The following anecdote about the original Alcock and Brown Vimy is quoted from
Farewell to Wings by
Cecil Lewis (1964):
"It was 1919 and the vogue for long-distance flights was just starting. I had already been in the Vickers civil aviation department for a year. Whether Vickers suggested an Atlantic flight to Alcock and Brown or whether they proposed it to Vickers I cannot remember; but suddenly (it seems now) they were in the office, on the corner of Sloane Street and Knightsbridge, and a lot of work was being done on petrol consumption and long-range tanks for the Vimy. I had nothing to do with the preparations for the flight except to fetch the aeroplane from an aircraft park (where new aircraft were stored) somewhere on Salisbury Plain and bring it back to Brooklands. There it was stripped out and the long-range tanks fitted.
All the details of that remarkable flight are too well known to be repeated here. The Vimy was given to the nation and stands in the Science Museum, South Kensington. When I see it there I like to recall I was the first to fly it, even if only for 40 minutes."
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Perhaps some forumites in the UK could comment on the current status of the original Atlantic Vimy ?!