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A Brief History of the Company.
Among the earliest designs of Vickers Ltd (Aviation Department) was the EFB (Experimental Fighting Biplane) pusher of 1913, which led to many more army pushers, including the FB5 (Fighting Biplane No 5) and the improved and faster FB9. A total of 241 FB5s, nicknamed the Gunbus, were supplied to the Royal Flying Corps for frontline service, joined in the summer of 1916 by 95 FB9s. Smaller quantities were produced of the FB14 reconnaissance biplane and the FB19 single-seat fighter. During wartime, the Vickers factories at Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey and at Crayford, Bexley Heath and Erith on the south-eastern outskirts of London, were kept busy building large numbers of BE2s, SE5a's and Sopwith 1½ Strutters, as well as several prototypes of its own. A requirement for a strategic bomber produced the twin-engined FB27, which flew for the first time on 30th November 1917. This three-bay biplane with twin fins and rudders, later renamed Vimy, came too late for operational service in the war, but is remembered for its pioneering long-distance flights in peacetime.

The Vickers Vimy in RAF colours


Derivatives were the Vimy Commercial, the Vernon military transport, Victoria and Valentia 22-troop transports, and the larger Virginia bomber. The five-seat Viking amphibious biplane, powered by a 375 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle pusher, was produced in 1919.

Other designs which made it into production included the two-seat Valparaiso and Vixen fighter/reconnaissance biplanes of 1924/25; the all-metal Vildebeest torpedo-carrying and bombing biplane, which entered RAF service in 1933, and the Vincent, a three-seat general purpose version of the Vildebeest, in RAF service from 1934. Vickers had also been building airships since 1908, culminating in the R100, designed by B. N. (later Sir Barnes) Wallis and N. S. Norway (later novelist Nevil Shute). In August 1928, the aviation department became Vickers (Aviation) Ltd, which three months later took over Supermarine, although the latter retained its identity. Barnes Wallis devised the geodetic form of construction, based on airship stressing combining extreme light weight with great strength, and this was applied for the first time in the Wellesley bomber, flown on 19th June 1935 and powered by a single Bristol Pegasus radial piston engine, and the twin-engined prototype, which first flew on 15th June 1936 and led to the Wellington bomber. Between 1936 and the end of 1945, Vickers built 11,461 Wellingtons in several versions, more than any other British aircraft with the exception of the Spitfire and Hurricane. The Wellington was followed by the slightly larger Warwick, adapted for reconnaissance duties with Coastal Command in 1943, and after the war by the four-engined Valiant high-altitude strategic bomber, the first of the RAF's V-bombers to enter service in January 1955.
On 22nd June 1945, Vickers flew the 24-27 seat Viking short-haul airliner, fitted with two 1,675 hp Bristol Hercules radials, and went on to build 161 Vikings and 426 Valetta military transports and Varsity crew trainers at Weybridge and Hurn Airport, Bournemouth. Even greater success was achieved with the 65-seat four-engined Viscount, the world's first turboprop transport to enter airline service. The V630 prototype flew on 16th July 1948 and was superseded by the improved V700 and V800 Series, production ending in 1964 after 445 units. Its successor, the larger V950 Vanguard, had already been overtaken by the jet age when it flew on 20th January 1959, and only 43 were built. Development and production of the four-engined, turbofan-powered VC10 airliner, whose origins went back to the cancelled V1000 project of the mid-1950s, was continued by the British Aircraft Corporation in which Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd, so named after reorganisation in December 1954, became a 40% shareholder in February 1960.

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