Vickers Vespa

Vickers Limited · United Kingdom · first flew 1925 · reconnaissance aircraft

The Vickers Vespa was a British army cooperation biplane designed and built by Vickers in the 1920s. It was not adopted by the Royal Air Force.

Recognition (WEFT)

WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.

Spot it by:

• Two-bay biplane with closely spaced, highly staggered wings
• Slim fuselage suspended between the wings
• Radial engine in the nose

A slim-fuselage two-bay biplane with strongly staggered wings. Fifteen were built.

Specifications

• The Vickers Vespa has a length of 10.06 m (33 ft).
• It has a wingspan of 15.24 m (50 ft).
• Its maximum speed is 224 km/h (139 mph).
• Typical crew: 2.

Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.

History

Vickers designed it as a private venture to Air Ministry Specification 30/24, and the first prototype flew in September 1925. It crash-landed with engine trouble on 24 June 1926 and was rebuilt with metal wings.

Variants

The Vespa III was an improved all-metal version for Bolivia, and the Vespa IV and V were built for the Irish Air Corps. The prototype was rebuilt as the Vespa VII with a supercharged Bristol Pegasus S engine for an altitude record.

Where you'll see it

Bolivia took six, used mainly for conversion training and in limited roles in the Chaco War. Ireland took eight, the last of which was written off on 12 June 1940. The Vespa VII set a world altitude record of 13,407 m on 16 September 1932.

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