UK’s last flying Lancaster bomber touches down for maintenance work

The UK’s last flying Lancaster bomber has touched down at an aviation museum where she is set to undergo months of maintenance work.

The aircraft, based at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, arrived at IWM Duxford in Cambridgeshire on Wednesday.

She is due to undergo routine maintenance at family-run engineering firm the Aircraft Restoration Company, which operates from hangars at Duxford and specialises in the restoration, maintenance and operation of vintage aircraft.

It means the Lancaster will not feature in air displays in 2026 while the work is carried out.

Squadron Leader Paul “Ernie” Wise told the BBC in a previous interview that the work was about preserving “our nation’s heritage”.

“We do want to keep them flying indefinitely,” he said.

“In order to do so, they have to be taken offline from time to time to go through an in-depth maintenance procedure for a major servicing.

“It tends to be every eight years or so and it will be stripped down, so there’s nothing new but fingers crossed at a speedy return.”

He said that during next year’s display season, Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes would fly alongside the unit’s C47 Dakota transport aircraft instead of the Lancaster.