AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 24 / 146

Plate 24 of 146 · Great War · Heavy bomber

Vickers Vimy

Vickers F.B.27 Vimy, painted as NX71MY ‘Spirit of Brooklands’, the Vickers Vimy reproduction displayed in the Vimy Pavilion at Brooklands Museum: the twin-engined heavy bomber of 1917 that came too late for the war but in June 1919 carried Alcock and Brown on the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic, a three-bay biplane of 68 ft span with its two engines mounted midway between the wings, a four-wheeled main undercarriage with a long nose skid, and a biplane tail with twin rudders; shown as the full-size reproduction built in California for Peter McMillan and first flown in 1994, which re-flew the Vimy’s great journeys to Australia in 1994, to South Africa in 1999 and across the Atlantic with Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz in 2005, then was given to Brooklands and made its last flight in 2009: silver-doped fabric overall with a bare aluminium nose and faceted bow windows, a beige hood over the front cockpit, ‘Spirit of BROOKLANDS’ in green with the ISTAT triangle and a panel of route flags on the nose, ‘NX71MY’ and ‘EXPERIMENTAL’ on the rear fuselage, dark teal radiator housings ahead of its modern V8 engines, four-bladed wooden propellers and dark grey struts and undercarriage.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as NX71MY ‘Spirit of Brooklands’, the Vickers Vimy reproduction displayed in the Vimy Pavilion at Brooklands Museum: the twin-engined heavy bomber of 1917 that came too late for the war but in June 1919 carried Alcock and Brown on the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic, a three-bay biplane of 68 ft span with its two engines mounted midway between the wings, a four-wheeled main undercarriage with a long nose skid, and a biplane tail with twin rudders; shown as the full-size reproduction built in California for Peter McMillan and first flown in 1994, which re-flew the Vimy’s great journeys to Australia in 1994, to South Africa in 1999 and across the Atlantic with Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz in 2005, then was given to Brooklands and made its last flight in 2009: silver-doped fabric overall with a bare aluminium nose and faceted bow windows, a beige hood over the front cockpit, ‘Spirit of BROOKLANDS’ in green with the ISTAT triangle and a panel of route flags on the nose, ‘NX71MY’ and ‘EXPERIMENTAL’ on the rear fuselage, dark teal radiator housings ahead of its modern V8 engines, four-bladed wooden propellers and dark grey struts and undercarriage. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (926 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (reproduction); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Vickers F.B.27 Vimy modelled here.

History

The Vimy

Vickers designed the F.B.27 in the summer of 1917, when the German Gotha raids on London had persuaded the Air Board that Britain needed a heavy bomber of its own that could reach Berlin. Rex Pierson drew a big, plain three-bay biplane with a box-girder fuselage of wood and steel tube covered in fabric, a biplane tail with twin rudders, and two engines slung midway between the wings, each on its own four-wheeled undercarriage, with a long skid under the nose to stop it tipping over on rough ground. The prototype was built in about four months and first flew from Joyce Green, near Dartford, on 30 November 1917. It took its name from the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge that spring.

The prototypes tried Hispano-Suiza, Sunbeam Maori and Fiat engines before the type settled on the Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII, and large orders were placed for 1919. The war ended first: only three Vimys had reached the RAF by the Armistice, and one had joined the Independent Force in France without flying a raid. Production was cut back sharply, but the Vimy became the RAF’s standard heavy bomber after the war, serving at home and in Egypt and Iraq, where it also carried mails and troops, until the Vickers Virginia replaced it in the middle of the 1920s. Vimys then flew as trainers and with the parachute school until 1933, and the Vimy Commercial and the Vernon troop carrier were developed from it.

The Vimy’s fame rests on the long-distance flights of 1919. On 14–15 June John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown flew a standard Vimy, built at Vickers’ Weybridge works beside Brooklands and fitted with extra fuel tanks, from St John’s in Newfoundland to Clifden in the west of Ireland in about sixteen hours, the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic, and won the Daily Mail’s £10,000 prize. Five months later Ross and Keith Smith and their two mechanics flew another Vimy, G-EAOU, from Hounslow to Darwin in 28 days, winning the Australian government’s prize for the first flight from England to Australia. All four airmen were knighted.

This airframe

Vickers Vimy reproduction NX71MY “Spirit of Brooklands”

NX71MYThe airframe modelled

NX71MY is a full-size flying reproduction of the Vimy, commissioned by the Australian-born American Peter McMillan, built in California by John LaNoue and first flown there on 30 July 1994. It was built of modern materials to the original shape, with two Chevrolet V8 engines in place of the Eagles. Later in 1994 it re-created the Smith brothers’ flight from England to Australia, in 1999 it flew from England to South Africa, and on 2–3 July 2005 Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz flew it from Newfoundland to Clifden on the route of Alcock and Brown. In 2006 it was given to the Brooklands Museum Trust through the ISTAT Foundation, flew for the last time in November 2009 and is now displayed in the museum’s Vimy Pavilion. The model shows it as displayed: silver-doped fabric overall, a bare aluminium nose with faceted bow windows and a beige hood over the front cockpit, “Spirit of BROOKLANDS” in green with the blue ISTAT triangle and a panel of route flags on the nose, “NX71MY” and “EXPERIMENTAL” on the rear fuselage, dark teal radiator housings ahead of the exposed engines, four-bladed wooden propellers, dark grey struts and undercarriage and a tail wheel in place of the original skid. The registration has only been photographed on one side, so it is assumed on both, and the smaller sponsors’ stickers and route lettering are left off.

See it at Brooklands Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Vimy in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 146 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.