberra was spotted over north London...

Charlie