Vickers Boxkite

The Vickers Boxkite was a small family of Farman-type biplanes tied to the Vickers flying school at Brooklands before the First World War. The Wikipedia article records that the school bought three aircraft from the firm of Hewlett and Blondeau in late 1912 and modified them into Boxkites, which carried the Vickers constructor numbers 19, 20 and 21. The first two used a 50 horsepower Gnome engine and the third a 70 horsepower Gnome, and two of the three were eventually taken over by the Royal Flying Corps. In 1913 Vickers itself built one similar machine with equal-span wings and a rudimentary nacelle, first powered by a Vickers-Boucier 50 horsepower engine and later fitted with a 70 horsepower Gnome. Because most of the aircraft were built by another firm and only modified at Vickers, the type sits between a rebuilt trainer and a Vickers-built machine, and it should not be confused with the Bristol Boxkite.