These walk-around photos were taken at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in 2018, with two additional interior shots from 2022. They show an Avro Lancaster B Mk X, serial KB889, one of the most iconic heavy bombers of the Second World War. Designed by Roy Chadwick as a development of the troubled Avro Manchester, the Lancaster became the backbone of RAF Bomber Command from 1942 onwards, capable of carrying the heaviest bomb loads of any aircraft in the European theatre — including the famous Upkeep bouncing bomb used in the 1943 Dambuster raid on the Ruhr valley dams.
KB889 was built in Canada by Victory Aircraft Ltd in Malton, Ontario, and delivered to Britain in March 1945, assigned to No. 428 Squadron RCAF — the Ghost Squadron. It arrived too late to see combat, and a dramatic training flight incident in which the aircraft was flipped onto its back inside a violent storm cloud meant it spent the rest of the war being stress tested rather than flying operations. It later served with the RCAF in a maritime reconnaissance role before being retired in 1965, eventually making its way to Duxford where it was restored over eight years to its wartime configuration. It has been on public display since 1994, wearing the markings of No. 428 Squadron.