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IMAGES OF AVIATION SERIES
VICKERS AIRCRAFT
Compiled by Norman Barfield
Vickers, one of Britain's longest-established and most accomplished engineering companies, had a leading role in the development of aviation for almost seventy years - realising an unequalled range of aeronautical business, technological, operational and record-breaking achievements, and British and World 'firsts', also laying the foundations of the British aircraft equipment accessories industry and the Canadian aircraft industry and acquiring Supermarine, the World-renowned seaplane specialist, at Southampton.
Vickers constructed Britain's first and last airships between 1908 and 1929, and began aircraft manufacturing in 1911, initially in Kent with a Flying School at Brooklands in Surrey, and later at Weybridge from 1915. This resulted in the development of a uniquely varied aircraft lineage, which ranged from fighting biplanes and bomber-transports through every type of intermediate design in the inter-war years to the distinctive geodetic ('basketweave') military bomber generation of widely dispersed output during the Second World War.
The Vickers post-war aircraft progression into the jet age was unique in the Western World and ranged from Britain's first to biggest, before the Company became a prime partner in the British Aircraft Corporation in 1960, ultimately bequeathing its heritage and experience to the newly-formed British Aerospace in 1978. This fascinating book charts the years using a sequence of excellent and carefully annotated photographs.
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