Vickers Windsor

The Vickers Windsor was a Second World War British four-engine heavy bomber, designed by Barnes Wallis and Rex Pierson at the Vickers-Armstrongs factory at Brooklands in World War II.

Design and development
The Windsor was designed to Air Ministry Specification B.5/41 (later modified to Spec. B.3/42) for a high-altitude heavy bomber with a pressurised crew compartment, and an ability to fly at 345 mph at 31000 ft. Notable features of the Windsor included its pressurised crew compartment, four mainwheel struts (each extending from one of the engine nacelles and carrying a single balloon-tyred wheel), elliptical planform high aspect ratio wings, and guns mounted in barbettes at the rear of each (outboard) nacelle, which were to be remotely operated by a gunner in a pressurised compartment in the extreme tail.

The Windsor used Wallis's geodetic body and wing structure that Vickers had previously used in the Wellesley, Wellington and Warwick bombers. Instead of doped Irish linen however, a stiff and light skin was used on the Windsor, made with woven steel wires and very thin (1/1000 inch thickness) stainless steel ribbons, doped with PVC or other plastic, specially designed to avoid ballooning. To properly fit the skin to the frame, a tuning fork had to be used.

The wings' structure had no spars. Instead, it was a single hollow geodetic tube from tip to tip, passing through the fuselage truss. To better resist the compression and tension efforts, the elements were assembled at 16 degrees next to the root, reverting to the more conventional ninety degrees on the tips, longitudinal elements locking everything in place. The elements' thickness was also reduced towards the tips. No two joints had the same angle on the wing, an authentic production engineer's nightmare.

The wing was designed so that the tips had a noticeable droop on the ground, but was straight in flight, so the skin had to be fitted tighter on top than on the bottom to be evenly tight in flight.

Operational history
Only three examples (the original plus successive prototypes Type 457 and Type 461) were built in total. This was due to refinements in the existing Lancaster bomber, rendering it suitable for the role for which the Windsor had been designed. The first prototype flew in 23 October 1943, second on 15 February 1944, third on 11 July 1944 and all three were built at Vickers secret dispersed Foxwarren Experimental Department between Brooklands and nearby Cobham. The two latter prototypes were tested till the end of the Second World War, when further development and production were cancelled.

Variants

 * Type 447
 * First prototype, serialled DW506, powered by four 1315 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin 65 engines.


 * Type 457
 * Second prototype, serialled DW512, powered by four 1635 hp Merlin 85 engines.


 * Type 461
 * Third prototype, serialled NK136, powered by four 1635 hp Merlin 85 engines, armed with four 20mm guns in remote-controlled barbettes in rear of outer engine nacelles (a pair in each) aimed from the unarmed tail position.

Operators

 * Royal Air Force
 * Royal Air Force