On 22nd March 2022, I was very fortunate to use the special event callsign of VK80LAN, celebrating 80 years of the Avro Lancaster aircraft.

The Lancaster was manufactured by British aircraft manufacturer Avro. It is a four-engined heavy bomber adopted by UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War.

Lancaster aircraft first saw war service 80 years ago in 1942 for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and squadrons from other Commonwealth nations, such as Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and European countries serving with the RAF.

The special event callsign was organised by the West Australian VHF Group.

Today, 17 Lancasters survive around the world, but only two are in flying condition. We are lucky enough to have only two in Australia. One in the National War Memorial in Canberra, and one in the RAAF Museum in Perth.

“G for George” is the Lancaster in Canberra which I have had the privilege to see.

I made a total of 431 QSOs during the day and this included 43 different DXCC entities. The map below shows my contacts around the world.

I operated on 10, 15, 20, 40, & 80m SSB. The vast majority of my contacts were on the 20m band.

The long path in the afternoon to Europe and UK was brilliant. The short path in the evening to Europe/UK was not so good.

But short path across the Pacific to North America that night was very good.

Countries worked:-

• Asiatic Russia
• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Brunei Darussalam
• Canada
• China
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• England
• Estonia
• European Russia
• Federal Republic of Germany
• Finland
• France
• Greece
• Hungary
• Iceland
• India
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Isle of Man
• Italy
• Japan
• Latvia
• Netherlands
• New Caledonia
• New Zealand
• Northern Ireland
• Norway
• Panama
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Scotland
• Serbia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United States
• Wales

I was lucky enough to work the Canadian Lancaster special call of VE80LAN on 20m. But did not hear the GB80LAN callsign.

Below is a short video of me operating on 20m.

Below are some videos of this amazing aircraft.

THANK YOU to everyone who called and thanks to the WA VHF Group for the opportunity of using the call.