Designed by R.K Pierson & Barnes Wallis, the Vickers Type 207 was a single-engined two-seat biplane. Often known as the Vickers M.1/30, for it was built to Air Ministry specification for a carrier based torpedo bomber to replace the Blackburn Ripon. The Air Ministry paid Vickers for a single prototype; its competitors were the Blackburn M.1/30 and the Handley Page H.P.46.

Like Blackburn, Vickers chose the 825 hp (615 kW) Rolls Royce H10 engine, later called the Buzzard IIIMS, a liquid cooled V-12 to power their aircraft. The Type 207 was a single bay biplane, without sweep or stagger and with wings of almost equal span. The upper wing carried Handley Page slots and Frise ailerons; the lower wing alone had dihedral. Both wings used the relatively thick and still novel Raf34 aerofoil section; they folded for storage. The rudder was balanced and the braced tailplane carried aerodynamic servo-assisted elevators operated via trailing edge tabs. Barnes Wallis had recently been appointed chief structural engineer for Vickers aircraft and he brought to the Type 207 new methods of duralumin construction in both wings and fuselage from his previous work on airships. Typically, these structures were complicated but light. The aircraft was fabric covered throughout.

The upper wing was well above the fuselage, braced to it by two pairs of V-form struts on either side; two single struts from the same points on the upper fuselage braced each lower wing. The pilot sat below the wing leading edge and the observer, equipped with a Lewis gun, sat well aft. The split axle undercarriage allowed torpedo dropping from under the aircraft and was fitted with wheel brakes as its ship-borne role required, together with an arrester hook and tail wheel. The Buzzard’s underslung radiator was positioned between the forward undercarriage legs.

The Type 207 flew for the first time on 11 January 1933, with Mutt Summers at the controls. The only notable modification was the addition of 2o of dihedral to the previously flat upper wing. The aircraft but neither of its crew was lost in the first fast diving test on 23 November 1933, when structural breakup was initiated by a tailplane failure. In the end there were no orders for any of the M.1/30 entrants.

Only one was built.

Engine: 1 × Rolls Royce Buzzard IIIMS, 825 hp (615 kW)
Wingspan: 50 ft 0 in (15.24 m)
Length: 43 ft 7 in (13.69 m)
Height: 14 ft 5 in (14.42 m)
Wing area: 724 sq.ft (67.3 sq.m)
Empty weight: 5,200 lb (2,359 kg)
Gross weight: 9,600 lb (4,354 kg)
Maximum speed: at 4,000 ft (1,220 m) 159 mph (256 km/h)
Rate of climb: to 4,000 ft (1,220 m) 800 ft/min (4.1 m/s)
Armament:
1× 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis gun
1×torpedo of a 2000 lb (907 kg) or 1000 lb (453 kg) bomb under fuselage; or 4×500 lb ((227 kg)bombs under inner wings
Crew: 2

In the mid ‘twenties, the British Air Ministry found attractive the possibility of the 37mm COW (Coventry Ordnance Works) gun for use against bombers. Accordingly, Specification F.29/27 was issued calling for a single-seat dedicated bomber-interceptor armed with this large and heavy weapon. The specification called for the gun to be mounted in a fixed position to fire forward and upward at an oblique angle of at least 45°. Provision was to be made for oversize and automatically-fed ammunition clips totalling 50 shells, the entire COW gun mechanism had to be easily accessible to the pilot and steadiness as a gun platform was a prime requisite. Vickers submission to this Specification, the Type 161, was extraordinary in that it reverted to the long-abandoned pusher biplane formula with tail surfaces carried by booms. Despite its archaic configuration, however, the Type 161 embodied some advanced features and became the subject of a single-aircraft Air Ministry contract. An unequal-span two-bay biplane with comparatively high aspect ratio wings with duralumin plate and tube structure, it had a metal mono-coque nacelle, accommodating the pilot to port and the COW gun to starboard, which was faired into the upper wing and raised above the lower wing by splayed N-type struts. The 530hp Bristol Jupiter VIIF nine-cylinder radial carried at the rear of the nacelle drove a four-bladed propeller, aft of which was a curious, long tapered cone which, intended to promote directional stability, was supported by struts from the tubular tail-booms and the tailplane. The Type 161 was flown for the first time on 21 January 1931, and after provision of a broader-chord rudder, it flew extremely well, arriving at Martlesham Heath in September 1931 for official evaluation. Development was discontinued when official interest in promoting the quick-firing COW gun lapsed.

Max take-off weight: 1520 kg / 3351 lb
Empty weight: 1080 kg / 2381 lb
Wingspan: 9.75 m / 32 ft 0 in
Length: 7.16 m / 24 ft 6 in
Height: 3.76 m / 12 ft 4 in
Wing area: 25.08 sq.m / 269.96 sq ft
Max. speed: 298 km/h / 185 mph

Effectively the seventh Type 143 airframe, the Type 177 was intended as a single-seat shipboard fighter to Specification 21/26 – for which the Type 141 was also a contender – and flew for the first time on 26 November 1929. Powered by a 540hp Bristol Jupiter XFS nine-cylinder radial air-cooled engine, the Type 177 was purely a private venture and was the final development in the line of Vickers single-seat tractor-engined fighter biplanes. Armament comprised the standard pair of synchronised 7.7mm Vickers machine guns. On 20 May 1930, the Type 177 demonstrated a terminal velocity dive from 6100m in which it attained a speed of 483km/h, and, in the following month, deck landing trials were performed aboard HMS Furious. Unaccustomed to steerable hydraulic brakes – an innovation featured by the Type 177 – one pilot applied the brakes too harshly and put the aircraft on its nose, after which these trials were discontinued. The Type 177 proved unacceptable for shipboard use and development was discontinued.

Max take-off weight: 1837 kg / 4050 lb
Empty weight: 1286 kg / 2835 lb
Wingspan: 10.44 m / 34 ft 3 in
Length: 8.38 m / 28 ft 6 in
Height: 3.43 m / 11 ft 3 in
Wing area: 31.21 sq.m / 335.94 sq ft
Max. speed: 306 km/h / 190 mph
Range: 756 km / 470 miles

Evolved from the Type 141 to meet a Bolivian requirement which was to result, in 1929, in an order for six aircraft, the Type 143 was flown for the first time on 11 June of that year. The Type 143, known unofficially as the Bolivian Scout, differed from the Type 141 in having squared-off wingtips, longer-span, narrow-chord ailerons, a larger cut-out above the pilot’s cockpit, a split-axle undercarriage, hoop-skids under the inter-plane struts and a modified fuselage faired to a broader oval section to mate with a 450 hp Bristol Jupiter VIA nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engine. As with the Type 141, the upper wing centre section was carried above the fuselage on splayed, cross-braced struts, the fuselage being supported above the lower wing by N-type struts. Construction was all metal and armament comprised two 0.303-in (7,7-mm) Vickers guns firing through troughs in the fuselage sides. The first of the six Type 143 fighters for Bolivia’s Cuerpo de Aviation reached El Alto, La Paz, in January 1930, the sixth having been fitted with a Jupiter VII for Air Ministry trials at Martlesham Heath before being re-engined with a Jupiter VIA for shipment to Bolivia. By the time sporadic border disputes between Bolivia and Paraguay in the Chaco Boreal escalated, in June 1932, into full-scale warfare, the Cuerpo de Aviation of the former nation had already written off three of its Type 143s. On 30 September, one of the surviving Type 143s was effectively responsible for the first Paraguayan loss as a result of air-to-air combat – probably the first loss of an aircraft in such circumstances in the history of Latin-American military aviation – when a Wibault 73 received damage that, indirectly, was to lead to its destruction.

Max take-off weight: 1415 kg / 3120 lb
Empty weight: 1019 kg / 2247 lb
Wingspan: 10.36 m / 34 ft 0 in
Length: 8.50 m / 28 ft 11 in
Height: 3.43 m / 11 ft 3 in
Wing area: 31.21 sq.m / 335.94 sq ft
Max. speed: 241 km/h / 150 mph
Ceiling: 6100 m / 20,000 ft