Part 2 of the Wellington video is coming, I promise! (Please put down the torches and pitchforks xD) F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible. Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)

Given how the Manchester spawned several off-shoots, from the Lancaster bomber, the Shackleton MPA, all the way to the Ashton jet airliner. It is basically a "task failed successfully" in a plane's form and really show how a bad engine ruined a good plane design.

"sir we put all the fuel in the wings to make room for more payload" "Excellent! Now we have room to make the chairs in the lounge reclinable!"

Fundamentally the underlying design was sound: Father to the Lancaster, Grandfather to the Lincoln, and Great-Grandfather to the Shackleton - which was in service until 1991. Not bad really

The requirement for frictionless takeoff was dropped in 1938 when the Brits realized that Teflon hadn't been invented yet.

As we're all so accustomed to seeing the Lancaster with it's 4 engines, the twin engine Manchester just looks like it's missing something. Fantastic video as always.

I always love this channel because they don't just post about the typical "war winning" aircraft (or famous axis aircraft) like the Spitfire, BF109, P51, etc. They bring up the failures, the planes that didn't work in the end and I think it's always good to know both sides of the coin, what worked well and what didn't, so we can study them and not make the same mistakes in the future

Oh lord, you said a troubled powerplant, and I immediately thought, "oh no, not the Peregrine that doomed my favorite plane, the Whirlwind!". Then you said Vulture, and I thought it would all be fine... and then you said they took two Peregrines and strapped them together...

My grandmother's brother, Sgt Lewis Compton was a tail gunner in one of these that was shot down over Belgium Oct 14 1941. Only the navigator and radio operator survived.

Sounds like the Manchester could always fly reliably all the way to the scene of the crash!

According to one reference book, 49 Squadron's Manchesters were grounded so often that the unit was nicknamed the 49th Foot. I suspect that the nickname would have been more widely applied.

Great work, as always. Here in the US, I have witnessed the frightening spectacle of a piston exiting the engine block, and shortly thereafter leaving the vehicle altogether ( this usually happens during drag racing...). The sound it makes really defies description.... We call that phenomenon " windowing the block", because you can often during the post mortem stick your head inside the engine to have a look around. I can't imagine climbing into an airplane that exhibited a propensity for that sort of thing. Some very brave lads.

Kudos to the brave men who flew into combat in these planes KNOWING the plane might not bring them home.

With all the problems that the engines had it just seems ironic that the engines were named vultures!

5:56 - for the benefit of American viewers that's a "rest room" for having a rest in, not a toilet with reclining chairs.

I'm so happy that I found you. Drachinifel of planes is a perfect addition to my watch cycle.

19:39 well well well, look who's hiding in the background. Good ol' Blackburn Roc

I absolutely love how formal yet silly the testimonies of British airmen are. You can tell they had a bloody good sense of humour!

Your sense of humor and delivery is what makes you one of my favorite channels. The amount of research you must do really shows, and I've learned so much about aviation development during WW 1 and 2. Thank you.

The complaints about the dorsal turret don't seem very British to me, surely there were indeed a few undernourished dwarfs that would leap at the chance to do their part for the war effort. An under-utilized resource, I'd say. Very short-sighted of them.

A fighter pilot’s experience of the Manchester. After serving in 501 Squadron through the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, the fighter ace Ginger Lacey had to serve six months as an instructor in an Operational Training Unit ~ this euphemistically being called a ‘rest’. Beginning in autumn of 1941, he found this to be not particularly enjoyable or inspiring apart from when the soon to be legendary ’Screwball’ Beurling joined the unit but it did give the opportunity to meet up with his old friend, the former Chief Flying Instructor at the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club, Captain Worral, who had been Sir Alan Cobham's navigator in the latter's flight round Africa in the Short 'Singapore' in 1927-8. In his late 50’s when the war broke out, he’d immediately joined Avro's as a test pilot. Lacey went to lunch with him one day and just as he arrived Worral was about to test a Manchester. 'Sorry I can't take you up in this one, Ginger, but I've got a lot of boffins and flight engineers aboard. However, I've got another one to test before lunch, so I'll take you up with me in that.' Half-way down the runway, when it was too late to stop, one engine caught fire. Worral took off, went round the aerodrome in flames, and landed. He strolled back and said, 'Come on, Ginger, we'll go and test the other one now.' Lacey implied that you couldn't have got him into that second one even with an armed escort. He watched Worral take off again. Half-way down the runway, one engine of this Manchester also caught fire. The pilot flew round the circuit, in flames, and landed. Lacey stated, 'This is a gentleman of fifty-nine or sixty; and not even batting an eyelid: we went straight off to lunch as though nothing had happened.' After this, Lacey reflected that his time at the OTU didn’t seem to have been quite so bad after all….

The engine. It's always the bloody engine.

Rex. I really like the compassion, and occasional fondness, with which you speak of planes that were not outstanding successes. You seem to have a soft spot for planes that "did their best"

Another aircraft that also suffered the indignity of having a pair of RR Vultures bolted to it was the Vickers Warwick. In the Warwick’s case though not even changing the engines could save that design but it might make an interesting video comparison piece with the Wellington. Two extremely similar looking aircraft from the same designer with very different places in history.

It wasn't so much the manchester that failed, as it was the Rolls-Royce vulture. The modified manchester as Lancaster is foremost contender for best British heavy bomber of WW2 of course. Presumably if Rolls-Royce had had more opportunity to develop the Vulture, it might have been good, but the four Merlins turned out more than good enough and from a manufacturing perspective it was likely more efficient to produce a single engine design for the sake of economies of scale, and the development refinements with that engine could then benefit more aircraft.

Apparently RAF maintenance crews discovered if they stripped them down enough metal chips were found that sabotage was suspected. When carefully cleaned atleast some of them worked. (from an article in Aeroplane) not sure which issue. The wing ribs of the new wing were Manchester parts spread further apart at least in the prototype, plus the wing without extra engines was intended for a 2 engined Manchester with more power. Sabre or Centaurus if I remember correctly. Now this is just me but if you look carefully you can see the geometry of the tips seems odd. The leading edge doesn't seem to line up with the wing on the lanc. Don't forget the Tornado (12 guns) fighter also used the vulture. It became the typhoon. The Vickers equivalent was the Warwick.

The serviceability statistics from squadron records suggest that the Manchester bomber was becoming reliable enough to continue in service, while the Lancaster replaced it slowly on the production lines. So that was what happened. Eventually most remaining Manchesters were broken for parts and fed into the Civilian Repair Organisation's process, and used to rebuild Lancasters that had been damaged.

while this bomber got its wingspan increased ......the stirling got its wings decreased yet soldiered on without the luxury of redevelopment . an unsung workhorse from start to finish

The other reason to put fuel in the wings is to reduce the load on the wing spar, so it can be thinner and lighter.

Rex, this was excellent! I have heard about the Manchester on another channel, but what you did here is vastly superior. Thank you.

In addition to the torpedo carrying and the “frictionless” take-off capability, the original design specification for the Manchester called for “shallow (up to 30 degrees) dive bombing capability”.

At first, I thought you meant the bathroom was soundproof. 🤣

An excellent video Rex. Two elements of the specification not stated, it was required to have dive-bombing capabilities and provision to carry troops, note the windows down the fuselage. I liked that you included the cat and trap requirements. Consequently it’s weight increases significantly. Also excellent reference to the hydraulics they were a mess, so the Vulture engines were required to do a lot more than the original specification required them to do. At some future date look at the Hawker Tornado with the Vulture 5 engine, it outperformed Typhoon. Needless to say, Avro and Rolls Royce disagree about the issues with the Manchester. Interestingly the Halifax, also worth a video was more successful because they got the specification changed to 4 Merlin engines. Wilfred Freeham asked Rolls Royce to stop production of vulture and concentrate on Merlin. Consequently Avro were told no more Manchester’s build Halifax’s and Hawkers no more Tornado build Typhoon. Needless to say Avro weren’t happy but had the Manchester 3 design ready, which is basically bigger wing and fit 4 Merlins, however Rolls Royce got involved on the condition to sort the hydraulics and build the engine nacelles. The first prototype had outer engines originally designed for the Merlin Beaufighter, another interesting aircraft worthy of a video. The important issue often forgot is the Manchester required significant number and investment in machine tools to manufacture, moving to Halifax this investment and time would have been lost. Moving to Lancaster cause little impact to the Production Strategy of the Country and prioritised down to the best engine and ultimately the best strategic strike aircraft. Wilfred Freeman possibly worth a video was undoubtedly the most intelligent RAF senior officer, also responsible for Mosquito and the Merlin Mustang.

Another superb presentation - thank you, Rex !!!

*Thank You* for the video Rex. Excellent as always! 👍

Very informative. So many lessons learned, as you said! Well done!

The Lancaster bomb bay, low but long, has always puzzled me, compared to the alternative B-17/B-24 full height with stacked bombs. Neither one seems to have any advantage during bombing itself. The long uninterrupted Lancaster bomb bay did accommodate the Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs, but that was pure chance; the bombs were designed after the bomb bay. But there is one crucial flaw in the Lancaster bomb bay: no access to the bombs during flight. It meant the bombs had to be armed before flight, making takeoff problems deadly, and the crew couldn't safe or get rid of hung bombs before returning to base. So why didn't the floor between bomb bay and crew compartment at least have some access holes? That floor must have been mostly sheets of aluminum with beams providing the strength, so why not get rid of the sheets and allow access? The cabin wasn't pressurized. Wind with the bomb bay doors open couldn't have been any worse than a B-17/B-24. Designers weren't stupid, so there must have been some reasons which I don't know. Does anyone else?

Your videos are always enjoyable and informative. Thank you.

Interesting stuff... Firstly, I've never believed that there was much wrong with the Vulture engine; I suspect that it's lubrication and cooling systems, it's installation and close cowling may have been the problem; the Perigrine was excessively close cowelled in the Whirlwind installation. I wonder if the time spent manouvering and assembling bomber formations on the ground and lower airspeeds also contributed. Secondly, I was unaware that the Manchester had been stressed for catapult launch; the resultant strength of the airframe, as well as allowing high bomb loads would also have helped the Lancaster in it's low level capabilities and near fighter levels of manouverability.

Great work Rex

All in all, a great story and well told. Thank you.

Fascinating video. Thanks Rex.

Still can’t wait for the video on the XP-55 Ascender!

Just found your channel from my friend Logan and love how you go in depth on individual planes. I love listening to you at work or playing warthunder while flying said planes lol

Great Video. Good job engines brought about the evolution of the Lanc. Looking forward to Wellington Barnes Wallis will be proud of you.

Totally enjoy your work.

The monster bomb bay inherited by the Lancaster was put to good use - it could carry quite a bit more than a B-17 and could carry the Grand Slam and Tall Boy bombs.

Congratulations on your new website, as well!

Thanks for these, love them.

The U.S., British and Germans all tried to make multibank engines with bad results all caused by too many pistons pushing on too little crankshaft. The only outstanding multibank was the Chrysler engine used in tanks but each bank had it's own crankshaft.

Re crew comfort - on later Manchester's Netflix was supplied, plus a trolley service serving Danish pastries!

I heard ‘restroom ‘ and I thought of a w.c. Which would still be a massive luxury on long missions . I didn’t think of a nap area.

Really enjoyed this.

Far more detail than the usual "The Manchester failed".

Thanks so much for doing this aircraft!!

As if to comment on the Manchester’s troubled history, the video at the 21:44 marks shows an aircraft with the squadron markings and call letter, bracketing the RAF roundel, spelling out “LOL”

Well done video on a bravely conceived, but unsuccessful aircraft. At that point in aviation history, all of the airframers and engine companies were learning (the early B17s were no great shakes and neither was the Douglas B18 Bolo) but, as you said, the Lancaster sprang from the trail of exhaust sparks and broken con-rods left behind by the Manchester.

Thanks for sharing 👍

It is kind of surprising that the British didn't re engine survivors with Hercules or American radials given that they did keep the Manchester in service as a HCU type. I thought when it was withdrawn they were all scrapped or the fuselage mated to Lancaster wings.

At first I was surprised that there was a friendly fire incident, although on reflection they do look a bit like Do-17s.

Another excellent video.

I appreciate your accuracy and humor. Some channels which are quite popular are much less accurate. One creator I used to watch threw completely unrelated video material together that had no relation to the subject. It's a "Dark" subject, nudge, nudge.

Thanks SquareSpace!!!

Thank goodness for the foresight of Roy Chadwick and Avro's, and Rolls Royce and the Merlin engine. A great example of where the strategy of "expect to fail" leads to a world class design.

A little known but important piece of aircraft history. Thankyou.

Thank you. I enjoyed that. I would love to see a deep dive into the Stirling. There is not a lot of in depth information out there.

Good thing the restroom was soundproof so the rest of the crew couldn't hear you shredding it in close proximity. Always nice to have some privacy.

As is frequently the case, success is built on the shoulders of failure.

Might be worthwhile looking into the Hawker Tornado which also used the RR Vulture engine but with far less issues

Wish there was a 1/72 scale Manchester, very interesting looking aircraft and need one in the model stash lol.

Really interesting!

Considering that the RR Vulture messed up the Hawker Tornado while the Napier Sabre powered the Typhoon and Tempest to success (after the Typhoon's fuselage was fixed), I can't help but wonder how a Manchester powered by Napier Sabres would have fared. And considering how common it was for British aircraft manufacturers to build or at least develop multiple versions of the same airframe to use different engines, it strikes me as odd that the Manchester didn't get that treatment.

Very interesting !

Great deep dive...

The main cause of the problems with the Vulture was that the inter-cylinder spacing was not changed from the Peregrine, probably for reasons of economy as it allowed the use of Pergrine components and kept the engines short. This did not release the lengthwise space necessary on the crankshaft to insert another con-rod serving the other two cylinders. Con-rods thus had to serve 4 cylinders in a very tight space leading to bearing overload (even if the diameter was increased) and lack of rigidity. Bolting the two halves of the con-rod big-end with sufficient strength was another issue, RR went as far as crosshatching the mating surfaces and machining the assembled con-rod. The cross-hatching supposedly would take part of the shearing forces over the whole mating area sparing the slender bolts. There's a booklet about this by a chap called Rubra, he was one of the RR men involved. Basically a designed tragedy. I'm surprised they did not think of using the Bristol Centaurus which was reaching maturity about the same time and would prove to be a superb engine. In fact, the way the Centaurus was "conveniently" left on the shelf, as was the Fairey Monarch are stories worth telling in themselves, the mafia of the big engine manufacturers was almost as self-destructive as the palatial intrigues at the top of the RAF.

Yet another excellent and interesting video! Hahah "my cabbages!"... And the airmen who would perform their duties much better without shrapnel in them 😆.

The photograph of the Manchester 1-A, serial no. L7486 at, I make it, 18.34 was a 207 Sqn. aircraft, flown by my father F/o (later, Sqn. Ldr) Geoffrey Hall, on the 12th of September 1941. His logbook states "Formation with Hampden for official photography of type". His crew were A/c Harris and A/c Curry. My father flew the Manchester quite a lot with 61 and 207 Sqn., but only completed two sorties successfully, due to engine failures, plus groundings for modifications. On one occasion, the starboard engine exploded shortly after take-off and on another, he had engine problems when twenty minutes over the North Sea, necessitating an early return from the sortie. He completed his first tour of ops with 61 Sqn. how he started, on Hampdens. He said that there were many problems with the Vulture engines, many of which were eventually rectified, but he said the Lancaster was in all respects a better aircraft. He flew Lancs for his second tour with 61 Sqn and was extremely lucky to return with all crew safe, despite extra ventilation from flak and nightfighters!

Solid Video on the Lancaster

Manchester,i had a book on Lancasters,and i was waiting for someone to talk about it.

I adore the way this thing looks it’s so cute and smol

Worrying about raking fire in a plane is so British I love it

@RexsHangar >>> Your just-released video on the _Avro 533 Manchester_ brought me here...👍

The era memoire “ Gunners Moon” is worth finding as the writer was a gunner on This Airframe and later Lancaster .. he notes many happy tails of service life in the early/ mid war

Amazing video as always but I've loved deeply the Avatar citation :D

I think it was in Michael Veitch's book Flak he described how the tail turret was hydraulically driven and had to rotate fully to one side to get into and out of it. There was no room for a parachute either but if you lost hydraulics you couldn't get out anyway. The very chilling thought is someone had to make a decision on the cost of modification Vs how many people it may save and how many young men were available.

Convergent evolution springs to mind: two heavy bombers, both sporting a double powerplant inside a single nacelle. On one side, the Avro Manchester. On the other, the Heinkel He-177 Greif. Same (or similar) problems on both: unreliable engines leading to thrown cylinders or engine fires. I don't know if the Manchester acquired any (printable) nicknames, but to the Luftwaffe aircrews unfortunate enough to have to fly it, the Greif became knowns as the "Flaming Coffin". A terrrible idea for a powerplant either way.

I would just like to say a huge thank you to the Rolls Royce Vulture and Roy Chadwick without them the Lancaster would probably never have been born, and without the Lancaster my claim to fame probably wouldn’t have happened, my grandfather was an A.V Roe apprentice before the war and was subsequently part of the team who modified the bomb bays for 617 (Dambusters) squadron. When I joined the RAF in 1979 my grandad gave me his original A.V Roe apprenticeship text books, they came in handy on more than one occasion, thanks grandad, RIP Lest We Forget. Per Ardua Ad Astra.

Were there ever any conversations early on in design to use the Manchester as a basis for a four-engined bomber, or was the Lancaster just that fortuitous? If the latter, then perhaps the Vulture unknowingly made a huge contribution to Bomber Command. A shame about the Vulture, such an impressive concept, it must have been exciting to be assigned to that project. I hope it didn't curtail attempts at similar future projects-I know there were some radical approaches like the Sabre, combining Merlin blocks, etc, but I wonder if there would have been more, despite Britain being in the thick of it and having to prioritize Merlin production.

Was there ever a case of aircrew getting so cold that paradoxical undressing occurred?

Those windmills on the Vulture are much larger than they first appear when you then jump straight to another shot of the Lanc with the Merlin props. I always thought the Lanc props were pretty large for a Merlin engine compared to the fighter Merlin engine propellers. The Vulture engine props must have been the ones to be used on the Typhoons with Sabre engines of similar to Vulture power.

Hi, Rex, a while back you mentioned going to more coverage of jet powered aircraft and were considering using a jet engine start up in your intro's, I think the piston engine start up that you've been using all along is much more pleasing to me, please stick with that. Thank you and God Bless.

Interesting that in the 30s they still had to specify a monoplane configuration.

Fuel in the wings also allows trim to be stable as fuel is used. Given the maximum range specified, quite a factor.

The failure of the Vulture engine was truly a hudden blessing as it resulted in The evolution of the Manchester to Lancaster, I did read the name Manchester was dropped as it had too many bad marks against its name and a new name was needed. From memory the Wellington that the Manchester was supposed to replace carried on in service till the end of the war tho that was mainly as a a target or glider tug. If only someone had kept a Wellington, Halifax and Stirling flying with the Lancaster I would also love to see a flying Mosquito. My big miss at air shows is the Lancaster's replacement the Big Vulcan which for a huge plane was very fleet of foot with a deathning howl and roar contrasted nicely with the Lancaster's Merlins rithmacly humming away both have an uncanny grace in tha air.

Anyone else notice the Vulture (like the Griffon, and unlike pretty much all other engines from the time period) turned clockwise when viewed from the front? Unless the photo at 9:45 has been printed in reverse, of course... Which way did the Peregrine turn?

It's incredible how differents was the approach btw RAF and RLM, about the problems that plagued either the Manchester and the HE177. The British changed the engines and added two more ones, plus improved the hull, on the contrary the germans endured in their errors, keeping the two coupled engines configuration, source of overheating problems, plus the fooly of trying to made a 60* dive with an aircraft too big for this kind of action. So the RAF had the Lancaster, and the Luftwaffe a less than stellar bomber, which production was stopped in 1944.

Rolls Royce's Ernest Hives never admitted that the Vulture was a failure, stating that if the Merlin hadn't taken priority over fixing the problems with the engine that it would have become successfully reliable. Which was a load of crap.

"My cabbages!" Love that reference to Avatar, one of the best animated series of all time!

Rex, the vulture wasn’t completely an utter waste of time, one was used as the power source in the development of Whittles jet engine compressor. It had the power to drive, through a pair of Merlin prop reduction gears which were reversed and combined together to give a step up gearbox the compressor assembly at its design speed so aiding its development. It also donated its centrifugal compressor as the second stage of the two speed two stage compressors fitted to the 60 series Merlins.

Plenty of crew anecdotes in this video! Any particular source for those accounts?