Vickers Type 161

The Vickers Type 161 was an unusual single-engined pusher biplane interceptor of the early 1930s, built to Air Ministry specification F.29/27. The specification asked for a stable platform for the Coventry Ordnance Works 37 mm gun, mounted at 45 degrees or more above the horizontal so that the fighter could fly beneath a bomber or airship and fire upward into it. Vickers answered with a pusher layout in the manner of its First World War Gunbus aircraft: unequal-span staggered wings, twin tail booms, a metal monocoque nacelle under the upper wing for the pilot and gun, and a Bristol Jupiter VIIF radial driving a four-blade propeller with an unusual rotating ring fairing. It first flew on 21 January 1931 and went to Martlesham Heath for trials that September, where it flew well and the gun firing tests went smoothly. No order followed, and neither it nor its competitor, the Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter, was developed further. Only one was built.