Talk:English Electric Canberra

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[edit] B-57

Just an FYI, I will be making B-57 a separate page. It was fairly different (especially the long-wingspan variants) from the British Canberra and had an extensive combat history. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bomb Bay

"The fuselage contains two bomb bays with payload stored inside the rotating door."

The B-57 had a rotating bomb bay door but the British version didn't...

Source - Canberra - Operational Record

Yes, you are correct. The rotating bay was an XB-51 carryover by Martin. I'll fix the article. - Emt147 Burninate! 18:01, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

When was the Canberra so named? When it first flew Menzies had been out of power for 8 years, & had been Australian PM for only a little over 2 years between 1939 & 1941. GrahamBould 11:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Replacing the B 26 Marauder

It says that the B-57 was built to replace the B 26 Marauder. All information that I have indicates that the B-57 was chosen to replace the Douglas B-26 Invader. So I changed it...

Yup, whoever wrote it got the two B-26s confused. Thanks for catching that! - Emt147 Burninate! 07:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting Statistic

One statistic given at the RIAT airshow 2006 was that the longevity of the Canberra would be equivalent to the Spitfire having remained in RAF service until 1993! Would this be something to add to the page?

[edit] Service

Is the Canberra still in service or not? The first para says no, yet the "Service" section says it is still in service in the US. GrahamBould 10:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I wanted to know that. All the stuff on the web is about the PR9 (even tho it lacks a successor) but what about the other marks that are/were in RAF service (RN etc)? Of course the Canberra must still be in service elsewhere in the world isn't it? Also I read in a recent aviation mag that the PR9s are in private hands implying they could be leased back or at least their services some time soon. At least one will likely still fly at airshows too I suppose.

Cheers, Roy. 22nd August 2006

Maybe the key to this is the words "in service" - maybe that means with an air force. GrahamBould 11:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aircraft description

I hope these are useful:

(1) “The pilot sits on a Martin-Baker ejection seat while the bombardier-navigator has to rely on a conventional escape hatch and parachute”.

My experience was of the bombers B2 and B15. The standard for this fuselage was to have the pilot to the left of the broad bubble canopy and two navigators sitting behind. All were provided with ejection seats. The bomb aimer would leave the right hand navigators seat to do his work in the nose, scrambling back to that ejector seat if necessary. However, on ferry or positioning flights, the walkway to the right of the pilot might be blocked by a folding jump-seat for the use of a fourth occupant. This person would wear a suitable harness and have a clip-on parachute; he would be expected to use the cabin entrance door for his departure. The marks B6 and B16 would have been identical (although the B16 might have only carried one navigator because of a sideways-looking-radar on the cabin starboard wall). Although the PR3 and PR7 normally operated with only one navigator, the front fuselage was effectively the same – I never found out how many ejection seats were provided in these aircraft. The T4 had two pilot seats with one navigator seat behind – again all ejection seats. The PR9 had room only for two crew, the navigator occupying an ejection seat in the nose in front of the pilot. I am not sure about the B8 and its overseas versions - in this case only, the given description may be correct.

I agree. The PR7 navigator had an option of staying in his ejector seat or going to lie down on his front on a couch to look out of / visually navigate through the glass nose dome. He was provided with a minimal instrumentation in that position. In the event of an emergency, there was a scramble to get back into the ejector seat whilst the pilot handled the situation. Every navigator who went forward to the couch would, at one time or another, have been subjected to the pilot's little joke of a bunt (application of a small amount of negative G) and airbrakes - resulting in a barely controllable 'float' into the very front of the glass nose dome... Similarly, the T17 and T17A variants were both equipped with 3 ejection seats, one for the pilot and one each in the rear cabin for the navigator and EW Officer. EWoc 14:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

(2) “The fuselage contains two bomb bays with conventional clamshell doors”.

The norm would surely be the B2/B6/B15/B16 bomb bay, which was a continuous chamber running the full length of the cylindrical fuselage up to the cabin rear wall. There were three suspension points spaced equally along its length - a representative operational full internal load would be three pairs of 1000 lb bombs. I think you might only be describing the B8 which (usually ?) carried a heavy gun pack in the front section of the bomb bay, with two pairs of bombs behind. The PR types enclosed a lot of the lower fuselage to accommodate cameras and had a much shorter flare bay as a result.

best wishes

roop1940

[edit] Short Brothers

No mention on Short Bros article about making Canberras, surprising... GrahamBould 16:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Has been remedied in the meantime. --TraceyR 16:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Extremely picky - but while present-day Pakistan is blue on the map, Banga Desh is not. Bangla Desh (then East Pakistan) was part of Pakistan until 1971, the period when the combined Pakistan had Canberras. So shouldn't Bangla Desh be blue on the map? GrahamBould 08:51, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, the light & dark blue in the map both appear the same dark blue - probably my monitor... GrahamBould 12:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding Bangladesh - that's a interesting question, as the timespan of Pakistani B-57 use ("28 years" per Aeroplane) falls both before and after the seperation of East Pakistan/Bangladesh. My inclination would be not to color in the eastern part because of that, anyone else have an opinion yea/nay?
With regard to the colors - they should be fine, they're the same as on the F-16 Fighting Falcon map. (As a note, I considered using a different map, but chose the "current world" one as a few countries are still flying Cranberries.) - Aerobird Target locked - Fox One! 15:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
OK that's just weird...an old version of the map, that had been overwritten, was loading. <_< I've reuploaded the map at an entirely new filename and changed it on the page, so that should work now. - Aerobird Target locked - Fox One! 15:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Export Customers

Given that the aircraft was named Canberra by virtue of Australia being the first export-customer, why is Australia not listed with the others, under Origins?

The Australian-operated Canberras were built in Australia under license, with the exception of the pattern aircraft, which were supplied from Britain. Therefore, while it was certainly an overseas sale of the aircraft, it technically couldn't be called an export sale. Baclightning 03:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Canberra Details

I've been poking around for some Canberra details that turn out to be surprisingly hard to find. Barry Jones' book on the subject is thorough but oddly ignores a good number of engineering specifics: Was the nose gear steerable, or was ground handling by differential braking? Was the landing gear hydraulically retracted? Were the flight surfaces power boosted? Cheers / MrG 4.225.212.248 03:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] first non-stop transatlantic flight by a jet?

What about "1950: Col. David C. Schilling (USAF) flew 3,300 mi from England to Limestone, Maine". This receives several Google hits. Is the Canberra 'record' incorrect? --TraceyR (talk) 18:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)