Conventional but dependable

TECHNICAL DETAILS | VICKERS VARSITY Servicing of an early No 201 AFS Varsity at Swinderby shows well the easy-access ‘petal’-type engine cowlings. AEROPLANE Everything about the Varsity’s design says ‘conventional’, to the point that even specification T13/48, to which it was built, describes it as a “trainer version of military transport to C9/46”, the Valetta. A contemporary Vickers-Armstrongs brochure (undated, but surely late 1949 or early 1950) on the Varsity offered it as “a modern twin-engined multi-purpose military aircraft” before