IT first took shape as a wooden mock-up in the basement of a converted garage in Corporation Street, Preston - a humble beginning for what has now become a flying legend.

Now the mighty Canberra aircraft which was created more than 50 years ago is still in action with the RAF, and providing vital pilot photo reconnaissance data for the attacks on Yugoslavia.

It was on the unlikely date of Friday 13, 1949, that test pilot Roland Beaumont eased the prototype Canberra off Warton's runway and within minutes he knew that the English Electric Company had created a world-beater.

Four months later the fighter aircraft stunned crowds at the Farnborough Air Show with a display which left watching aviation experts in no doubt that the Canberra could out perform its current competitors as a high-altitude bomber.

The wooden mock-up was built in Preston at the time when the American armed forces had vacated Warton to use it as a base in the Second World War.

Eventually a production line was set up at Samlesbury, near Preston, and the first RAF Canberra was delivered by Beaumont to 101 Squadron at Binbrook in 1951 with the famous Dambusters 617 Squadron equipped in January 1952.

Over the next few years orders rolled in and dozens of Canberras were built in the factories of AV Roe, Handley Page and Short Bros. and Harland.

But the great aircraft will forever be associated with the Lancashire town of Preston where it was ingeniously invented and constructed all those years ago.

The UK production run totalled 901 aircraft of different types and the Americans built the Canberra under licence for the US Air Force - the first British plane to be made in America for 30 years - and called it the B57.

A total of 403 fighter B57s were built by the Americans and 200 of the planes were used in night attacks in the Vietnam War.

Australia also re-equipped its bomber squadrons with the Canberra and the Government Aircraft Factory in Melbourne constructed 48 planes, bringing the worldwide production of Canberras to 1,352.

Other countries soon snapped up the plane to equip their armed forces and export orders for the Canberra were made by Argentina, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, New Zealand, Peru, Rhodesia, South Africa and Venezuela.

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

The remaining PR9 reconnaissance Canberras are operated by 39 Squadron at Marham and are set to fly on into the next Millennium because they are simply, the best aircraft for the job.

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