Avro York

The Avro York is now an almost forgotten transport aircraft. Based largely on the iconic Avro Lancaster, it was capable of loads of up to 10 tons in its freight version with a crew of four or up to 56 passengers and a crew of five; captain, second pilot or flight engineer, navigator, radio operator and on the passenger service a cabin steward.


The York used the same Lancaster wings, Merlin XXIV engines, undercarriage and tailplane, however due to the large flat sides of the fuselage, lateral stability was compromised and the centre fin was fitted to offset the effect.
There are now no airworthy examples of the York but there are two on static display, one at the RAF Museum Cosford Collection and the other is at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. The Duxford example is presented in its civilian livery as G-ANTK of the Dan-Air company. Its RAF tail number was MW232 which was operated by 242 Squadron, Douglas Bader’s squadron during the Battle of Britain before 242 was merged with 511 Squadron at RAF Lyneham in May 1950.
While this aircraft was operated by 242 Squadron it was based at RAF Oakington, Cambridgeshire, where my father was stationed as a flight engineer and while he never flew in this particular aircraft, his flying logbook does show that on 27/3/46 he flew MW231 and on the 5/7/46 he was flying in MW 233, both times on the route out to the far east via RAF Castel Benito (Tripoli) and various stop-overs across North Africa, Iraq, Pakistan, India and Changi (Singapore).
During the time of the Berlin Airlift between June 1948 and April 1949 Avro Yorks, both military and civilian flew over 58,000 sorties carrying up to 10 tons of freight per flight.

Yorks were frequent visitors to Blackbushe until its attempted closure by the government in May 1960, however my main recollection is of Dan Air Yorks droning over Chesham on inclusive tour flights out of Luton in the early '60s. The only one I saw close up was the one at at Lasham in the mid '60s which had be flown there with the intention of being used as a base for the Scouts but by the time I saw it, (27 Oct 1966) it had been towed across to the Dan Air maintenance area where it was parked next to an Ambassador.

Two very partial views of the Duxford York.