Wingleader Photo Archive 35 - Wellington MkI/IA

As many of you will know, we at Wingleader have been purchasing original photo collections for over thirty years, which of course helps us to produce this outstanding series of books. If you were to ask us which RAF aircraft appears the most in these collections, there’s a clear winner, the Vickers Wellington. Every collection seems to have hundreds of them!

Of course, it was a very advanced and photogenic aircraft of its time, (replacing the antiquated Heyford and other biplanes), and it entered service just as the Press took a renewed interest in the Armed Forces as the country prepared for war.  Another important factor, not widely known, is that the Wellington was the third most produced RAF aircraft in history, with nearly 11,500 examples being built.

With all this in mind, we decided to give the old Wimpy the coverage it deserves, so this first book just covers the very early examples, the Mk.I and Mk.Ia, with plenty more to follow!

As usual, we asked our Bomber Command expert Peter Allam to take on this classic bomber and he has done a cracking job on uncovering some fine details and quirks of these early Mks, including the ‘SCI’ and ‘DWI’ ops.