Replicating the pioneer
This is the replica of the Vickers Vimy bomber that made the first transatlantic air crossing in 1919. Piloted by John Alcock and navigator Arthur Whitten Brown, the feat won the Daily Mail’s prize of £10,000. The actual aircraft survives as an exhibit at the Science Museum, South Kensington. The replica Vimy was built in 1994 as a venture to re-enact the first flight from Britain to Australia, achieved also in 1919. A pioneering London-to-Cape Town journey was also re-enacted in 1999. Carrying the US civil registration NX71MY, the aircraft was donated to the Brooklands Museum in 2009, where it now forms a display titled ‘First to the Fastest’, paired with an RAF Harrier jump jet that broke the transatlantic speed record fifty years after Alcock and Brown’s journey.
Replicating the pioneer
This is the replica of the Vickers Vimy bomber that made the first transatlantic air crossing in 1919. Piloted by John Alcock and navigator Arthur Whitten Brown, the feat won the Daily Mail’s prize of £10,000. The actual aircraft survives as an exhibit at the Science Museum, South Kensington. The replica Vimy was built in 1994 as a venture to re-enact the first flight from Britain to Australia, achieved also in 1919. A pioneering London-to-Cape Town journey was also re-enacted in 1999. Carrying the US civil registration NX71MY, the aircraft was donated to the Brooklands Museum in 2009, where it now forms a display titled ‘First to the Fastest’, paired with an RAF Harrier jump jet that broke the transatlantic speed record fifty years after Alcock and Brown’s journey.