Editing Avro Lancaster (section)

====Transport====
Immediately following the end of hostilities, the Lancaster was used without any major modifications as a transport aircraft, being used to ferry thousands of [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] (POWs) back to the British Isles from across the continent.<ref name="goul garb 10 11">Goulding and Garbett 1966, pp. 10–11.</ref> Repatriation flights returning POWs and ordinary troops continued until November 1945.<ref name="goul garb 11">Goulding and Garbett 1966, p. 11.</ref>

Civil conversions of the type continued during the initial postwar years. In 1946, four Lancasters were converted by Avro at [[Bracebridge Heath]], [[Lincolnshire]] as freighters for use by [[British South American Airways]], but proved to be uneconomical, and were withdrawn after a year in service. In addition, four Lancaster IIIs were converted by [[Cobham plc|Flight Refuelling Limited]] as two pairs of tanker and receiver aircraft for the development of [[Aerial refueling|in-flight refuelling]]. In 1947, one aircraft was flown non-stop {{cvt|3459|mi}} from London to Bermuda. Later on, these two tanker aircraft were joined by another converted Lancaster; these saw use during the [[Berlin Airlift]], achieving 757 tanker sorties.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}

From 1943 to 1947, the Canadian Government Trans-Atlantic Air Service (CGTAS) provided a trans-Atlantic military passenger and postal delivery service using a modified long-distance transport version of the Lancaster Mark X. Nine of these aircraft were produced, referred to as Lancaster XPPs (for Lancaster Mk.X Passenger Planes), and each was equipped with rudimentary passenger facilities. The inaugural flight from Dorval (Montreal) to Prestwick, Scotland on 22 July 1943, was completed non-stop in a record 12:26 hours; the average crossing time was about 13:25 hours. By the end of the war, these aircraft had completed hundreds of trips across the Atlantic. CGTAS ushered in the era of commercial air travel across the North Atlantic, and in 1947 the service became part of [[Trans-Canada Air Lines]], which carried paying civilian passengers in the Lancaster XPPs until they were replaced by [[Douglas DC-4]]s in 1947.<ref name="Bomber Command Museum"/><ref>[http://www.cahf.ca/members/T_members.php "Members' Profiles."] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813085734/http://www.cahf.ca/members/T_members.php |date=13 August 2011}} ''Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame.'' Retrieved 3 October 2011.</ref><ref>[http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/lancafterwar.html "Lancasters After The War."] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110826121947/http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/lancafterwar.html |date=26 August 2011}} ''Bomber Command Museum.'' Retrieved 3 October 2011.</ref>