The Vickers Varsity is a retired British twin-engined crew trainer operated by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

from 1951 to 1976.

Design and development

The Varsity was developed by

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in ...

and based on the

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...

and Valetta to meet Air Ministry Specification T.13/48 for a twin-engined training aircraft to replace the Wellington T10 and the Valetta T3 and T4. The main differences were the wider-span wings, longer

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

and

tricycle undercarriage Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle ...

. There was also a ventral pannier to allow a trainee bomb aimer to lie in a prone position and a bomb bay with a capacity for 24 x 25lb smoke & flash bombs. The first prototype Type 668 Varsity VX828 was first flown by J 'Mutt' Summers and G R 'Jock' Bryce from

Wisley __NOTOC__ Wisley is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England between Cobham and Woking, in the Borough of Guildford. It is the home of the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley Garden. The River Wey runs through the village and Ockham ...

on 17 July 1949. A civil version the VC.3 was planned but with the success of the VC.2 Viscount the idea was abandoned.

Operational history

The Varsity was introduced to replace the

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...

T10 trainer. Following deliveries to trials units the first production aircraft were delivered for operational use in 1951 to No. 201 Advanced Flying School at RAF Swinderby, where they were used to train pilots to fly multi-engined aircraft. It also equipped two Air Navigator Schools in 1952, and the Bomber Command Bombing school, with the job of training crews for RAF Bomber-Command's

V-bomber The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategic ...

crews.Rawlings 1971, pp. 172–173. The Swedish Air Force operated a single Varsity from January 1953 to 1973 mainly for

electronic intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

missions. The Swedish military designation was Tp 82. The Varsity was withdrawn from service with the RAF in May 1976, its role as a pilot trainer being taken over by the Scottish Aviation Jetstream T1, and as a navigation trainer by the Hawker Siddeley Dominie T1. The last flying example (Serial ''WL679'') was operated by the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), before finally losing its identity in me ...

; it was retired into preservation at the RAF Museum in 1992.

Operators

; * Royal Jordanian Air Force ; * Swedish Air Force ; * Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment *

** No. 51 Squadron RAF ** No. 97 Squadron RAF **

No. 115 Squadron RAF Number 115 Squadron is a Royal Air Force squadron operating the Grob Tutor T1, training QFIs for the RAF's Elementary Flying Training (EFT) squadrons and the University Air Squadrons, as well as undertaking evaluation and standardisation dutie ...

** No. 116 Squadron RAF ** No. 151 Squadron RAF ** No. 173 Squadron RAF **

No. 187 Squadron RAF No. 187 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force Squadron that was a transport unit towards the end of World War II. History Formation in World War I The squadron formed on 1 April 1918 as a night training unit and disbanded in 1919 without acquirin ...

No. 192 Squadron RAF No. 192 Squadron was a Royal Air Force squadron operational during the First World War as a night training squadron and during the Second World War as a radar countermeasure unit. After the war the squadron served again in the Electronic Int ...

** No. 204 Squadron RAF ** No. 527 Squadron RAF ** Bomber Command Bombing School RAF **

Central Navigation and Control School Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

** Royal Air Force College Cranwell ** Central Flying School ** No. 4 Flying Training School RAF ** No. 5 Flying Training School RAF **

No. 6 Flying Training School RAF No. 6 Flying Training School RAF is a Flying Training School (FTS) within No. 22 (Training) Group of the Royal Air Force that delivers flying training to University Air Squadrons and Air Experience Flights. History The school was formed by renam ...

No. 201 Advanced Flying School RAF The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, t ...

later named No. 11 Flying Training School RAF ** No. 1 Air Navigation School RAF **

No. 2 Air Navigation School RAF The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, t ...

** No. 3 Air Navigation School RAF ** No. 6 Air Navigation School RAF **

No. 1 Air Electronics School RAF Navigator and Airman Aircrew School RAF is a former Royal Air Force school which trained navigators between 1996 and 2005 along with other aircrew dating back to 1941. * Navigator and Airman Aircrew School RAF (1996-2005) ** Airfields used: RAF ...

** No. 1 Radio School RAF *

* Empire Test Pilot's School

Aircraft on display

Germany

* WF382 – Varsity T.1 in storage at Berlin-Tegel Airport for the Allied Museum in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

Sweden

* 82001 – Tp 82 on static display at the

Swedish Air Force Museum The Swedish Air Force Museum ( sv, Flygvapenmuseum) is located at Malmen Airbase in Malmslätt, just outside Linköping, Sweden. Malmen is where Baron Carl Cederström, nicknamed the "Flyer Baron" founded his flying school in 1912. Malmen Airb ...

in Linköping, Östergötland.

United Kingdom

* WF369 – Varsity T.1 on static display at the Newark Air Museum in Newark, Nottinghamshire. * WF372 – Varsity T.1 on static display at the

Brooklands Museum Brooklands Museum is a motoring and aviation museum occupying part of the former Brooklands motor-racing track in Weybridge, Surrey, England. Formally opened in 1991, the museum is operated by the independent Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd, a p ...

in Weybridge, Surrey. * WJ903 – Varsity T.1 nose section on static display at Aeroventure in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. * WJ945 – Varsity T.1 on static display at the Classic Air Force in Newquay, Cornwall. * WL626 – Varsity T.1 on static display at the East Midlands Airport Aeropark in

Castle Donington, Leicestershire Castle Donington is a market town and civil parish in Leicestershire, England, on the edge of the National Forest and close to East Midlands Airport. History The name 'Donington' means 'farm/settlement connected with Dunna'. Another sugges ...

. * WL679 – Varsity T.1 on static display at the

Royal Air Force Museum Cosford The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, located in Cosford, Shropshire, Cosford in Shropshire, is a free (currently, 2022) museum dedicated to the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force in particular. The museum is part of the Royal Air Force Mu ...

Cosford, Shropshire Cosford is a village in Shropshire, England. It is located on the A41 road, which is itself just south of junction 3 on the M54 motorway. The village is very small and is mostly made up of dwellings that house Royal Air Force personnel who work ...

Specifications (T Mk 1)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Andrews, C.F. and E.B. Morgan. ''Vickers Aircraft since 1908''. London: Putnam, 1988. . * Bagshaw, R. Deacon, R. Pollock, A. and Thomas, M. ''RAF Little Rissington: The Central Flying School years 1946 - 1976''. Pen & Sword, 2006 * Ellis, Ken. ''Wrecks & Relics''. Manchester, UK: Crécy Publishing, 21st edition, 2008. . * * Martin, Bernard. ''The Viking, Valetta and Varsity''. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 1975. . * Rawlings, J.D.R. "Vickers Varsity". ''Air Pictorial'', Vol. 33, No. 5, May 1971, pp. 172–176. * Thetford, Owen. ''Aircraft of the Royal Aircraft 1918–57''. London: Putnam, 1st edition, 1957.

External links

"Aircrew Trainer," ''Flight'', 30 March 1950, pp. 406–410
{{Swedish military aircraft designations 1950s British military trainer aircraft

Varsity Varsity may refer to: *University, an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines Places *Varsity, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada * Varsity Lakes ...

Mid-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1949 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft