Avro Lancaster crews

[colin m]

I was just wondering if Lancaster crews would keep the same aircraft (except for repair or maintenance) or were all the aircraft pooled and just randomly assigned before each mission.
I'm asking as a neighbour had a relative who was a rear gunner in 622 squadron. It would be nice to find a picture of 'F' for Freddie as this is the only aircraft he refers to in his writings.

[rickoshea52]

If you could get access to an aircrew log book and read the entries you might be able to see for yourself what aircraft a crewman flew on.

[colin m]

If you could get access to an aircrew log book and read the entries you might be able to see for yourself what aircraft a crewman flew on.

I'm afraid the family don't have much information about his service. Certainly no log book.

[Guest]

Well I did bit of Googling Colin, but it's not clear. There is one statement to the affect of 'whichever aircraft they had been assigned to for the operation' suggesting that the available aircraft were pooled. I suppose that in normal circumstances a crew would prefer to fly a particular aircraft that they were used to, but the high level of damage and maintenance required would probably have made it impossible to fly the same aircraft on each op.

[rickoshea52]

It is entirely possible that squadron allocated aircraft were given to the aircrews as available and per unit rotas or other Standing Orders. It may also have been possible that squadron crews and aircraft may have been matched according to availability.
In the modern Air Force sdn 1 aircraft can be operated by sqn 2 aircrew, particularly if the aircraft were pooled like at Kinloss in the latter Nimrod years.

[colin m]

Thanks Peter and Rick for trying to answer my question. So it seems it could be a bit of both !