“Some aircraft are preserved because they made history. The Lancaster at Nanton is preserved because, when its four Merlins awaken, history itself seems to breathe again.” – MJ Martin
A Canadian-Built Lancaster
In Nanton, Alberta, the Bomber Command Museum of Canada has accomplished something far more ambitious than simply preserving an old aircraft. Its Avro Lancaster Mk. X, FM159, has been progressively returned to operating condition so that Canadians can experience a Lancaster as a machine rather than merely as a museum exhibit.
FM159 is particularly significant because it is Canadian built. It was one of 430 Lancaster Mk. X aircraft manufactured by Victory Aircraft at Malton, Ontario. FM159 left the assembly line in May 1945, reached Britain too late to enter combat, and was subsequently returned to Canada.
That late arrival may have saved it. Instead of being lost during the extraordinarily dangerous bomber offensive over Europe, FM159 eventually entered postwar RCAF service.
From Bomber to Cold War Patrol Aircraft
The Lancaster enjoyed a surprisingly long second career in Canada. FM159 was reactivated during the early Cold War and modified for maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine operations. It served with No. 103 Search and Rescue Unit at Greenwood, Nova Scotia, and subsequently with 407 Squadron at Comox, British Columbia. Its missions included maritime surveillance, search and rescue, Arctic reconnaissance, and NATO exercises.
After retirement, FM159 narrowly escaped destruction again. It eventually arrived in Nanton in 1960 and spent decades displayed outdoors beside Highway 2. Weather, vandalism, and the removal of equipment gradually reduced what had once been a complete aircraft to something requiring an extraordinary restoration effort.
One Piece at a Time
The Nanton Lancaster Society was formed in 1986, and volunteers began rebuilding the aircraft. Instruments had to be located, cockpit equipment recreated, turrets restored, glazing replaced, hydraulic and pneumatic systems rehabilitated, and countless mechanical components sourced or manufactured.
The most ambitious objective was to make its four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines operate again.
The first restored Merlin ran in 2005. On August 17, 2013, all four engines operated together for the first time since the aircraft’s RCAF retirement. In 2014, FM159 moved under its own power for the first time since 1959.
That achievement fundamentally changes the museum experience. A stationary Lancaster communicates its enormous size. A Lancaster with four Merlins running communicates something entirely different. The vibration, propeller wash, noise, heat, and mechanical complexity transform history from something intellectual into something physical.
Restoration Rather Than Reproduction
Importantly, Nanton’s objective has not simply been to make the Lancaster appear authentic. Wherever practical, original components have been restored and aircraft systems returned to operation. The hydraulic system operates the bomb doors and flaps, the braking and pneumatic systems have been rehabilitated, the gun positions have received extensive restoration, and much of the crew equipment has been reconstructed.
The aircraft can now taxi, but it is still not airworthy. Returning a Lancaster to certified flying condition would require an entirely different engineering, regulatory, structural, and financial undertaking. Nanton’s approach preserves something arguably just as valuable: an extraordinarily authentic operating aircraft that can remain accessible to the public.
More Than an Airplane
FM159 is now the centrepiece of the Bomber Command Museum of Canada and a memorial to the Canadians who served with Bomber Command. The museum continues to accept donations specifically for Lancaster restoration, reinforcing that preservation of such an aircraft is never really finished.
Perhaps that is the deeper significance of the Nanton project. Canada did not merely fly Lancasters. Canadians designed components for them, manufactured them, maintained them, fought in them, and died in them. Preserving FM159 allows another generation to encounter that history through the actual machinery.
The question worth considering is whether Canada’s most important historic aircraft should simply be conserved as artifacts, or whether projects such as Nanton demonstrate that operating historic machinery creates a much stronger connection between engineering, memory, and national history.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.