Vickers Wellesley in service
The Wellesley was the first medium bomber design as the RAF rebuilt prior to WWII, and although planned to be replaced by more moderrn types, was still in Middle Eastern service when Italy declared war.
Vickers first flew the model 246 G.4/31 PV monoplane 19 June 1935. After it had absolutely outclassed the biplane version it was unfortunately damaged in a landing mishap and was rebuilt to become the pre-production prototype, now named the model 281 Wellesley.
Vickers were very keen to differentiate their models, and the production aircraft were the model 287 Wellesley.
One of the early Wellesleys was supplied to Bristol modified to become the test aicraft for the new Bristol Hercules engine as the model 289. This aircraft remained as a test aircraft all through the Hercules' development.
The potential of the Wellesley to fit additional fuel tanks was apparent, and 5 aircraft were allocated to the RAF Long Range Development Unit to make an attempt at the longest flight record held by the Soviets (Moscow-San Francisco 10,148km). Without military equipment these aircraft were instead fitted with a tripled fuel capacity, received an optimised version of the Pegasus engine, and a more aerodynamic cowling (which was strangely never fitted to standard aircraft), and various minor modifications for increased reliability for long-range flight to become the model 292 Wellesley. The aircraft were now to be able to take-off at a significantly greater weight, and previous work on designing a fuel dumping system on the Wellesley allowed the aircraft to be able to reland without damage after jettisoning the enormous weight of additional fuel if required. On 7 July 1938 4 aircraft conducted a trial flight from the UK to Ismailia in northern Egypt - a distance of 3600km flown in 15 hours. That night they continued on to fly a triangular course to Basra, past Kuwait, and back to Ismailia. In total the 5 aircraft had just flown over 7000km in 32 1/2 flight hours - with only the refueling stop in Ismailia. After a recuperation, the aircraft flew back to the UK. The aircraft returned to Ismailia and in the predawn darkness on 5 November 1938 three aircraft, with one held back as reserve, took off at double the normal operating weight. The aircraft tracked down the Persian Gulf, across India, down to the Andaman Islands, across Malaya, Borneo and Timor, to land at Darwin after having flown 11,518km in 48hours 5 minutes. This record stood until 1946.
The standard model 287 Wellesleys entered service in UK home squadrons in early 1937. With the Blenheim and Battle the RAF was embarking on a massive moderrnisation and expansion programme, and these new high performance monoplanes were a significant upgrade from their fabric and tube biplane predecessors. The Wellesleys were also sent to Middle Eastern squadrons, but there seem to have been no plans to send them to the Far Eastern squadrons. But unlike the Blenheims and Battles, the Wellesley was only to be an interim aircraft as the larger Wellington and Whitley were planned to replace them, as the Whitley started to do from April 1939.
In East Africa the Wellesleys had mostly replaced Vickers Vincent biplanes, but only 1 squadron had been further upgraded to the Blenheims when the Italians entered the war in 1940. Wellesleys shouldered the fight in East Africa, and as the Italians themselves had also neglected to modernise their East African airforce, the Wellesleys were not outclassed and performed their final mission in Eritrea bobmbing the fortress of Gondar into the surrender of Italian forces in East Africa. The Welleseleys remained in service in Egypt and Palestine on anti-submarine and convoy escort duties until early 1943, when aircaft age and a lack of spares forced their final retirement.