Photograph:
Vickers Vellore G-EBYX at Cape Don, NT in May 1929 (C McGorey – Northern Territory Library)
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Description:
Commercial utility transport
Power Plant:
One 326 kw (437 hp) Bristol Jupiter IX nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engine
Specifications:
- Wingspan: 23.16 m (76 ft)
- Length: 15.39 m (50 ft 6 in)
- Height: 5.18 m (17 ft)
- Wing area: 131.82 m² (1,419 sq ft)
- Max speed at 305 m (1,000 ft): 179 km/h (111 mph)
- Cruising speed at 914 m (3,000 ft): 129 km/h (80 mph)
- Landing speed: 84 km/h (52 mph)
- Service ceiling: 3,932 m (12,900 ft)
- Rate of climb at sea level: 149 m/min (490 ft/min)
- Time to 3,962 m (13,000 ft): 54 mins 30 secs
- Absolute ceiling: 4,968 m (16,300 ft)
- Empty weight: 2,168 kg (4,780 lb)
- Payload: 1,536 kg (3,386 lb)
- Loaded weight: 4,309 kg (9,500 lb)
History:
The Type 134 Vellore I was designed by Rex Pierson, Chief Designer of Vickers Aviation at Weybridge in Surrey, UK to meet an Air Ministry Specification (34/24). The Vellore I was an impressive aircraft able to carry its own weight in freight or mail. The prototype (G-EBYX) flew for the first time on 17 May 1928 in the hands of Vickers’ chief pilot, Captain E M Scholefield. Flight magazine described it as “one of the closest approaches to a commercial aeroplane that will pay for itself”. At one stage it was allotted the service marking J8906.
Initially the aircraft was fitted with a 326 kw (437 hp) Bristol Jupiter IX engine and on the side of the fuselage had painted “Vickers Armstrong Siddeley Vellore”. Later it was fitted with a 366 kw (490 hp) Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar VI fourteen-cylinder radial engine and in this form was re-designated Type 166. The painting on the side at this time was changed to “Vickers Vellore – Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar engine.”
In December 1928 Fl Lt James Moir of the RAAF Reserve, and Flg Off Harold Quinn, RAAF, who had previously attempted to fly to Australia in a Ryan monoplane but crashed on take-off at Athens, Greece offered to fly the Vellore to Australia so it could be used for demonstrations to civil operators, and the RAAF. For the flight the freight compartment was fitted with extra fuel tanks increasing total capacity to 2,332 litres (513 Imp gals).
The Vellore left Lympne in Kent on 18 December 1928 with the intention of making the trip in two weeks. The crew flew via Marseilles, Rome, Malta and Benghazi, but had engine trouble and had to land at Mersa Matruh in Egypt. This occasioned considerable damage to the aircraft which required a new lower wing and undercarriage. It had to be transported to Cairo and Vickers and Armstrong Siddeley sent engineers and materials to effect repairs. However, it had dashed the hopes of the crew of reaching Australia in two weeks as they did not leave Cairo until 1 May 1929. The trip subsequently continued via Baghdad in Iraq; Bushire and Bandar Abbas in Persia; Karachi in Pakistan; Allahabad andCalcutta in India; Akyab and Rangoon in Burma; Bangkok in Siam; Singapore; and Muntok, Batavia. the Island of Surabaya and Bima on the island of Sumbawa, each in the Dutch East Indies.
On May 18 1929 they were to fly 1,609 km (1,000 miles) to Darwin, NT but did not arrive. Searches were made by the Dutch and Portuguese authorities, and in Australia by aircraft of West Australian Airways and Qantas. On 26 May the aircraft was located by Captain Lester J Brain in a Qantas DH.50J (G-AUHE – Atlanta). The Vellore had had further engine trouble over the Timor Sea 257 km (160 miles) from Darwin and managed to reach the lighthouse at Cape Don, NT on the tip of the Cobourg Peninsula not far from Melville Island, making a forced landing on trees in the dark, the crew mistaking the lighthouse for Port Darwin. The Vellore was badly damaged, the engine and cockpit section being torn off the aircraft.
The crew members were not seriously injured, lived in the lighthouse for eight days until rescued by the steamer SS Kyogle, and were conveyed to Darwin. They were later flown to Sydney, NSW by Capt Lester Brain in Atlanta and the Vellore remained on Cape Don, being abandoned.
In due course James Moir, a pilot, and Harold Owen, a pilot and engineer, went to the scene of the crash and salvaged the engine and instruments. The radio operator on board the SS Kyogle, a licensed pilot in Western Australia, salvaged parts from the Vellore to use as the basis of an aircraft of his own design, which he built from about 1932 in a garage with one James Chalmers. This was a light single-engine monoplane fitted with an Armstrong Siddeley Genet engine, which made its first flight from Maylands aerodrome, WA in the hands of Paul McGinness in March 1935 (dealt with separately).