---
title: This is what YOU are making... A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship (Avro Lancaster I)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-avro-lancaster-i-mighty-machine-british-workmanship-1939/
description: A cutaway technical drawing of the Avro Lancaster I bomber, with a specification box (300 mph, 3,000 miles, ten .303 Brownings).
section: Collection
---

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3. This is what YOU are making... A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship

[![This is what YOU are making... A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship, 1939 UK poster: A cutaway technical drawing](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-avro-lancaster-i-mighty-machine-british-workmanship-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-avro-lancaster-i-mighty-machine-british-workmanship-1939.jpg)

# This is what YOU are making... A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship (Avro Lancaster I)

A cutaway technical drawing of the Avro Lancaster I bomber, with a specification box (300 mph, 3,000 miles, ten .303 Brownings), sits beside an empty framed panel headed 'This is what YOU are making'. The headline 'A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship' attaches a virtue phrase to the aircraft (glittering generalities), and the 'YOU' casts each factory worker as the maker of the bomber (identity fusion).

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
THE AVRO LANCASTER I (Four 1,280 h.p. Rolls-Royce Merlin XX Motors)

This is what YOU
are making . . .

Maximum Speed . . . 300 m.p.h.
Range . . . 3000 miles.
FOUR GUN TURRETS
10 BROWNING .303S

Drawing by J. H. CLARK
Copyright "THE AEROPLANE"

Span 102 ft. 0 in.; Length 69 ft. 4 in.; Height 20 ft. 0 in.; Wing Area (gross) 1,297 sq. ft.; Fuel Capacity 2,154 Imp. gals.; Max. Bomb Load 18,000 lb.; Normal Loaded Weight 60,000 lb.

MINISTRY OF AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION
MALBY & SONS

A MIGHTY MACHINE of BRITISH WORKMANSHIP

[Plus lettered and numbered keys to the drawing's parts and the drawing's callouts; not transcribed in full.]
```

[← Attack with Me Says Potato Pete](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-attack-with-me-potato-pete-1939/) [Over 1,250,000 Tons of Axis Shipping Sunk in the Central Mediterranean →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-axis-shipping-sunk-central-mediterranean-1939/)

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