As an engineering company, the name of Vickers had been around since
1828, so its venture into aviation was just one of many avenues of
income, growing into one of the big players, until it was swallowed up
by BAC in 1960. Vickers produced over 70 different types of aircraft
during a 49-year period, not including a host of sub-variants. Not all
were successful, but each one contributed, however small, another nugget
of experience, which was either ploughed into the next aircraft or
stored away for the future. The highly successful Vimy bomber evolved
from the unsuccessful E.F.B.7 and 8 twin-engine fighters; their
designer, Rex Pierson, was fully aware that the effort put into these
two aircraft could be used in the near future for a completely different
project. It was this ability to look closely at what it had done before
that was one of Vickers' strengths. An ability to 'think outside the
box' was another strength. A good example of this was not only employing
Barnes Wallis, but having such faith in his ideas, which must have
seemed quite radical at the time, especially his perseverance and
ultimate success with geodetic construction. Wallis had no shortage of
critics, and many 'dyed in the wool' employees of Vickers, during the
early days, left the company because of his ideas. However, history has
shown us that he was right about geodetics, and like Hawker with its
Hurricane and Supermarine with its Spitfire, only God knows what the RAF
would have done without the Wellington at the beginning of the Second
World War. This new book edition of Aeroplane's Vickers Company Profile
1911-1977 is testimony to what Vickers' aircraft, and the men who flew
them, achieved and shines a light on the aircraft manufacturer that
designed and built them.
