Pilot Officer Christopher Panton served as a Flight Engineer with Royal Canadian Air Force 433 Squadron, based at RAF Skipton-on-Swale.

On the night of 30/31 March 1944, he was flying in Handley Page Halifax HX272, one of 782 heavy bombers taking part in a raid on the German city of Nuremberg.

This attack, known as RAF Bomber Command's "Black Friday", would become notorious for the high losses incurred – 108 British aircraft were lost, 665 aircrew were killed and 159 taken prisoner.

They became interested in acquiring a Second World War aircraft as a tribute to him and managed to obtain an option to purchase Avro Lancaster Mk VII, NX611, then serving as a gate guardian at RAF Scampton.

In 1981, they bought a part of the former Royal Air Force airfield, RAF East Kirkby, to be a site for the aircraft when it became available.

The centre's main exhibit is Avro Lancaster Mk VII, NX611, named Just Jane after a popular wartime comic character.

The Lancaster was built by Austin Aero Ltd at their Cofton Hackett Works just south of Birmingham in April 1945.

[3] The Lancaster was operated by French forces over the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and later the Pacific after being redeployed to New Caledonia (its service in the far East included bombing raids during the First Indochina War).

[8] Restoration of Just Jane to flying status is an ongoing project, which is to soon be completed with the centre acquiring the last of four airworthy Merlin engines at the end of 2012.

[9] The centre also houses the cockpit of an English Electric Canberra WH957, and the wreckage of Supermarine Spitfire Vb BL655; it crashed in July 1943, killing its Canadian pilot, Flying Officer Norman Alexander Watt.