Vickers Viscount Vickers Viscount The Vickers Viscount was a British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs. A design requirement from the Brabazon Committee, it entered service in 1953 and was the first turboprop-powered airliner. The Viscount was well received by the public for its cabin conditions, which included pressurisation, reductions in vibration and noise, and panoramic windows. It became one of the most successful and profitable of the first post-war transport aircraft; 445 Viscounts were built for a range of international customers, including in North America. The Viscount was a response to the Brabazon Committee's Type II design for
Fixed-wing aircraft went into service with the German Luftwaffe and later in the war the British Gloster Meteor entered service but never saw action — top airspeeds of aircraft for that era went as high as 1,130 km/h (702 mph), with the early July 1944 unofficial record flight of the German Me 163B V18 rocket fighter prototype. In October 1947, the Bell X-1 was the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound. In 1948–49, aircraft transported supplies during the Berlin Blockade. New aircraft types, such as the B-52, were produced during the Cold War. The first jet airliner, the de Havilland