VICKERS WELLINGTON 100 YEARS OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE
BOMBERS RAF CENTENARY CELEBRATION 45Above left
Wellington III X3763
of 425 Squadron
RCAF. As ‘L-for-Love’
it was shot down on
an ‘op’ to Stuttgart
out of Dishforth on
April 15, 1943; all six
crew were killed.Left
Currently undergoing
a major restoration at
the Michael Beetham
Conservation
Centre at Cosford,
the RAF Museum’s
Wellington T.10 MF628
as it appeared at
Abingdon in June
1968 for the RAF’s
50th anniversary
celebrations. KECnew
structure
exceeded all
previous requirements by
a significant margin. The Vickers
Wellesley (page 40) was the first RAF
type to feature geodetics.
The system made for ease of
manufacture and repair. By the time
the Wellington was being finalised,
Vickers stunned the Air Ministry by
announcing in 1937 that, if ordered
in hundreds, one bomber could be
built every 24 hours.
Trevor Westbrook took on the task
of creating the new bomber en masse
and worked with Wallis to standardise
the geodetic sections so that there were
fewer variations – and made them
lighter still. By thinking beyond the
prototype, Vickers made sure the new
type would enter service smoothly and
quickly. This made the ‘one-a-day’
claim a far from idle boast.
On June 16, 1936 test pilot
‘Mutt’ Summers took the prototypeType: Six-crew heavy bomber
First fl ight: June 15, 1936, entered service October 1938
Powerplant: Two 1,000hp (746kW) Bristol Pegasus XVIII radials
Dimensions: Span 86ft 2in (26.26m); length 64ft 7in (19.68m)
Weights: Empty 18,556lb (8,417kg); all-up 28,500lb (12,927kg)
Max speed: 235mph (378km/h) at 15,500ft (4,724m)
Range: 2,550 miles (4,103km)
Armament: Two machine guns each in nose and tail turrets; one machine gun
in port and starboard beam positions. Up to 4,500lb (2,041kg) of
bombs
Replaced: Fairey Hendon and Handley Page Heyford from 1938; Handley Page
Harrow from 1939; Bristol Blenheim and Fairey Battle from 1940
Taken on charge: 11,460
Replaced by: Short Stirling from 1941; Avro Lancaster and Handley Page Halifax
from 1942; Consolidated Liberator from 1943VICKERS WELLINGTON IC
Wellington, K4049, for its maiden
flight at Brooklands. Also on board
were Wallis and Westbrook; the
consequences of a disaster during that
first foray do not bear thinking about.
Two months later, 180 were ordered,
long before the official RAF evaluation.
While being tested by the Aeroplane
and Armament Experimental
Establishment at Martlesham Heath,
the prototype broke up in mid-air on
April 19, 1937; the pilot escaped but
the flight engineer was killed. It was
discovered that when the large horn
balance on the elevator was exposed to
the airflow at full travel it flipped the
aircraft onto its back.
A ‘fix’ was introduced to the first
Mk.I, L4212, which first flew on
December 23, 1937 – a remarkably
short time after the prototype’s first
excursion. This aircraft took into
account all of the feedback from the
Martlesham evaluation and differed in
many ways from K4049.
The first operational Wellington was
issued to 99 Squadron at Mildenhall
in October 1938. Brooklands was
already geared up for production and,
to stick to the one-a-day promise,
two new factories were set up. First
on stream was Hawarden, near
Chester, which completed its first
Mk.I, L7770, in August 1939. A year
later the second facility, Squires Gate,
Blackpool, carried out the maiden
flight of Mk.Ic X3160.
On October 13, 1945 the last-ever
Wellington, Mk.X RP590, rolled off
the Squires Gate production line.
A grand total of 11,460 had been
built, far more than any other British
bomber. Wellingtons retired from
RAF service, as T.10 crew trainers,
in 1954, bringing to an end an
astounding career.