Handley Page Hastings T.5

The Handley Page Hastings replaced the Avro York as the Royal Air Force’s standard long-range transport from 1948. Two squadrons of the new aircraft served alongside the Avro York throughout the Berlin Airlift, flying vital supplies into the city during the Soviet blockade.

The Hastings first flew in May 1946 entering service with No.47 Squadron, Transport Command in September 1948. The type was intensively used during the Berlin Airlift, and this aircraft flew with 47 Squadron. After the Airlift, 145 aircraft were delivered and flew on Transport Command’s long-range routes, based in the Far East and Middle East, until the arrival of the Bristol Britannia in 1959. From 1959, 1959 aircraft were converted for weather reconnaissance and flew in this role until the mid-1960s. Of these, eight became Hastings T5s, providing radar training for bomb-aimers at the Bomber Command Bombing School from 1959 - including this aircraft. By 1967 the Hastings had been replaced as a first-line aircraft by the Hercules and Argosy transports.