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| world war i aircraft | |
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The Vickers Vimy was a British heavy Bomber Aircraft of the World War I era. Designed by R.K. Pierson to be capable of attacking targets in Germany , and produced by the Vickers Company in Leighton Buzzard , it first flew on 30 November 1917 . Only token numbers arrived in France before the end of the war and production switched to a passenger variant, called the Vimy-Commercial. It was named after the Battle Of Vimy Ridge . SERVICE The Vimy served with Royal Air Force in the Middle East from 1919 until 1925 , when it was replaced by the Vickers Virginia , and in Northern Ireland until 1929. A civilian version, the Vimy-Commercial, with a larger diameter fuselage largely of Spruce plywood, was produced in 1919, mainly for foreign customers. A Chinese order for 100 is particularly noteworthy although a failure to pay interest from April 1922 probably led to the order not being completed. The Vimy-Commercial first flew from Joyce Green airfield in Kent on 13 April 1919 with the military serial K107. It became G-EAAV on the civil register. The Vimy was used in many pioneering flights, including the first non-stop west to east crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by Alcock And Brown in June 1919 (their aircraft is preserved in the London Science Museum );
VIMY REPLICA In 1969 a Vimy replica was built by the Vintage Aircraft Flying Association at Brooklands (this aircraft is now displayed at the RAF Museum, Hendon, London). A second flyable Vimy replica was built in 1994 by an Australian/American team and in the 1990s this aircraft recreated two of the three great pioneering Vimy flights - England to Australia and England to South Africa. In 2005 the Atlantic crossing was recreated, flown by the aviator, Steve Fossett . SPECIFICATIONS (VIMY)
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