 {| |} the avro anson was a british twin-engined, multi-role aircraft that served with the royal air force, fleet air arm, royal canadian air force and numerous other air forces before, during, and after the second world war. developed from the avro 652 airliner, the anson, named after british admiral george anson, was developed for maritime reconnaissance but found to be obsolete in this role. it was then found to be suitable as a multi-engined aircrew trainer, becoming the mainstay of the british commonwealth air training plan. by the end of production in 1952 a total of 8,138 had been built by avro in nine variants with a further 2,882 built by federal aircraft ltd in canada from 1941. ==design and development== the anson was derived from the commercial six-seat 652 model; the militarised version, which first flew on 24 march 1935, was built to air ministry specification 18/35. it was the first raf monoplane with a retractable undercarriage. avro allotted the type number 652a to the anson. the first production run resulted in 174 mk i aircraft for service with coastal command. no. 48 squadron raf was the first to be equipped in march 1936. a distinctive feature of the anson i was its landing gear retraction mechanism which required no fewer than 140 turns of the hand crank by the pilot. to forgo this laborious process, early model aircraft often made short flights with the landing gear extended at the expense of 30&nbsp;mph (50&nbsp;km/h) of cruise speed.gunston, bill. classic world war ii aircraft cutaways. london: osprey, 1995. isbn 1-85532-526-8. a total of 11,020 ansons were built by the end of production in 1952, making it the second-most-numerous (after the vickers wellington), british multi-engined aircraft of the war. ==operational history==  at the start of the second world war, there were 26 raf squadrons operating the anson i: 10 with coastal command and 16 with bomber command. however, by this time, it was obsolete in the roles of bombing and coastal
Avro_aircraft British_military_reconnaissance_aircraft_1930a1939 British_military_trainer_aircraft_1930a1939 Low-wing_aircraft Twin-engined_tractor_aircraft