Ancaster News
Ancaster hosts a special evening with Craig Brookhouse
A fantastic community response was present when the Ancaster Rotary Club held a special evening with Craig Brookhouse the Chief Flight Engineer for the Canadian Warplane Heritage Lancaster Bomber. Craig outlined the experience of spending eight weeks in England this summer when the Hamilton Ontario based bomber crossed the Atlantic to join the only other flight capable Lancaster which is owned by the RAF in England.
The eight weeks saw over 50 individual flying events where the two planes were on exhibit to the public. A sellout crowd at the Ancaster Rotary evening heard the personal experiences of Craig and of the balance of the crew (all CWH volunteers) who made this historic event. He told of the difficulties of traveling over to England through Newfoundland and Iceland and the unbelievable welcome received everywhere they went while in England. He told how they did an emergency engine replacement over a three day period, something that usually takes several weeks to accomplish, in order to keep their airshow schedule going.
The Lancaster bomber was the heaviest payload aircraft used during the second world war and over 7000 were built, but today there are only two still flying. The CWH Lancaster was restored by volunteers in Hamilton and spends its summers as one of the highlights of the CWH fleet.