In Canada, we have water bombers.
I did when I was a little kid – it was big to me then, but then everything was big to me then. In later years, it was off my radar. Apparently it is being restored: http://avrolancasterfm104.com/
I would like to have toured the Lanc. But not with my camera case. I’ll travel lighter next year. I did walk through a B-17 at the Chino airshow a few years ago. (Spiny Norman was there too.) I wasn’t surprised by the size, since I’d seen them in movies (with actors to give scale) and newsreels all my life; and I had bomber models along with my F-4 ones, and had seen plenty of F-4s in person. I knew they weren’t huge. Quite a lot bigger than anything I’ve flown, though! If I have the funds next year, and if Pork Rind reminds me, I’ll get a hop in a B-17 in Everett.
Speaking of size, here’s a tidbit: the horizontal stabs on an F-14 Tomcat are about the same size as the wings of an A-4 Skyhawk.
You don’t walk through a Lancaster. You crawl, you scuttle, you ding your knees and elbows, and you curse, but you do not walk through a Lancaster. Trust me on this. 
I’m glad to hear that. The last time I took a close-up view of it (i.e. walked under it) would have been sometime in the late-1980s. At that time, it was showing the problems of age, of corrosion, and of vandals. I’m glad to hear that it is now being cared for, and restored.
The site says it’s being restored for permanent indoor display. Too bad they’re not going to fly it.
I’ve just remembered: An F-15 pilot at the airshow announced his call sign is ‘Hot Carl’. I laughed.
At least it’s being restored. The last time I saw it–admittedly, over twenty years ago–a vandal had managed to pry open one of the bomb bay doors. They, and thus the aircraft, were open to anybody with a ladder or a buddy to give a boost. Perhaps because of this, it was in sad shape. It would be nice to see it fly again; but if not, then at least it will be a restored and cared-for museum piece.
I used to live in Hamilton - thiswas a regular sight from our balcony on the weekends, VMC permitting. We got pretty good at recognizing the sound of it and it was sometimes interesting to imagine what it would be like to have the sky filled with them during the war.
I’ve visited the Warplane Heritage Museum a half dozen times, and it’s hard not to fall in love with this plane. It just dominates the hangar, and the gentlemen who take care of it or give tours have so much awe and respect for the Lanc. I think one tour guide at the museum was a gunner, and though I don’t remember his story very well I do remember him mentioning something about being 19 and something about having to place or pull the wheel chocks. Another guide there was a navigator on the B-25 Mitchell.
I love that museum. When my husband proposed to me, he booked a flighton a Boeing Stearmanfor me (which had to be cancelled due to weather and I took many months later). One of the most awesome moments in my life!
Our own David Simmons was a B-26 pilot in the war.
It’s hard not to have respect for it; or indeed, for any Lancaster. When I was a child, a neighbour was a war veteran whom I knew flew Lancs; when he died when I was in my 20s, I was surprised to see a row of medals such as I had only seen at museums on his flag-covered casket. Among them there was the RAF/RCAF DFC and Bar, for flying Lancs in North Africa and Europe during WWII. To me as a child, he was a kindly old gent who had been in the war and who liked gardening. I had no idea he had seen that kind of action. And always, as his widow (an English war bride) assured me at the funeral, in the pilot’s seat of a Lancaster.
Gosh, if I had only appreciated our neighbour and listened to the stories he had to tell!