HMS Vindex (1915)

HMS Vindex was a Royal Navy seaplane carrier of the First World War, converted from the fast passenger ship SS Viking, which Armstrong Whitworth built at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1905 for the Isle of Man Steam Packet. The navy requisitioned her on 26 March 1915, bought her on 11 November 1915 and renamed her to avoid confusion with the destroyer HMS Viking. She was 361 feet long, displaced 2,950 tons and made 23 knots on three direct-drive steam turbines, and she had a short flying-off deck forward and a hangar aft that could operate up to seven aircraft. A Bristol Scout flown from her on 3 November 1915 made the first take-off from the deck of a Royal Navy ship by a landplane, and on 2 August 1916 another made the first interception of an airship by a carrier-based aircraft, attacking Zeppelin L 17 without success. She twice tried to attack the Zeppelin base at Tondern, moved to the Mediterranean in 1918 and was sold back to her original owners in 1920. She served again as a troopship in the Second World War under another name and was scrapped in 1954.