No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School, MacDonald, Manitoba
Avro Anson MK5
The No 3. Bombing and Gunnery School at Macdonald, Manitoba used Avro Anson MK5 aircraft. The beautiful image was photographed by George Trussell, who has provided over 4000 images to the Air-Britain site. Please click here to go to the site at www.abpic.co.uk The Avro Anson was a British twin-engine aircraft, used during WWII. Named after British Admiral George Anson, the Anson was soon obsolete as a fighter, but was suitable as a multi-engine air crew trainer for navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and air gunners.. The MK V shown here was built in Canada. To overcome steel shortages, the 1,051 Canadian-built Mk V Ansons had plywood fuselages. The Anson's landing gear retraction mechanism required 140 turns of the hand crank by the pilot. To avoid this laborious process, Ansons often flew with the landing gear extended, which reduced the cruise speed by 30 mph (50 km/hr). Source: Wikipedia. Click here to read more.
Affectionately known as the "Annie, the Canadian produced Anson was painted the standard training color-bright yellow. The Annie was a more forgiving plane than its predecessor, the Harvard. According to Ted Barris in "Behind the Glory, Canada's role in the allied air war" many of the 20,000 pilots trained on the Annie claimed it would fly itself. The flexible Annie trained pilots, navigators and wireless operators, and it could be outfitted with bombing racks for bombing practise. Barris calls it "the twin-engine workhorse of the BCATP."