La Maisonart   John Wiseman

"The 'Ell Cat; Lancaster", Giclée Édition 300 s/n (cat # 137), $379.

This Lancaster III was built in Great Britain and delivered to Royal Canadian Air Force No. 424 ‘Tiger’ Squadron. It was serialed NG484 with code letters QB-L.  

It was a Calgarian air mechanic named Mathew Ferguson who was responsible for the flamboyant nose art on this Lancaster. Ferguson is possibly the best known Canadian nose artist and his designs were found on various fighter and bomber types. His designs often incorporated a maple leaf that became his trade mark. ‘The ‘ELL CAT’ was considered to be one of his best designs.
This particular aircraft survived the war and was later scrapped in England on the January 20, 1947. Like so many of the aircraft that took part in the great air battles of WWII, it's mission record and crews who flew her seem to be lost to time. In researching this particular Lancaster, I could find no definitive record of it having carried the H2S radar which would have meant including the somewhat bulbous ventral dome aft of the bomb bay. As this was a late model version, in all likelihood, it was equipped with H2S, as were most Bomber Command aircraft in the later stages of WW II. But I decided to take a little artist's license, leaving out this one item since I wanted to depict the clean lines of this well storied aircraft.