Lancaster lands in Iceland

(Update)

Hamilton’s Lancaster Bomber, is safely on the ground in Keflavik, Iceland this evening after more than seven hours in the air today.

The vintage aircraft belonging to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum left Goose Bay, Newfoundland shortly after 10:30 this morning on the second leg of it’s historic tour to England.

It’s been a long haul for the eight people on board the Mynarski Lancaster — including it’s single paying passenger — British entrepreneur, Matthew Munson.

The crew was expected to arrive at approximately 4:15 pm our time this afternoon — about 8:15pm local time in Iceland. Instead, they were about an hour behind schedule, landing roughly 45 minutes ago.

“Depending on crew fatigue and weather, we might hop over to Reykjavik Thursday for a short visit. Can’t wait for Coningsby on Friday!!!” said one of their Twitter messages from the crew. There’s no indication if that excursion is still a consideration.

Another Twitter message said: “great flying boys.”

Munson sent a Twitter message on his Twitter feed saying: “terrific flight from Canada.”

Seven and a half hours is a long time in the air for a bomber crew. These planes weren’t built for that kind of run. The avionics in them aren’t quite the same as today’s modern airplanes. It’s an exhausting flight and they may very well take Thursday off for some rest before making the final leg into Britain on Friday.

(Matthew Munson, the British man who won an eBay auction to be part of the crew has been keeping everyone up to date on his Twitter feed. He’s posted several photos during his trip so far. )

Image: Matthew Munson via Twitter