Vickers Viget

The Vickers Viget, the Type 89, was Vickers' entrant for the first Lympne light aircraft competition, held in October 1923. The Royal Aero Club organised what became the Lympne Light Aeroplane Trials for single-seat aircraft, which it called motor-gliders, with engine size limited to 750 cc to encourage economical private flying and prizes including a total of 1,500 pounds from the Duke of Sutherland and the Daily Mail. The Viget was a small single-bay biplane with constant-chord wings of no stagger, dihedral on the lower plane only, full-span ailerons and folding wings, with a 750 cc Douglas motorcycle engine mounted horizontally. It flew well at Lympne in the hands of Stan Cockerell but won no prizes, and gained publicity when a rocker arm failure forced a landing six miles away and Cockerell folded the wings and pushed it home. Vickers advertised it in 1924 for sports, commercial and training purposes. Only one, G-EBHN, was built and it was deregistered in January 1929.