An Engineer Built a Lancaster Bomber Cockpit Replica From Scratch, in His Garage

This week, a very unique and incredible piece of WWII memorabilia was scheduled to cross the auction block with Flints Auctions from Newbury, Berkshire, during an online event. The highest estimate for it was £150,000 ($181,442 at the current exchange rate), which is a lot of money, but not if you consider what you got for it: a full-size, fully-functional cockpit replica of a WWII-era Lancaster Bomber, built from scratch.

There are hobbies, and then there is Norman Groom’s work on the cockpit replica. According to the auction house, the idea came to this lovely gentleman, an electronics engineer by profession, during a WWII air fair in the ‘90s, where he met an old friend who was working on restoring a Lancaster Bomber. If the other guy could do it when he wasn’t even an engineer, Groom thought, wouldn’t he be able to do something all the more impressive, given his background?

He sure could, as he would find out. The Lancaster Bomber cockpit replica he built is not only exactly like the one that would have been found inside the WWII warplane, but it is fully functional. The fact that Mr. Groom built the whole thing from scratch makes his endeavor all the more impressive.

Work on the 15-foot (4.57-meter) long section started in the early 1990s and continued for six full years. Mr. Groom estimates he spent thousands of work hours on the project, either sourcing original equipment or building new one according to the exact specifications of the original. He also had out-of-hours access to the Imperial War Museum in London, where he could take photos and get a closer look at the Lancaster Bomber on display. He would then use the data gathered there to make his own calculations for the replica.

The project soon reached such a magnitude that even the pensioner, now 85, wondered how he ever found the time and the money for it. He built the cockpit section in three large sections, but he first needed to expand his garage so they’d fit. He also had to learn new skills, like aluminum casting, to put the whole thing together once done.

Speaking to the auction house ahead of this week’s event, Mr. Groom said that he was “adamant this should be a showcase of WWII electronic equipment,” so everything had to look right and be functional. This included a radio and transmitter, an H2S MkII Radar/Fishpod, the Gee MK2 navigation aid, and a Merlin engine sound simulator.

Once the three sections were complete, Mr. Groom and a friend took them to the Pitstone Green Museum, in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, where they were assembled and put on display. The cockpit replica would remain there for several years, until Mr. Groom decided to sell it.

The Lancaster Bomber, or the Avro Lancaster, was a heavy bomber introduced in 1941 and already deployed in action the following year. Based on the Avro Manchester, it was powered by four Packard Merlin 224 engines and had a range of 2,350 miles (3,782 km).

Production was capped at 7,377 units, of which only two remain that are still capable of flight. According to Flints Auctions, Mr. Groom’s cockpit replica is the closest thing to experiencing a flight inside the iconic bomber, due to the engine sound simulator and the fact that everything is functional. Mr. Groom hoped that a museum would buy it and put it on display, to show “the incredible progress made in WWII electronics.”

No word yet on whether the Lancaster cockpit replica sold during the event, or if it did, whether it reached the highest estimate. We’ve reached out to Flints Auctions for clarification, and will be updating the story if we hear back. Regardless of the auction result, this extended, incredibly detailed project is one that deserves its time in the spotlight – as does Mr. Groom. The Mirror has more photos.