The Vickers Vimy was one of the most iconic  bombers developed during WW1 and it went on  

to become one of the most iconic aircraft  of the interwar period. In July of 1917 the  

British Air Board made the decision to cancel all  existing orders for experimental heavy bombers.  

This was done as somewhat of a kneejerk reaction  to a German raid on London the previous month,  

as they felt that none of their existing  projects were ambitious enough for retaliation.  

Cancelling all of your major bomber projects  during a global armed conflict may not have  

been the wisest decision, and thankfully  sanity prevailed when the Controller of the  

Technical Department convinced them to place  an order for 100 Handley Page O/400 bombers.  

Along with this, orders were also placed for  some other Handley Page bomber prototypes,  

as well as some examples from Vickers.  Vickers had been experimenting with the  

concept of twin-engine aircraft  since the beginning of the war.  

Their first prototype, dubbed the E.F.B.7  and designed to carry a one-pounder gun,  

was one of the first twin-engine military  aircraft to fly when it first took off in 1915.  

It never went into production however, as its  original Gnome engines were in short supply  

and the replacements were too underpowered. It  was then redesigned into the second aircraft, the  

E.F.B.8, which was smaller than its predecessor  and was only armed with a single Lewis gun.  

Although neither aircraft was produced beyond  a prototype, their designer Rex Pierson gained  

valuable experience from their development.  This paid off In 1917 when it was suggested  

that Vickers should attempt to develop a heavy  bomber around the Hispano Suiza engine, of which  

there was a surplus, and it should be built to the  same specification as the Handley Page O series.  

Pierson met with Maj J. C Buchanan of  the Air Board at their headquarters,  

and rapidly drew up prototype proposals  on some scrap paper. Not long after this,  

some actual -detailed- designs were drawn up, and  construction of the prototype began in earnest.  

The first prototype was completed in less than  four months and was designated the Vickers F.B.27.  

It was designed to accommodate a crew of  3: a pilot and two gunners. Its two Hispano  

Suiza engines produced 200hp each, and it was  designed to carry approximately 2400lbs of bombs  

with an endurance of 3 ½ hours. It flew for the  first time on the 30th of November at Joyce Green,  

piloted by Gordon Bell, and following several  successful flights it went to Martlesham Heath  

for official trials in January 1918. During these  trials it impressed officials by lifting a greater  

load than the Handley Page bomber despite  having less powerful engines. Unfortunately,  

these engines suffered from persistent mechanical  problems and the prototype was taken back to Joyce  

Green for modification work in April – as a  side note, it was around this time that the  

aircraft was also officially named the Vimy. Mechanical problems and bad luck quickly became  

a bit of a recurring theme for the Vimy during  its development. Three more prototypes were  

built during 1918, and of the four total,  only one wanted to behave in a way that  

didn’t endanger the pilots and the crew. The second prototype appeared in early 1918.  

It was powered by a pair of liquid cooled  Sunbeam Maori engines that produced 260hp.  

Along with new engines it also differed from  the first prototype by having new elevators,  

ailerons, and tailplanes, and it also had a  different ply covering on the fuselage. It was  

tested at Joyce Green in April, and it was found  to have issues with its engine cooling systems,  

despite this it was still sent to Martlesham Heath  for further testing…where it was promptly written  

off in a crash due to engine failure. The third prototype arrived not long after  

the second, and it was powered by a pair of Fiat  A-12bis engines that put out 300hp each. Again,  

this aircraft featured several structural  improvements over the first prototype. It had  

new engine nacelles, the nose of the fuselage was  re-designed, it featured centrifugal fuel pumps  

powered by airscrews, and its wings had a greater  dihedral of 3 degrees. At Martlesham it suffered  

test delays as the aircrews powering the fuel  pumps had a habit of cracking, and then the tests  

were abruptly cut short when the aircraft took off  with live bombs for a trip to the bombing range,  

stalled during said take-off, and then  promptly exploded when it crashed.  

The fourth prototype was powered  by the Rolls-Royce Eagle Mk VIII.  

Aside from some modifications to the rudders,  its airframe was virtually identical to that  

of the previous prototype, however its fuel  load had been greatly increased. It now had  

a fuel capacity of 452 gallons compared to  just 92 gallons on the original prototype,  

albeit this did come at the cost of the internal  bomb bay. Unlike the previous two planes,  

this one actually did quite well at trials. It  was able to fly at over 100mph near the ground  

with a loaded total weight of 12,500lbs, and its  fuel load gave it an endurance of 11 hours.  

A fifth prototype had also been planned,  powered by the new Liberty engine,  

however this was curtailed by the cessation of  Liberty engine deliveries and the destruction of  

the prototype during a hangar fire in 1919. Despite some of the prototypes boiling their  

engines or exploding, Vickers had received an  initial order for 150 aircraft back in March of  

1918. This order was quickly expanded by a further  200 units, and counting contracts with other firms  

this order would grow to over 1,100 various units  by the end of the conflict. Large scale production  

of the Vimy was undertaken by Vickers, Morgan,  Westland, the Royal Aircraft Establishment, and  

several other smaller firms. During 1918 priority  was placed on the production of anti-submarine  

variants of the Vimy, designed to carry two  torpedoes, and once this order was complete  

built 13 aircraft, and only one Vimy had reached  France, though it was never used operationally.  

With the outbreak of peace there was of  course a drastic reduction in orders,  

however some production still continued, and the  final total built under wartime contracts came to  

112 aircraft. These aircraft varied in powerplant  arrangements and bomb-carrying capacity,  

however the majority were completed with the  Rolls Royce Eagle engine; some were completed  

with the Fiat engines, but a number of these  were also later converted over to the Eagle.  

The production Vimy, much like the prototype,  followed a lot of the conventional design  

trends of the time. It was an equal span  biplane with a wire-braced wing structure.  

The front fuselage was constructed of steel  tubing and the rear fuselage was mostly wood  

with steel end fittings. The tail was also  a biplane, and the rudders and ailerons of  

the aircraft were aerodynamically balanced by  extensions that were forward of the hinge points.  

After some slight tweaking, the Rolls  Royce Eagle suited the Vimy perfectly,  

which would have been a refreshing change after  the earlier prototype’s mishaps, and on one test  

flight the Vimy hit a top speed of 112mph. Like the prototype it had a crew of three,  

and the two gunners each operated  a single 303 calibre Lewis gun,  

one in the nose, and one mounted on a Scarff  ring in the central section of the fuselage.  

The first bomber squadron to receive the  Vimy was No.58 Squadron, then based in Egypt.  

The first aircraft arrived in July of 1920 and  they replaced the Squadrons existing compliment  

of Handley Page bombers. In 1921, No 45 and  216 Squadrons – also based in Egypt – were  

equipped with Vimys, and those operated  by 216 would become famous for operating  

the Cairo-Baghdad air mail route. Back home, the Vimys operated by D-flight of No  

100 Squadron were the only twin-engine bombers in  service with the RAF in 1922. They would form the  

foundation of No.7 squadron, which would fly Vimys  until being replaced by Vickers Virginias in 1925.  

In 1924 Britain’s home-based bomber strength would  triple with the formation of No.9 and 58 Squadron,  

the original 58 Squadron in Egypt be renamed  to No.70. During the 1920s the Vimy would  

see service with 8 RAF Squadrons, often having  their service life extended with reconditioned  

engines and parts, and indeed when the Eagle  engines themselves wore out they were sometimes  

replaced by relatively less worn out Britsol or  Armstrong-Siddely engines. Within training units,  

the Vimy would carry on its military service  through a large part of the 1930s. Along with  

being used as a flight training aircraft,  it was also used as a parachute trainer.  

Though its career with the RAF was considered  uneventful, the Vimy would be immortalised by a  

series of successive long-range flights, the first  of these was the non-stop crossing of the Atlantic  

that was flown by John Alcock and Arthur Brown.  The Vimy selected was the thirteenth and last to  

be manufactured at Vickers Crayford factory before  production moved to Weybridge. For this flight,  

it was given to engineer Maxwell-Muller for  modification. All of the military equipment  

was removed and replaced with extra fuel  tanks, this took the total capacity from 516  

to 865 gallons and would give an optimum range of  2,440 miles. It was given special radio equipment,  

an intercom for the pilots to communicate  more easily, and an improved heating system.  

Alcock and Brown took off at 1:45pm on the 14th  of June 1919 from St Johns in Newfoundland;  

nearly 16 hours later they would  land in a bog near Clifden, Ireland.  

From the beginning it was anything but an easy  flight. The added fuel load made takeoff a  

perilous affair, with the Vimy just clearing  the treetops on its way out from St Johns.  

Four hours later things became considerably  more dangerous when the wind-driven electric  

generator failed, which deprived them of heating  and radio contact. Freezing and unable to easily  

communicate, they then had to fly through thick  fog which made navigation temporarily impossible,  

they then had to endure snowstorms that drenched  them and then threatened to ice up the plane,  

and then a good portion of the journey had  to be managed with a broken trim control.  

The altitude flown varied depending on the  weather, temperature, and how much control  

Alcock had on the battered Vimy. At one  point they lost control of the plane in a  

particularly nasty patch of cloud and dropped  from 4000 feet in a descending spiral, Alcock  

regained control at the last moment and pulled  the aircraft level a mere 65 feet above waves.  

Despite the atrocious weather, the Vimy arrived  not far off from its intended destination.  

Unfortunately, it was partially wrecked during  landing. Brown and Alcock thought they were  

landing on a green field, but in fact it was a  green bog, thankfully their seatbelts held, and  

they weren’t flung from the impact. Their journey  had covered 1890 miles, 15 hours 57 minutes of  

flight time, with an average speed of 115 mph. The next famous flight to involve the Vimy was  

initiated by the offer of a $10,000 prize by the  Australian government, the prize was to be awarded  

for the first flight by Australians from Britain  to Australia. The conditions were that it had to  

be completed within a time-frame of 30 days,  and it had to be done before the end of 1919.  

Six competitors entered into the race, but  it would be the Vimy that claimed the prize.  

Once again the Vimy was selected and suitably  modified by Maxwell-Mueller. The pilots chosen  

were the Smith brothers, Ross and Keith, who  were members of the Australian Flying Corps.  

Due to the huge distances involved, a considerable  amount of pre-flight planning had to be done:  

petrol, oil, and essential stores had to  be laid down at strategic points en route,  

and landing grounds had to be carefully surveyed  – especially in the more remote regions.  

As a result of this biggest modification made  to the aircraft was the provision of more  

space for additional stores, just in-case  some of the stops had supply issues.  

The Smith brothers took off on the morning of the  12th of November 1919 at around 8am. Remarkably  

most of the journey was made without any  major problems, the most common issue was  

the risk of the aircraft getting bogged down  on the more tropical airfields. The worst  

incident occurred in Surabaya, when the aircraft  became so utterly bogged that the locals had to  

fashion an impromptu runway from baboo taken from  natural groves and indeed salvaged from huts.  

On the 10th of December 1919, their Vimy was  sighted approaching Australia by HMAS Sydney,  

100 miles from Darwin. Just after 4pm that day the  Smith Brothers successfully landed at Fannie Bay,  

from which they would fly the final leg  to Melbourne and win the race. The Smith  

brothers were received as national heroes  and received knighthoods for their exploits.  

The third great flying endeavour to feature the  Vimy was not a complete success, but its still  

worth mentioning. In 1920 efforts were being made  to perform a flight from England to Cape Town,  

amongst several aircraft to make the attempt were  a pair of Vimys. The first was named the Silver  

Queen, and it was flown by Pierre Van Ryneveld  and Quintin Brand of the South African Air force.  

They left Brooklands on the 4th of February 1920,  however they crashed a week later between Cairo  

and Khartoum - courtesy of a leaking radiator. A second Vimy was leant to them by the RAF in  

Cairo and renamed the Silver Queen II. This one  reached Bulawayo, which today is in southwest  

Zimbabwe. Here the high elevation and severe  heat took its toll, and the Vimy failed to lift  

off from the airfield – the engine failing due  to heat and dirty oil. After the accident the  

aircraft was no longer fit to fly and the rest of  the journey was completed in a borrowed D.H.9.  

Despite the failure, the Vimys had flown far given  the conditions, however it served as an excellent  

example of the Vimy’s weaknesses. These lessons  were applied to future development of the aircraft  

and its one of the main reasons why they  were so successful when later used in Egypt,  

the Middle East and in India. Along with being an excellent frontline bomber,  

and a record settings aircraft, the Vimy  would also find itself in the commercial line  

as the imaginatively named Vimy Commercial. In  1919 the Civil Vimy project created a new design  

that replaced the Vimy’s slender fuselage with  a considerably thicker one. It had a forebody of  

oval scross-sections, completely clear of internal  obstructions such as struts or cross-bracing,  

and this body was then joined to the  standard rear fuselage with fairings.  

To accommodate this new shape the fuel tanks  were moved under the floor of the fuselage,  

with fuel being fed to the  engines by wind-driven pumps.  

Though it could be considered somewhat guppy  looking, the new structure provided excellent  

internal space and allowed for a cabin capable of  carrying up to 10 passengers in relative comfort.  

Initially the idea had been to give it a fully  enclosed cockpit, however the test pilots refused  

it on the grounds that it a) impaired their  ability to see, and b) deprived them of fresh air.  

These sorts of arguments would persist for a few  more years until airspeeds started to regularly  

exceed 130mph and people suddenly developed  a desire to not have their face ripped off.  

The first commercial prototype  was completed in the spring,  

and flew for the first time on April the  13th 1919. In terms of overall performance,  

it did slightly better than the bomber variant,  probably as a result of having the fuel and stores  

inside the streamline fuselage. It did however  lack the range of its military counterpart,  

being limited to just 450 miles. The  commercial was not produced in huge numbers,  

in fact the largest order for the aircraft  came from China – who placed an order for  

40 Vimy Commercials amongst other aircraft. A  production line was established at Weybridge to  

produce these, as well as a handful for domestic  use in England, however records indicate that many  

of the commercials shipped to China were never  used, and simply rotted away in their crates.  

In 1921 a military ambulance version of the  Commercial was produced for the Royal Air Force.  

It was designed to accommodate four stretchers  or eight seated patients with two medical staff,  

and it featuered an innovative nose-loading  arrangement, perhaps the first in the world.  

Five of these ambulance models were built,  and these were powered by Napier Lions.  

A direct descendent of the Commercial, and  thus the Vimy, was the Vernon. It was the  

first aircraft to be specifically operated for  the RAF as a dedicated transport and emergency  

support aircraft , this it did during outbreaks  of violence in Cyprus and the Middle East.  

It did this in two ways: firstly, the Vernon  could be used as a traditional transport of  

troops and equipment, and secondly, it could be  quickly converted in the field to carry bombs.  

Though it was operated as both, the Vernon is  best remembered for its role in the mail routes.  

In 1921 the Vernon, along with RAF Vimys pressed  into duties, formed the nucleus of the Middle  

Eastern section of the new emerging air routes.  Together they helped to revolutionise the mail  

service in a part of the world that lacked  significant rail networks, and the time it  

took to send a letter from Baghdad to London  went from 28 days down to 9. Vernons would  

bear the brunt of this service until 1926, and as  the mail service gained experience, reliability  

improved and the amount of mail carried in  the first sixteen months increased tenfold.  

At the time the first Vernons were operating in  the Middle East, improved versions were already  

being developed from experiences gained in their  use. The biggest needs were more range and power,  

and this was achieved with the 450hp Napier  Lion engine and the addition of two extra 120  

gallon fuel tanks . The trials of this new  model were successful and Vickers received  

a new contract for the Vernon Mk II  under ministry specification 43/22.  

Eventually a MkIII variant of the Vernon  would be developed, but in March 1923 calls  

were growing for the design of an aircraft  with larger dimensions, capacity and range  

than that of the Vimy, and Vickers would begin  work on the Virginia and Victoria designs.  

The final Vickers Vimys to retire from service did  so in 1938 after almost twenty years of service,  

which for the time was a remarkable  lifespan for an aircraft design.  

Two surviving examples can be found  today, both of which were record-setting  

aircraft. The transatlantic Vimy is on  display at the Science Museum in London,  

and the Vimy that took the Smith brothers  to Australia is on display at Adelaide  

airport – maybe I’ll fly down and see it soon. I hope you all enjoyed this slightly longer video.  

10 or so minutes really wasn’t  going to do the Vimy justice.  

If you don’t mind the longer content, I will do it  more regularly for aircraft that have more complex  

histories, but as always thank you all very much  for watching, and I’ll catch you all next time.