One of the remaining Lancaster bombers from World War II has all of its parts laid out at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre and is said to look like the "world's biggest Airfix" model.

Footage from February 18 shows the famous aircraft with all the parts spread out on the floor of a hangar at the East Kirby aviation centre.

The plane is three years into a 10-year restoration project that will see it become the world's third flying Lancaster.

But before it is able to take to the skies, each part of the four-engined plane known as "Just Jane" needs to be stripped down, checked, repaired or rebuilt in order for a certificate of airworthiness to be issued by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Every winter, as part of the four-million-pound project, different sections of the Lancaster are restored; This year it’s the large tail and rear fuselage that is being worked on.

General manager Andrew Panton, 33, said: "This year we’re looking at the rear fuselage section and thought with the number of parts we’ve removed from the aircraft it looks very much like an Airfix kit.

"So we’ve set it out to see just what it would look like from the air as an Airfix kit would have done in the packet.

"The Lancaster is a sectional aircraft so it does come apart in its major component pieces and bolts back together again in a similar way you’d glue an Airfix kit together.

"It’s very reminiscent of being a child and building it up.

"I made many models of Lancs as a boy, but this is the ultimate build.

"On a plane this age, the rivets start to crumble and need to be replaced. As for ‘instructions,’ we have original RAF manuals and thousands of original AVRO drawings to work from."

Panton’s great-uncle Christopher Panton was shot down and killed during a raid on Nuremberg, Germany, in a Halifax bomber in March 1944 when he was only 19 years old.

The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre is a tribute to him and the whole of Bomber Command.

Andrew added: "At the moment she’s the only running Lancaster that you can get on board in Europe.

"The Lancaster here was bought in the early 1980s and moved here in 1988 and has become the centre-piece of the museum.

"We taxi passengers around the airfield and they get the experience of a WWII Lancaster bomber on an original WWII airfield.

"The next stage which we’re progressing to is making her airworthy so she can fly on air-show circuits and possibly with passengers in the future.

"In the past, we’ve had many veterans come back to East Kirkby, whether they flew from here during the war or whether they operated with Bomber Command, so for them to come back and experience the Lancaster again brings back many memories.

"Good memories and of course bad memories as well, and now we’re getting the families of those veterans coming to experience a little bit of what their fathers and grandfathers did during the Second World War."

Looking like the largest Airfix model you could possibly imagine, parts of a WW2 Lancaster bomber are laid-out in a hanger waiting to be assembled. But this is not a toy. The pieces of wing, fuselage, bombs, machine guns and propeller blades are all real.

The famous aircraft is three years into a ten-year restoration which will see it become the third flying Lancaster bomber in the world.

Before it can fly again, each part of the four-engined plane known as ‘Just Jane’ needs to be stripped-down, checked, repaired or rebuilt in order for a certificate of airworthiness to be issued by the Civil Aviation Authority.

During the summer months the bomber is used for ground displays and taxiing passengers around a former RAF airfield in Lincolnshire.

But every winter, as part of the £4m project, different sections of the Lancaster are restored. This year it’s the huge tail and rear fuselage that’s being worked on .

Andrew Panton, 33, general manager at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre in East Kirkby said: ‘This year we’re looking at the rear fuselage section and thought with the number of parts we’ve removed from the aircraft it looks very much like an Airfix kit.

‘So we’ve set it out to see just what it would look like from the air as an Airfix kit would have done in the packet.

‘The Lancaster is a sectional aircraft so it does come apart in its major component pieces and bolts back together again in a similar way you’d glue an Airfix kit together.

‘It’s very reminiscent of being a child and building it up. I made many models of Lancs as a boy, but this is the ultimate build.

‘On a plane this age, the rivets start to crumble and need to be replaced. As for ‘instructions’, we have original RAF manuals and thousands of original AVRO drawings to work from.’

Mr Panton’s great-uncle Christopher Panton was shot-down and killed during a raid on Nuremberg, Germany in a Halifax bomber in March 1944 when he was only 19 years-old . The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre is a tribute to him and the whole of Bomber Command.

Andrew added: ‘At the moment she’s the only running Lancaster that you can get on board in Europe. The Lancaster here was bought in the early 1980s and moved here in 1988 and has become the centre-piece of the museum. We taxi passengers around the airfield and they get the experience of a WW2 Lancaster bomber on an original WW2 airfield.

‘The next stage which we’re progressing to is making her airworthy so she can fly on air-show circuits and possibly with passengers in the future’

‘In the past we’ve had many veterans come back to East Kirkby, whether they flew from here during the war or whether they operated with Bomber Command, so for them to come back and experience the Lancaster again brings back many memories. Good memories and of course bad memories as well. And now we’re getting the families of those veterans coming to experience a little bit of what their fathers and grandfathers did during the Second World War’.

Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the Lancaster first going into service. ‘Just Jane’ was built by Austin Motors in Longbridge, in 1945. She had the serial number NX611, and was intended to become part of an RAF squadron in the Far East. Following the surrender of Japan the bomber did not see active service. After the war she was bought by the French and used for air sea rescue.