Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Leon's Lancaster

Not a vehicle but I know how many on this forum like a good aviation story. I volunteer at the Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre in Lincolnshire, a Bomber Command Lancaster base in WW2. The museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of RAF Metheringham and the personnel who served there.

Up until recently my main task has been the restoration and preservation of our 1944 C-47 Dakota. Last year we heard about a replica Lancaster nose section simulator, very accurately built and fully fitted out, from the main spar to the cockpit front bulkhead. It was immaculately and accurately built, over twenty years, by Leon Ellison, in his garden shed, at the bottom of his garden in Berkshire. Sadly Leon died before the simulator was finished, he was about 90% there.

Leons family wanted to find a new home for the Lancaster simulator at an appropriate location, where it would be seen by the public and where it would be finished and operated as a simulator. Metheringham was fortunate to be chosen from several applicants for this kind donation. It gives our museum a large Lancaster display item, something we have been lacking since opening over 30 years ago.

This week we extracted the simulator from the shed and it “flew” for the first time with the aid of a very large crane, over the garden and the grade 2 listed wall, into a waiting container for transport to Lincolnshire. Getting it into its new home in the hangar next to the Dakota was simpler but still difficult.

We cannot operate the Lancaster sim in the hangar, that is a temporary location until an insulated annex is built alongside the hangar to house it. We need to raise £50,000 to build the annex, plus some more to complete the simulator build with a digital operating system (Leon was an analogue tech man and built it that way) and parabolic screen.

Our C-47 will be open to visitors as usual, possibly the only WW2 C-47 in the country you can sit in the cockpit of without an extra fee. The Lancaster will be open soon for guided one to one cockpit tours. More information and a link to donate is on our website here: https://www.metheringhamairfield.co.uk We have had a bit of national news coverage on the BBC today, as well as lots of local media. If any Talk Morgan members are in the area this Summer, PM me I will try to do you a guided tour, as we try to do with all our visitors. The museum is open Wednesdays and weekends from 1000 to 1600, £8 adult admission. It's not massive but well worth a visit.