FLYING FIRST
Words: Paul Rainbird, Alisdair Suttie Photos: Brooklands Museum Collection, Viscount Volunteers
The Viscount was the first turboprop aircraft to carry passengers and was a soaring success for Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands.
Even before the Second World War had come to an end, the Brabazon Committee was looking to the future of flying and a range of different planes to meet the needs of passengers on different routes. Vickers-Armstrongs had followed the
T
committee’s reports carefully and Rex Pierson, the company’s chief designer, had already discussed an aircraft to meet what became the Type II specification. There was also a call for a larger Type I, multi-stop Type III and jet-powered Type IV. Of all the planes designed to meet these briefs, only the Viscount, or VC2 as it was known in the earlier stages of its development, truly fulfilled the ambitions of the Brabazon Committee by selling in large numbers. The initial design that Pierson and his team devised was for a 27-seat aircraft with a gross weight of 34,000lbs (15,455kg) and range of 1000 miles at a cruising speed of 300mph. While this was initially accepted by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, changing attitudes and fortunes in post-war Britain soon meant seating capacity was upped to 32 seats, and this would not be the last time the Viscount was extended during its lifetime.
Alongside these requirements, it was deemed vital the Viscount must have a pressurised cabin so it could operate above 20,000ft to be as economical as possible. This meant Pierson’s original
he Vickers Viscount is one of the most important aircraft in post-war British aviation history and it is rooted in Brooklands.
‘double-bubble’ fuselage design was abandoned in favour of a single circular fuselage with stressed skin and single spar wing. However, this also posed challenges where the doors and window openings were introduced, but Pierson’s team came up with elliptical cut-outs that solved the problem and also gave passengers a superb view out that helped to make the Viscount very popular with those who flew in it. While this work was pressing ahead,
the government was still wavering between using Rolls-Royce Dart engines or Armstrong
Siddeley’s Mamba. In the end, the Rolls- Royce unit’s reliability won out and Pierson got the engines he favoured so the Viscount became the first turboprop aircraft to be used on a passenger service. That was 70 years ago when an early Viscount Type 700 flew from London Northolt to Paris on 29 July, 1950. It also made eight trips between Northolt and Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival in August.
The Dart engine was ideal for the
Viscount as Rolls-Royce made it more powerful just when Vickers-Armstrongs
The turboprop design used a Rolls-Royce Dart engine, which grew more powerful through the Viscount’s production span.
MARCH - APRIL 2020 | BROOKLANDS BULLETIN 39
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