Seven thousand three hundred and seventy-seven were built. Britain keeps four complete — one still flying, one that will carry you down a Lincolnshire runway, and two of the most storied bombers in any museum anywhere. Last verified July 2026.
No aircraft in this gazetteer carries more weight per airframe, and not because of the Grand Slam. The Lancaster was Bomber Command's centrepiece: six hundred thousand sorties' worth of freezing, flak-lit nights, crewed by young men whose average age was twenty-two and whose survival statistics remain difficult to read. Seeing one now is not really an aviation outing. It tends to go quiet under that wing.
Here is where to go.
The four Lancasters
| Aircraft | Where | Status |
|---|---|---|
| PA474 | Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, RAF Coningsby | Flying — one of only two airworthy Lancasters in the world |
| NX611 "Just Jane" | Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, East Kirkby | Live — regular taxi runs, with rides bookable aboard |
| R5868 "S for Sugar" | RAF Museum London (Hendon) | Static — 137 operations recorded on the nose, among the highest of any surviving bomber |
| KB889 | IWM Duxford | Static — a Canadian-built Lancaster X |
See one fly: PA474
The BBMF's Lancaster displays at airshows and flypasts across Britain every season, usually flanked by a Spitfire and Hurricane. Only Canada's FM213 shares the sky with her, so any pass overhead is, globally speaking, a coin-flip's worth of all flying Lancasters at once. The flight operates from RAF Coningsby, where the BBMF Visitors Centre runs guided hangar tours when the aircraft are home — winter is the reliable season for finding the Lancaster in residence, summer for finding it over your town. The MOD's April 2026 maintenance contract keeps the flight airworthy until at least December 2035.
Ride in one: NX611 at East Kirkby
The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre is a family-founded memorial on a genuine Bomber Command airfield, and its Lancaster is run, not displayed: on taxi-run days Just Jane starts all four Merlins and moves off down the peritrack with paying passengers aboard. It is the only place on earth you can be inside a Lancaster under its own power without a pilot's licence and a very unusual CV. Rides book out far in advance.
Stand under the veterans: Hendon and Duxford
R5868 "S for Sugar" at the RAF Museum London flew 137 operations — a number to hold against the fact that crews were statistically unlikely to finish thirty. She stands in the Bomber Command hall, free to visit, nose art and bomb tally intact. KB889 at Duxford represents the other Lancaster story: Canadian production, one of the 430 built by Victory Aircraft at Malton, Ontario — the Commonwealth's arsenal made aluminium.
Sections, cockpits and the memorial
- Avro Heritage Museum (Woodford) and the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection hold
Lancaster sections — the Woodford site built Lancasters by the thousand.
- The International Bomber Command Centre (Lincoln) holds no Lancaster but is the
necessary companion visit: the memorial spire, the losses database, and the walls of names that explain what the aircraft on this page were for.
Frequently asked
How many Lancasters are left?
Seventeen largely complete airframes survive worldwide; only two fly — Britain's PA474 and Canada's FM213. Britain's four complete examples are listed above.
Can you fly in a Lancaster in the UK?
Not as a passenger — PA474 is an RAF aircraft and carries no public seats. The East Kirkby taxi ride is the available approximation, and by universal report it is not a consolation prize: four Merlins at ground level are their own argument.
Why is the Lancaster so celebrated when the Halifax flew the same nights?
Ask a Halifax crew and you'd have heard a robust answer. The Lancaster carried more, further, and became the type chosen for the Dambusters raid and the heaviest bombs of the war — but the gazetteer notes that the Yorkshire Air Museum's Halifax Friday the 13th is one of only three in existence, and commends it to the same pilgrimage list.
Flying schedules, taxi-run dates and hangar-tour availability all shift with maintenance and season. Verify with each organisation before travelling.