13-foot-span Vickers Wellington

13-foot-span Vickers Wellington

Affectionately nicknamed “Wimpy,” the Vickers Wellington was a RAF medium-range bomber in service before WW II began and still in service after the war ended. This 13-foot-span model is a Tony Nijhuis design and weighs in at just 18 kg. It’s powered by two Zenoah 26cc gas engines and is equipped with Savox servos, Unitracts air retracts and Jeti radio gear. a Affectionately named the “Wimpy” after a rotund hamburger eating cartoon character J Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye series of cartoons, the Wellington was the only bomber brought into service before the war began and that was still in service after the war ended.

From pilot Dave Napper: I believe the model was built by someone down in the West country and had flown quit a few times at events in that area. Mike Donnelly senior of MWM Warbirds bought it to add to his fleet and repainted it.
The Wimpy sat at the back of the shop for a couple of years waiting to be re-radioed and checked out, but at the time his pilot, Mike junior was putting most of his time into large jets so it got put on the back burner.

I bought the aircraft in the spring of 2020 changed the radio from Spektrum to Jeti, sorted out some niggles with the way the wings and elevators were secured and test flew it late July. The Wimpy flies really well but to make it look good it takes up a lot of sky as its not a bank-and-yank type of warbird.

Because of the large wingspan and relatively light loading, it looks best on calm days and gets kicked about in a cross wind, that’s probably why it looks like it was flying sideways in this video. GPS reported that the takeoff speed was 30mph and it tops out at 70mph. Now it’s done and test flown Mike junior wants to buy it back.

Updated: November 12, 2021 — 3:24 PM

3 Comments

  1. Love big models of old British multi-engine designs! Engines sound a little out of synch. Would be great if a radio manufacturer could design a feedback channel where one can monitor each motor’s RPM at the Tx!

  2. nice plane boys

  3. Nice model, but sounds so silly with 2 x 2 strokes , surely needs a couple of small radials or 2 x fourstrokes

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