Vickers-Armstrongs
4 types · 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
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Aircraft Types
Vickers Viking
The Vickers VC.1 Viking is the post-war British twin-engined airliner — not Vickers' 1919 amphibian of the same name — built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands from the wing and undercarriage of the Wellington bomber. It first flew on 22 June 1945 and opened British European Airways' scheduled services in September 1946. In all 163 were built, production ending in 1948; BEA flew them until 1954, after which they passed to independent airlines, and only six survive.
Vickers Viscount
The Vickers Viscount is a British four-engined turboprop airliner built by Vickers-Armstrongs, and the first turboprop airliner to enter service. Developed from the Brabazon Committee's postwar Type IIB requirement, the Type 630 prototype first flew on 16 July 1948, and British European Airways opened the first scheduled turboprop services on 18 April 1953. Production ran from 1948 to 1964 across three basic versions — the Type 700, the lengthened Type 800 and the longer-range Type 810 — and the type sold widely abroad, above all in North America. The sources disagree on the final total: Wikipedia gives 445 built, while the Vickers Viscount Network's construction-number list counts 444.
Vickers Warwick
The Warwick was a twin-engined aircraft built by Vickers-Armstrongs to Specification B.1/35 as a heavy bomber, and intended as the larger counterpart of the Wellington. Its development was delayed for years by the lack of suitable engines — the Rolls-Royce Vulture proved unreliable — and production aircraft mostly used the American Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp. The type entered production in 1942, but only sixteen were completed as bombers, four-engined types having taken that role. The rest served as Coastal Command air-sea rescue and general reconnaissance aircraft and as transports with Transport Command and BOAC, and the type was out of service by the end of 1946.
Vickers Wellesley
The Wellesley was a single-engined medium bomber built by Vickers-Armstrongs, and the first production aircraft to use Barnes Wallis's geodetic construction, in which a lattice of light members carried the loads. Developed for the Air Ministry's G.4/31 general-purpose requirement — a contest Vickers' biplane Type 253 won before the order was switched to the monoplane — it first flew on 19 June 1935 and entered RAF service in 1937; 177 were built in all. In November 1938, Wellesleys of the Long Range Development Unit set a world distance record with a non-stop flight from Egypt to Australia. Already obsolete for the European war by 1939, the type fought against Italian forces in East Africa and flew maritime patrols from the Middle East until 1942. No example survives.