Vickers Vixen

The Vickers Vixen was a British general-purpose biplane of the 1920s, designed and developed by Vickers in a number of variants. Vickers designed it in 1922 as a private venture, a two-seat single-bay biplane with a steel tube fuselage and wooden wings, as a possible replacement for the Airco DH.9A and the Bristol F.2 Fighter, building on the unsuccessful wartime F.B.14. Powered by a 450 hp Napier Lion, the first prototype, the Type 71 Vixen I, flew in February 1923 and showed good performance at Martlesham Heath. Later versions included the Vixen II day bomber, the Vixen III with larger wings that raced in the King's Cup, and the Vixen V, of which 18 were bought by Chile, whose wooden wings suffered in the heat of northern Chile. A metal-winged prototype became the Vickers Vivid. The Vixen also formed the basis of the Venture and Valparaiso.