FRIDAY the 13th may be unlucky for some but it is the birthdate of a flying legend.

Within minutes of lifting the prototype Canberra off Warton's runway on that day in May 1949, test pilot Roland Beamont knew that the English Electric Company had created a world-beater.

But even he could not have predicted that 50 years later the aircraft would still be in action with the RAF, overflying Yugoslavia to provide Nato with vital photo reconnaissance data during the current Kosovo crisis.

Four months after that first flight, the Canberra made its public debut at the Farnborough airshow where Beamont stunned the crowds with a brilliant display of aerobatics.

The world's aviation experts were equally impressed. They realised they were watching an aircraft which could out-perform the current crop of fighters - which was a shock because the Canberra was a high altitude bomber.

English Electric had not just moved the aviation goal posts, they had shifted them into a different airfield.

A production line was set up at Samlesbury and Beamont delivered the first RAF Canberra to 101 Squadron at Binbrook on May 25, 1951. The second squadron to be equipped, in January 1952, was 617 - the famous "Dambusters".

To cope with the volume of orders in the next few years, Canberras were also built in the factories of AV Roe, Handley Page and Short Bros and Harland. But it will forever be associated with Lancashire, and Samlesbury in particular, where down the years thousands of East Lancashire people were proud to say they played a part in its construction.

The UK production run totalled 901 aircraft of 20 different versions ranging from the original medium bomber to low level ground attack types, trainers, high and low-level photo reconnaissance and even unmanned target aircraft used during the development of air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles.

In 1951 Roland Beamont set a new transatlantic record when he took the Canberra to Baltimore to demonstrate it to the US Air Force. They promptly concluded an agreement to produce the plane under licence - the first British aircraft made in America for 30 years.

They called it the B57 and built 403, around 200 of which saw service in the night attack role in Vietnam.

Australia also decided to re-equip its bomber squadrons with Canberras and the government aircraft factory in Melbourne built 48, bringing world wide production to 1,352.

Export orders led to the aircraft equipping the air forces of nine other countries - Argentina, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, New Zealand, Peru, Rhodesia, South Africa and Venezuela.

The Canberra set three consecutive world altitude records - 63,668 feet in May 1953, 65,890 feet in August 1955, and 70,310 feet in August 1957. It also set 19 world distance records, including the first double crossing of the Atlantic in one day on August 26, 1952.

Sadly the prototype Canberra no longer exists. After completing flight testing for English Electric it was passed on to the Royal Aircraft Establishment which used it for autopilot development work.

While on the approach to Woodbridge, Suffolk, in August 1953, both engines failed and it crashed, killing the crew of two.

But the prototype could be recreated when British Aerospace celebrates the Canberra's 50th birthday at Warton on May 13.

The remaining PR9 reconnaissance Canberras are operated by 39 Squadron at Marham, and there is a plan to repaint one of their trainer versions in the overall blue colour scheme carried by the prototype and give it the first aircraft's serial number - VN799.

No doubt a glass or two will be raised at the birthday bash to the Canberra's designer, the late WEW "Teddy" Petter, who first saw his plans turned into something solid when a wooden mock up of the bomber was built in the basement of a garage in Corporation Street, Preston.

English Electric had only recently acquired the disused US Air Force base at Warton, so Petter and his design team had to create their world beater in the converted garage.

Once the Canberra was in production, Petter set about designing the RAF's first truly supersonic fighter - the 1,500 mph Lightning.

It was another brilliant aircraft, but its service life was 'only' 28 years. Meanwhile the Canberra flies on . . .

THOUSANDS of East Lancashire plane makers worked on the world-beating Canberra bomber, either on the Samlesbury assembly line or on aircraft returned by the RAF for re-fits.

Were you one of them? If so, tell us about your memories of producing what was for years the world's leading bomber.

Write to: Canberra Memories, News Desk, Lancashire Evening Telegraph, High Street, Blackburn BB1 1H .

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.