Norm Etheridge has a flight to catch at Hamilton International Airport.

It won't be the 404 to Moncton or the 533 to Winnipeg. Actually, on Tuesday morning his plane won't be going anywhere at all. It will land in the same place it takes off.

Etheridge, 86, will be riding on the rumbling, shaking, rattling and rolling Mynarski Memorial Lancaster, just like he did on its inaugural flight 25 years before.

"The Lancaster was never built for comfort," says the man who oversaw the decade-long project to restore Hamilton's most famous plane.

The big black bomber, one of the city's most well-known icons, has reached the age of 25 years in its refurbished life.

The plane kept at the Hamilton Warplane Heritage is one of only two flying Lancs in the world. The other is in England.

As Etheridge says, they were not built to last. They were built to drop bombs on Germany-held Europe.

"They asked me to rebuild the Lancaster but they didn't tell me it was all in little bits."

But he was not deterred. He travelled the country and went to England to find parts. To build four functioning engines, they needed to rob parts from 22. The undercarriage had to be replaced. He found one in England, and had it flown back to Hamilton on a Hercules plane.

Hundreds of volunteers took part in the restoration over the years. If they had been paid, the costs would have been in the millions of dollars, said Etheridge.

He has been out West three times in the plane and once to the Maritimes and on each trip he marvelled at the thousands of people who would come out to see the plane.

He remembers in particular an older woman thanking him for restoring the plane because she had lost a close relative in a Lancaster and it helped her overcome grief by seeing one of the planes up close.

He hopes, for as long as possible, the plane will make flights to remind people of the airmen in Bomber Command - especially the ones who never came back.

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In Tuesday's Spectator: Mark McNeil takes flight in the Lancaster

The Mynarski Memorial Lancaster

TIMELINE

July 1945: Built at Victory Aircraft, Malton, Ont., as the Second World War was ending and never saw overseas service.

1945 to 1963: Used as a maritime patrol aircraft with No. 405 Squadron, Greenwood, N.S. and No. 107 Rescue Unit, Torbay, N.L. and retired in late 1963.

1970s: On outside display at the Royal Canadian Legion in Goderich.

1977: Hamilton Warplane Heritage purchases the Lanc and brings it to Hamilton.

1977 to 1988: Restoration takes place under supervision of engineer Norm Etheridge.

Sept. 24, 1988: Official inaugural flight.

Dedication: The plane is dedicated to the memory of P/O Andrew Mynarski, who won the Victoria Cross on June 13, 1944 for his heroics after his Lancaster was shot down. As the bomber descended, he attempted to free a tail gunner trapped in the rear turret of the flaming aircraft. The tail gunner survived but Mynarski died from severe burns.

COMMEMORATIVE EVENT

Where: Canadian Warplane Heritage, 9280 Airport Rd. in Mount Hope, 905-679-4183

When: 11 a.m. Tuesday

Details: Tribute to be given by museum co-founder Dennis Bradley and Lancaster restoration engineer Norm Etheridge - followed by a memorial flight.

Admission to the museum is free for the day.

