Vickers Wellesley

Wellesley

Type 292 of the Long-Range Development unit. Unlike production Wellesleys, the engine cowling is blended with the fuselage profile.
Role	General purpose bomber
Manufacturer	Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd
Designer	Barnes Wallis
First flight	19 June 1935
Introduction	1937
Retired	1944
Primary users	Royal Air Force Royal Egyptian Air Force South African Air Force
Produced	1936–1938
Number built	177

The Vickers Wellesley was a British 1930s light bomber built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands near Weybridge, Surrey, for the Royal Air Force. While it was obsolete by the start of the Second World War and unsuited to the European air war, the Wellesley was operated in the desert theatres of East Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. It was one of two planes named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the other being the Vickers Wellington.

The design originated from the Air Ministry Specification G.4/31 which called for a general purpose aircraft, capable of carrying out level bombing, army co-operation, dive bombing, reconnaissance, casualty evacuation and torpedo bombing. The biplane Vickers Type 253 design, which used a radical geodesic airframe construction, derived from that used by Barnes Wallis in the airship R100, was ordered by the Ministry and tested against the specification along with the Fairey G.4/31, Westland PV-7, Handley Page HP.47, Armstrong Whitworth A.W.19, Blackburn B-7, Hawker P.V.4 and the Parnall G.4/31. The Type 253 was declared the winner, with 150 being ordered.