page_title: RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II
section_title: Take off
hierarchical_section_title: RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II / Typical operational sortie / Take off
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. An Avro Lancaster B Mark III of No. 619 Squadron RAF, caught in floodlights while running up its engines at night at Coningsby, Lincolnshire.
context_page_description: The aircrews of RAF Bomber Command during World War II operated a fleet of bomber aircraft carried strategic bombing operations from September 1939 to May 1945, on behalf of the Allied powers. The crews were men from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries, and occupied Europe, especially Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and Norway, as well as other foreign volunteers. While the majority of Bomber Command personnel were members of the RAF, many belonged to other air forces – especially the Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force. Under Article XV of the 1939 Air Training Agreement, squadrons belonging officially to the RCAF, RAAF, and RNZAF were formed, equipped and financed by the RAF, for service in Europe. While it was intended that RCAF, RAAF, and RNZAF personnel would serve only with their respective "Article XV squadrons", in practice many were posted to units of the RAF or other air forces. Likewise many RAF personnel served in Article XV squadrons.
  A total of 126 squadrons served with Bomber Command.
context_section_description: Signalled in the darkness by an arrangement similar to traffic lights, the crew awaited their turn to take off, wireless traffic was kept to an absolute minimum to avoid alerting the German wireless listening services. If it was to be a distant target the aircraft fuel tanks might be topped-up by a fuel bowser immediately before taking off. Each crew would taxi out to the runway in its pre-assigned order with the pilot checking over the intercom with each of his crew in turn that they were well and everything was working before they were signalled to take off, and with the flight engineer standing beside the pilot to help manage the throttles they would go to full power and hope to pick up sufficient speed to get about 25 tons of bomber into the air before the end of the runway.  A tyre blow out, a wheel running off the runway into soft grass or an engine failure at this point would mean disaster as the 2,000 gallons (up 8 tons) of aviation fuel, approximately 5 tons of bombs (high explosive and incendiary) and multiple thousands of rounds of ammunition crashed at over 130 miles per hour. A crash at this stage usually killed all aboard. Bombers usually took off with about 60 second intervals between them. The pilot would slowly climb to the designated height and head for the group's assembly point near the coast. Once airborne every airman had to hope that his oxygen mask and supply functioned properly when it was switched on at 5,000 feet and did not suffer from icing in the frigid temperatures at high altitude; their electrically heated flying suits, boots and gloves were completely necessary to avoid frostbite throughout the year.
caption: Lancaster taxiing out to take off.
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