Avro C19 Anson

The Avro Anson was used as a multi-engined aircrew trainer, becoming the mainstay of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Often referred to as simply “The Plan”, the BCATP was a massive joint military aircrew training programme developed by the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand during the Second World War.

The BCATP remains as one of the single largest aviation training programmes in history and was half the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators and flight engineers who served with the RAF, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) during the war.

The BCATP also trained well over 100,000 aircrew from allied nations during the Second World War, including students from Argentina, Belgium, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Fiji, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the United States.

About this aircraft

The Anson first flew in March 1935 and by the end of production in 1952 a total of 8,138 had been built by Avro in nine variants with a further 2,882 built by Federal Aircraft Ltd in Canada from 1941.

There are a number of surviving aircraft in Museums around the world, including Australia, Canada and the UK. This aircraft is the only airworthy Avro XIX. The aircraft was transferred to the ownership of the Shuttleworth Collection from BAE Systems on 17 March 2022.

Specification