Vickers Jockey

The Vickers Type 151 Jockey was an experimental low-wing monoplane interceptor fighter powered by a radial engine, later modified into the Type 171 Jockey II with a more powerful engine and detail improvements. Only one was built. In the late 1920s the idea of the interceptor fighter was forming, and the Air Ministry sought under specification F.20/27 manufacturers to build biplanes and both low- and high-wing monoplanes; Vickers was asked for a low-wing prototype. It was a compact, angular cantilever monoplane built by the Wibault-Vickers corrugated skin all-metal method used on the Vireo, with a 480 hp Bristol Mercury IIA, later a 530 hp supercharged Jupiter VIIF. It was taken to Martlesham Heath for its first flight in April 1930. A rear fuselage vibration was cured after Barnes Wallis redesigned the internal bracing. The sole Jockey was lost in a flat spin on 5 July 1932, crashing at Woodbridge in Suffolk, but its lessons led to the Venom.