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
Turboprop the general public press was in the February 1944 issue of the British aviation publication "Flight", which included a detailed cutaway drawing of what a possible future turboprop engine could look like. The drawing was very close to what the future Rolls-Royce Trent would look like. The first British turboprop engine was the Rolls-Royce RB.50 Trent, a converted Derwent II fitted with reduction gear and a Rotol five-bladed propeller. Two Trents were fitted to Gloster Meteor "EE227" — the sole "Trent-Meteor" — which thus became the world's first turboprop-powered aircraft, albeit a test-bed not intended for production. It first flew