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Lady Orchid

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The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum has debuted a new summer paint job on the Lancaster known as Vera. The new paint job features a woman who’s completely naked except for two maple leaves covering her chest. She’s straddling a missile and holding two pistols. It’s being sold on shirts and hats, some don’t mind it at all but others disagree.

The Heritage Museum has its reasons for choosing the design, “without Lady Orchid, Hamilton wouldn’t have a Lancaster.”

After a crash in 1952 the Lancaster FM213 sustained a good deal of damage. To repair it they used parts from the Lady Orchid which was flown by flying officer Ron Jenkins and his crew in the second World War.

Jenkins and his team painted the design themselves. According to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum many pilots painted similar designs at the time, like this one. They also explained that when Lady Orchid first flew out to war there were no maple leaves, she was completely naked. It wasn’t until the pilot was on his way home that he put them on, because he didn’t want his mother to see.

Lady Orchid successfully flew 15 missions which is represented by the 15 white bomb markers, along with one red one for an aborted mission.