Date:	Thursday 15 August 1957
Time:	day
Type:	Avro Lincoln B.2
Owner/operator:	Armament Flt RAE
Registration:	WD145
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 5
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Farnborough Airfield, Farnborough, Hampshire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	Farnborough Airfield, Hampshire (EGLF)
Destination airport:	Farnborough Airfield, Hampshire (EGLF)
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Avro Lincoln B.Mk.2 WD145: Delivered 9/2/1951. Sole operational service was with the RAE at Farnborough

Written off (damaged beyond repair) 15/8/1957: Undercarriage raised in error for flaps after landing at Farnborough. Not repaired, deemed "Damaged Beyond Economic Repair" and formally struck off charge as Cat.5(scrap) 8/1/1958.

Avro Shackleton MR.2 WR557 was allocated to the RAE and after preparation was ferried to Farnborough 20/12/57 to replace Lincoln WD145 on the Armament Flight for development work on fuzing systems for nuclear weapons. According to Victor Wilkinson, who was a pilot who flew WD145 frequently (see link #6 for the full story):

"I flew 131 sorties on RF464; 49 on RF329 and 99 on WD 145. WD145 had replaced RF329 in 1956 but only based at R.A.E (Farnborough). WD145 was written off in a taxiing accident at Farnborough in late 1957.The details on all those sorties which were in my log book, together with the rest of my luggage, was lost in 1987 when I returned from Kirkland A.F.B. where I had been on flying on an Nkc 135 as part of the star wars programme. My luggage was never found.

The replacement for WD145 came to Farnborough on December 20th 1957:-Shackleton Mk2 WG557. The Shack was designed as a sub hunter not as a Lincoln replacement. The Shackleton ceiling was 20,000ft. It really struggled to get to 24,000 taking an hour i.e. 40 minutes longer than the Lincolns, and all in S gear. The Griffon engines exhaust stubs had frequently to be replaced. It was extremely cold not having suitable heating. Luckily only another 36 sorties were needed to complete the programme early in 1958."

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.192 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p 22)
3. Category Five; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009 by Colin Cummings p.259
4. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WD
5. https://www.thegrowler.org.uk/avroshackleton/mark-two.htm
6. http://www.mhas.org.uk/2019%20-%20February%20(6%20page).pdf

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
02-Jun-2008 01:35	JINX	Added
10-Mar-2013 21:29	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Other fatalities, Source, Narrative]
09-Aug-2020 21:01	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative]
28-Dec-2020 15:49	TB	Updated [Operator, Operator]