Role : bomber, anti-submarine aircraft
Manufacturer : Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd.
Designer : R.K. Pierson
First flight : 15 June 1936
Introduction : October 1938
Retired : March 1953
Primary users : Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, Polish Air Forces
Produced : 1936–1945
Number built : 11,464
Variants : Vickers Warwick and Vickers VC.1 Viking
Vickers Wellington
The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a bomber by the larger four-engine "heavies" such as the Avro Lancaster. The Wellington continued to serve throughout the war in other duties, particularly as an anti-submarine aircraft. It was the only British bomber to be produced for the entire duration of the war. The Wellington was popularly known as the Wimpy by service personnel, after J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons and a Wellington "B for Bertie" had a starring role in the 1942 Oscar-nominated Powell and Pressburger film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing. The Wellington was one of two bombers named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the other being the Vickers Wellesley.
