The Vickers Vimy was a British heavy bomber aircraft of the First World War
and post-First World War era. It achieved success as both a military and
civil aircraft, setting several notable records in long-distance flights in the
interwar period, the most celebrated of which was the first non-stop crossing of
the Atlantic Ocean by Alcock and Brown in June 1919.
Design and development Reginald Kirshaw "Rex" Pierson, chief
designer of Vickers Limited in Leighton Buzzard, designed a twin-engine biplane
bomber, the Vickers F.B.27 to meet a requirement for a night bomber capable
of attacking targets in Germany, a contract being placed for three
prototypes on 14 August 1917. Design and production of the prototypes was
extremely rapid, with the first flying on 30 November 1917, powered by two 200
hp Hispano Suiza engines. It was named after the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Owing to engine supply difficulties, the prototype Vimys were tested with a
number of different engine types, including Sunbeam Maoris, Salmson 9Zm
water-cooled radials, and Fiat A.12bis engines, before production orders were
placed for aircraft powered by the 230 hp BHP Puma, 400 hp Fiat, 400 hp Liberty
L-12 and the 360 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engines, with a total of 776
ordered before the end of the First World War. Of these, only aircraft
powered by the Eagle engine, known as the Vimy IV, were delivered to the RAF.
Total Vimy production was 239 aeroplanes of which 134 were built at Brooklands.
Operational history = RAF service=
By October 1918, only three aircraft had been delivered to the Royal Air Force,
one of which had been deployed to France for use by the Independent Air Force.
The war ended, however, before it could be used on operations. The Vimy only
reached full service status in July 1919 when it entered service with 58 Squadron
in Egypt. The aircraft formed the main heavy bomber force of the RAF for much
of the 1920s. The Vimy served as a front line bomber in the Middle East and in
the United Kingdom from 1919 until 1925, when it was replaced by the Vickers
Virginia, but continued to equip a Special Reserve bomber squadron, 502
Squadron at Aldergrove in Northern Ireland until 1929. The Vimy continued
in use as a training aircraft, many being re-engined with Bristol Jupiter or
Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar radial engines. The final Vimys, used as Target
aircraft for searchlight crews, remained in use until 1938.
= Long-distance flights= The Vimy was used in many pioneering
flights. The most significant was the first
non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by Alcock and Brown in June 1919;
In 1919, the Australian government offered £10,000 for the first
All-Australian crew to fly an aeroplane from England to Australia. Keith
Macpherson Smith, Ross Macpherson Smith and mechanics Jim Bennett and Wally
Shiers completed the journey from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Darwin via
Singapore and Batavia on 10 December 1919; "The trip from Darwin to Sydney
took almost twice as long as the flight to Australia."
In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel Pierre van Ryneveld and Major Quintin Brand
attempted to make the first England to South Africa flight. They left
Brooklands on 4 February 1920 in the Vimy G-UABA named Silver Queen. They
landed safely at Heliopolis, but as they continued the flight to Wadi Halfa they
were forced to land due to engine overheating with 80 miles still to go. A
second Vimy was lent to the pair by the RAF at Heliopolis. This second aircraft
continued to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia where it was badly damaged when
it failed to take off. Van Ryneveld and Brand then used a South African Air
Force Airco DH.9 to continue the journey to Cape Town. The South African
government awarded them £5,000 each. = Vimy Commercial=
The Vimy Commercial was a civilian version with a larger diameter fuselage,
which was developed at and first flew from the Joyce Green airfield in Kent on
13 April 1919. Initially, it bore the interim civil registration K-107, later
being re-registered as G-EAAV. The prototype entered the 1920 race to
Cape Town; it left Brooklands on 24 January 1920 but crashed at Tabora,
Tanganyika on 27 February. A Chinese order for 100 is particularly
noteworthy; forty of the forty-three built were delivered to China, but most
remained in their crates unused; only seven were put into civilian use.
Fifty-five military transport versions of the Vimy Commercial were built for
the RAF as the Vickers Vernon. Role in the Second Zhili-Fengtian War
After the First Zhili-Fengtian War, 20 aircraft were secretly converted into
bombers under the order of the Zhili clique warlord Cao Kun, and later
participated in the Second Zhili-Fengtian War.
During the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, these bomber versions of the Vimy
Commercial were initially highly successful due to the low-level bombing
tactics used, with the air force chief-of-staff of the Zhili clique,
General Zhao Buli personally flying many of the missions. However, on 17
September, returning from a successful bombing mission outside Shanhai Pass,
General Zhao's bomber was hit by ground fire from the Fengtian clique in the
region of Nine Gates and had to make a forced landing. Although General Zhao
was able to make a successful escape back to his base, the bombers
subsequently flew at much higher altitude to avoid ground fire, which
greatly reduced their bombing accuracy and effectiveness.
After numerous battles between Chinese warlords, all of the aircraft fell into
the hands of the Fengtian clique, forming its First Heavy Bomber Group.
These bombers were in the process of being phased out at the time of the
Mukden Incident and therefore were subsequently captured by the Japanese,
who soon disposed of them. Vimy replicas
Apart from a replica transatlantic Vimy cockpit section built by Vickers for the
London Science Museum in the early 1920s, three full-size replicas have
also been built. The first was a taxiable replica commissioned by British
Lion Films from Shawcraft Models Ltd of Iver Heath, Bucks; the planned film
about Alcock & Brown's transatlantic flight was never made, but the model was
completed and paid for. Its fate remains a mystery although it appeared on static
display at the Battle of Britain air display at RAF Biggin Hill in 1955 and
may have been subsequently stored dismantled in East London until at least
the late 1980s. In 1969, an airworthy Vimy replica was
built by the Vintage Aircraft Flying Association at Brooklands. It is
currently stored dismantled by the RAF Museum in Stafford.
A second flyable Vimy replica, NX71MY, was built in 1994 by an
Australian-American team led by Lang Kidby and Peter McMillan, and this
aircraft successfully recreated the three great pioneering Vimy flights:
England to Australia flown by Lang Kidby and Peter McMillan, England to South
Africa flown by Mark Rebholz and John LaNoue and in 2005, Alcock and Brown's
1919 Atlantic crossing was recreated, flown by Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz.
The aircraft was donated to Brooklands Museum in 2006 and was kept airworthy in
order to commemorate the 90th anniversaries of the Transatlantic and
Australian flights until retired in late 2009. Its final flight was made by John
Dodd, Clive Edwards and Peter McMillan from Dunsfold to Brooklands on 15
November 2009 and four days later, in just 18 hours, the aircraft was
dismantled, transported the short distance to the Museum and reassembled
inside the main hangar by a dedicated volunteer team. Two days later a special
Brooklands Vimy Exhibition was officially opened by Peter McMillan, and
this unique aircraft is now on public display there.
Variants F.B.27 Vimy
Prototypes; four built, powered by two 200 hp Hispano-Suiza 8 piston engines..
F.B.27A Vimy II Twin-engine heavy bomber aircraft for
the RAF, powered by two 360 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII piston engines.
Vimy Ambulance Air ambulance version for the RAF.
Vimy Commercial Civilian transport version, powered by
two 360 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII piston engines.
A.N.F. 'Express Les Mureaux' Vimy Commercial No.42 re-engined with 2x
370 hp Lorraine 12Da V-12 engines. Operators
= Military operators= United Kingdom
Royal Air Force. No. 7 Squadron RAF
No. 9 Squadron RAF No. 24 Squadron RAF
No. 45 Squadron RAF No. 58 Squadron RAF
No. 70 Squadron RAF No. 99 Squadron RAF
No. 100 Squadron RAF No. 216 Squadron RAF
No. 500 Squadron RAF No. 502 Squadron RAF
= Civil operators= China
The Government of China. France
Grands Express Aériens. Soviet Union
One aircraft. Spain
The Government of Spain. United Kingdom
Imperial Airways. Instone Air Line.
Specifications Data from
General characteristics Length: 43 ft 7 in
Wingspan: 68 ft 1 in Height: 15 ft 8 in
Wing area: 1,330 sq ft Empty weight: 7,104 lb
Max. takeoff weight: 10,884 lb Powerplant: 2 × Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII
piston engines, 360 hp each Performance
Maximum speed: 100 mph Range: 900 mi
Service ceiling: 7,000 ft Power/mass: 0.07 hp/lb
Armament Guns: 1 × .303 in Lewis Gun in Scarff
ring in nose and 1 × in Scarff ring in mid-fuselage
Bombs: 2,476 lb of bombs See also
Related development Vickers Vernon
Vickers Virginia Aircraft of comparable role,
configuration and era Handley Page Type O
Gotha G References
= Notes= = Bibliography=
External links The Vickers Vimy-Commercial at Hendon,
1919 Vickers Vimy preserved at Adelaide,
South Australia RAF Museum
Alcock and Brown's aeroplane at the London Science Museum
Vickers Vimy online collection - State Library of NSW
The Science Museum,South Kensington: Alcock and Brown's Vickers Vimy biplane,
1919 National Geographic record of the 2005
re-enactment on the Atlantic flight