Yes, this might be sacrilege, but...

[The Rat]

...what if Avro had gone a different way when upgrading the Manchester?

[Rick Lowe]

Interesting. 

[Beermonster58]

Interesting idea but, purely on an aesthetic level, it just doesn't  look right. Just a personal view of course.  <

[jcf]

Lancaster II with the Hercules engines
with the vertical fin and tailplanes more
Stirling like and it'd cause some double
takes. 

[zenrat]

I'd add some ventral defensive weapons.  Either a "Britishised" ball turret at the rear of the bomb-bay (with the upper moved forward) or a rearward facing chin turret.

[Old Wombat]

Well, the Manchester got the twin tail added to the central tail-plane to rectify stability issues &, eventually, lost the central fin as it wasn't required, only adding weight & drag.

The 683 looks like a step backwards.

Lancasters originally had a ventral turret;



A bit dry & monotonous but quite detailed;

[The Wooksta!]

If you're going single fin, go with the one Avro used on their later Tudor

[jcf]

Well, the Manchester got the twin tail added to the central tail-plane to rectify stability issues &, eventually, lost the central fin as it wasn't required, only adding weight & drag.

The 683 looks like a step backwards.

Lancasters originally had a ventral turret;



A bit dry & monotonous but quite detailed;

The Avro 679 Manchester always had a twin-tail design. The central fin was added because of a lack of directional stability. The fin was deleted on the Manchester IA when the size of the vertical surfaces of the tail were increased. The Manchester IA and Lancaster tails are basically the same.

The ventral turret design was as crappy as the remotely sighted Bendix and Sperry turrets used by the US. The Bendix was retractable and used on the B-25B/C/D/G, and some B-24D, but was often removed in the field because the aircrews hated it. The Sperry was used on very early B-17Es and it was replaced by the ball turret, also built by Sperry. The Sperry ball also replaced the Bendix on the B-24D.

[jcf]

If you're going single fin, go with the one Avro used on their later Tudor

The original one of the prototype and Tudor I or the big ugly plank? I doubt that the plank would needed because the side area of the Lancaster is so much less than the Tudor.

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[The Wooksta!]

The earlier one, the later one would be overkill.  The Ashton one was cut down.

[The Rat]

Yes, I didn't really like the look of the vertical stabiliser, but this was a quick lash-up done in a few minutes to get a rough idea. Looks a bit large and inelegant. And 'big ugly plank' describes that Tudor one perfectly, it totally destroys the lines of an otherwise attractive aircraft. I recoil whenever I see a photo of it. The Republic Rainbow had a similar problem, in my opinion, that tail just doesn't look right.

[PR19_Kit]

But the rest of the Rainbow was outstanding! 

It's fin wasn't anywhere near as ugly as the later Tudors.

[Weaver]

The problem with all those types of ventral turrets was that the gunner had no peripheral vision. Imagine looking down a toilet-roll tube and then trying to track a fast-moving target in three dimensions. Not only is it very difficult, but you soon get dizzy. The other thing is that you get no sense of the bigger battle around you, so you get almost no warning that a target is going to appear.

[jcf]

Yes, I didn't really like the look of the vertical stabiliser, but this was a quick lash-up done in a few minutes to get a rough idea. Looks a bit large and inelegant. And 'big ugly plank' describes that Tudor one perfectly, it totally destroys the lines of an otherwise attractive aircraft. I recoil whenever I see a photo of it. The Republic Rainbow had a similar problem, in my opinion, that tail just doesn't look right.

The Rainbow is a four engine plank-wing F-84.  

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[zenrat]

My back aches just looking at that picture...