Dates

Event

Constructed as a Lancaster B.X by Victory Aircraft.

Taken on Strength/Charge with the Royal Air Force with s/n KB885.

March 1945

Transferred to No. 434 [Bluenose] Squadron, England.
Operated with markings: WL-Q

April 1945

Transferred to No. 420 [Snowy Owl] Squadron based, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire, England.
Operated with markings: PT-Y

8 September 1945

On 8 September, 1945, KB885 arrived at Pearce, Alberta together with 82 other Canadian built Lancaster veterans.

8 September 1945

Taken on Strength/Charge with the Royal Canadian Air Force with s/n KB885.

1947

Struck off Strength/Charge from the Royal Canadian Air Force.

1947

To Charlie Parker of Red Deer, AB.
Who wanted the plane for an attraction at his Gas Station to draw customers to his service station on Highway #2, about one mile south of Red Deer.

June 1947

Aircraft flown to RCAF Penhold for Parker to collect.

Photographer: Rob Taerum

Photographer: I.L.Moore

1956

To Walter Mielke.
Following Charlie Parker ill heath.

1956

Miekle sold the aircraft to to Troutdale Airmotive Company of Troutdale, Oregon who wanted to use it as a water bomber.

1956

Money was spent making the aircraft airworthy again - the engines were even run, in situ at the Gas Station !!, and the aircraft was ready to make is ferry flight - a makeshift runway was bulldozed in a nearby field.

1957

As the big moment arrived in January, 1957, pilot-mechanic E. Robinson taxied the Lancaster through the snow to her new runway. Just before take-off hydraulic problems developed and while Robinson worked on the hydraulic system a fire ignited in the interior of the nose section. Before it was extinguished the complete nose section burned off and fell to the snow. The once proud bomber was towed back to the service station and later sold for scrap.