Editing Imperial Airways (section)

==Aircraft==
Imperial Airways operated many types of aircraft from its formation on 1 April 1924 until 1 April 1940 when all aircraft still in service were transferred to [[BOAC]].<ref name="Jackson55" />
{{Incomplete list|date=August 2013}}
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="width:95%;"
|-
!width="21%"|Aircraft
!width="10%"|Type
!Number
!Period
!Names
!width="24%"|Notes
|-
|[[Armstrong Whitworth Argosy|Armstrong Whitworth Argosy Mk.I]]|| rowspan="2" |landplane<br />''City class''||3||{{nowrap|1926–34}}
|''Birmingham'' (crashed 1931), ''City of Wellington'' (later ''City of Arundel'') (1934), ''Glasgow'' (retired 1934)||<ref name=Argosy /><ref name="Bluffield213" />
|-
|{{nowrap|[[Armstrong Whitworth Argosy|Armstrong Whitworth Argosy Mk.II]]}}||4||1929–35
|''City of Edinburgh'' (wrecked 1926), ''City of Liverpool'' (wrecked 1933), ''City of Manchester'' (sold 1935) and ''City of Coventry'' (scrapped 1935)||<ref name=Argosy /><ref name="Bluffield213" />
|-
|[[Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta]]<ref name="Jackson52" />||landplane<br />''Atalanta class''||8||1932–41
|''Atalanta'' (sold), ''Andromeda'' (withdrawn 1939), ''Arethusa'' (renamed ''Atalanta''), ''Artemis'', ''Astraea'', ''Athena'' (burnt 1936), ''Aurora'' (sold) and  ''Amalthea'' (wrecked 1938).||For Nairobi-Cape Town leg on South Africa route & [[Karachi]]-[[Singapore]] leg on Australia route.<ref name=Atalanta /><ref name="Jackson52" />
|-
| [[Armstrong Whitworth Ensign]]||landplane<br />''Ensign class''||12||1938–46
|Empire type (27 passengers) ''Ensign'', ''Egeria'', ''Elsinore'', ''Euterpe'', ''Explorer'', ''Euryalus'', ''Echo'', ''Endymion'' and Western Type (40 passengers) ''Eddystone'', ''Ettrick'', ''Empyrean'' and ''Elysian''||''Everest'' & ''Enterprise'' delivered to BOAC. Intended to deliver 1st-class mail to the Empire by air.<ref name="Jackson55" /><ref name="Bluffield213" /><ref name=Ensign>Stroud, June 1988, pp.433–437</ref>
|-
|[[Avro 618 Ten]]<ref name="Bluffield213" />|| rowspan="2" |landplane||2||1930–38
|''Achilles'' (crashed 1938)<ref name="Bluffield213" /> ''Apollo'' ([[1933 Imperial Airways Ruysselede crash|collided]] with radio mast 1933)||licence-built Fokker F.VII 3/m<ref name=Avro />
|-
|[[Avro 652]] ||2||1936–38
|''Avalon'' and ''Avatar'' (later ''Ava'') to RAF in 1938.<ref name="Bluffield213" />||Prototypes for Anson bomber/trainer<ref name=Avro />
|-
|[[Boulton & Paul P.71A]]||landplane<br />''Bodiciea class''||2||1934–36
|''Bodiciea'' (lost 1935) and ''Britomart'' (lost 1936)<ref name="Bluffield213" />||Experimental mailplanes<ref name="BP">Stroud, Aug 1986, pp.433–436</ref>
|-
|[[Bristol Type 75 Ten-seater]]|| rowspan="6" |landplane||2||1924–26
|''G-EAWY'', ''G-EBEV'' (retired 1925)||ex-[[Instone Air Line]] used as freighters
|-
|[[de Havilland DH.34]]||7||1924–26
|ex-[[Instone Air Line]] ''G-EBBR'' (wrecked 1924), ''G-EBBT'' (scrapped 1930), ''G-EBBV'' (scrapped 1926), ''G-EBBW'' (scrapped 1926) and ex-[[Daimler Airway]] ''G-EBBX'' (wrecked 1924), ''G-EBBY'' (scrapped 1926), ''G-EBCX'' (wrecked 1924)||<ref name=DH34 />
|-
|[[de Havilland DH.50]]||3||1924–33
|''G-EBFO'' (damaged 1924 and sold), ''G-EBFP'' (scrapped 1933), ''G-EBKZ'' (crashed 1928)||G-EBFO used for surveys, later fitted with twin floats and sold in Australia<ref name="Bluffield213" />
|-
|[[de Havilland Highclere]]||1||1924–27
|''G-EBKI''||freighter, destroyed in hangar collapse
|-
|[[de Havilland Giant Moth]]||1||1930-30
|''G-AAEV'' (wrecked 1930)||crashed in Northern Rhodesia 2 weeks after hand over.
|-
|[[de Havilland Hercules]]||9|| 1926–35
|''City of Cairo'' (wrecked 1931), ''City of Delhi'' (to [[South African Air Force|SAAF]] 1934), ''City of Baghdad'' (withdrawn 1933), ''City of Jerusalem'', ''City of Tehran'', ''City of Basra'' (to [[South African Air Force|SAAF]] 1934), ''City of Karachi'' (withdrawn 1935), ''City of Jodhpur'' (sold) and ''City of Cape Town'' (sold)<ref name="Bluffield213" />||
|-
|[[de Havilland Express]]<ref name="Bluffield213" /> ||landplane<br />''Diana'' class||12||1934–41
|''Daedalus'' (burned 1938), ''Danae'', ''Dardanus'', ''Delia'' (wrecked 1941), ''Delphinus'', ''Demeter'', ''Denebola'', ''Dido'', ''Dione'', ''Dorado'', ''Draco'' (wrecked 1935), and ''Dryad'' (sold 1938)||All surviving aircraft impressed in 1941
|-
|[[de Havilland Albatross]]||landplane<br />''Frobisher'' class||7||1938–43
|''Faraday'' (impressed 1940), ''Franklin'' (impressed 1940), ''Frobisher'' (destroyed 1940), ''Falcon'' (scrapped 1943), ''Fortuna'' (crashed 1943), ''Fingal'' (crashed 1940) and ''Fiona'' (scrapped 1943).<ref name="Bluffield213" />||1 used as long range mail carrier<ref name=Jackson1973>Jackson, 1973, 433–437</ref>
|-
|[[Desoutter I]]B|| rowspan="6" |landplane||1||1933–35
|''G-ABMW''||Air-taxi No 6
|-
|[[Handley Page Type O|Handley Page O/10]]||1||1924-24
|''G-EATH''||ex-Handley Page Transport but never used
|-
|[[Handley Page Type W|Handley Page W8b]]||3||1924–32
|''Princess Mary'' (wrecked 1928), ''Prince George'' (retired 1929) and ''Prince Henry'' (retired 1932)<ref name=HPW /><ref name="Bluffield213" />||ex-[[Handley Page Transport]]<ref name=HPW />
|-
|[[Handley Page Type W|Handley Page W8f Hamilton]]||1||1924–30
|''City of Washington'' (wrecked 1930)<ref name=HPW /><ref name="Bluffield213" />||Converted to twin engines and redesignated as W8g in 1929
|-
|[[Handley Page Type W|Handley Page W9a Hampstead]]||1||1926–29
|''City of New York'' (sold 1929)<ref name=HPW /><ref name="Bluffield213" />||
|-
|[[Handley Page Type W|Handley Page W.10]]||4||1926–33
|''City of Melbourne'' (sold 1933), ''City of Pretoria'' (sold 1933), ''City of London'' (crashed 1926) and ''City of Ottawa'' (crashed 1929).<ref name=HPW /><ref name="Bluffield213" />||
|-
|[[Handley Page H.P.42]]E||landplane<br />''Hannibal class''||4||1931–40
|''Hannibal'' (wrecked 1940), ''Horsa'' (impressed 1940), ''Hanno'' (wrecked 1940), ''Hadrian'' (impressed 1940)
||(24 passengers) used on long "Empire" routes<ref name=HP42 />
|-
|[[Handley Page H.P.42|Handley Page H.P.42W/H.P.45]]||landplane<br />''Heracles class''||4||1931–40
|''Heracles'' (wrecked 1940), ''Horatius'' (wrecked 1939), ''Hengist'' (wrecked 1937) <!--???-->and ''Helena'' (impressed 1940)
||(38 passengers) on short "Western" routes, ''Hengist'' and ''Helena'' converted to H.P.42E.<ref name=HP42 />
|-
|[[Short S.8 Calcutta]]||flying boat||5||1928–35
|''City of Alexandria'' (wrecked 1936), ''City of Athens'' (later ''City of Stonehaven'') (scrapped), ''City of Rome'' (wrecked 1929), ''City of Khartoum'' (wrecked 1935) and ''City of Salonica'' (later ''City of Swanage'') (scrapped)<ref name=Calcutta />||
|-
|[[Short Kent]]||flying boat<br />''Scipio class''||3||1931–38
|''Scipio'' (wrecked 1936), ''Sylvanus'' (burned 1935) and ''Satyrus'' (scrapped 1938)<ref name=Calcutta />||
|-
|[[Short Scylla]]||landplane||2||1934–40
|''Scylla'' (wrecked 1940) and ''Syrinx'' (scrapped 1940)<ref name="Bluffield213" />||Landplane version of Kent, replacement for lost H.P.42s.<ref name=Scylla>Stroud, Oct 1984, pp.549–553</ref>
|-
|[[Short Mayo Composite]]||flying boat||2||1938–40
|''Mercury'' (scrapped 1941) and ''Maia'' (destroyed in German raid, 1942).<ref name="Bluffield213" />||Long range piggyback [[Composite aircraft]] derived from Short Empire. 
|-
|[[Short Empire|Short S.26 Empire]]||flying boat<br />''C class''||31||1936–47
|''Canopus'', ''Caledonia'', ''Centaurus'', ''Cavalier'', ''Cambria'', ''Castor'', ''Cassiopea'', ''Capella'', ''Cygnus'', ''Capricornus'', ''Corsair'', ''Courtier'', ''Challenger'', ''Centurion'', ''Coriolanus'', ''Calpurnia'', ''Ceres'', ''Clio'', ''Circe'', ''Calypso'', ''Camilla'', ''Corinna'', ''Cordelia'', ''Cameronian'', ''Corinthian'', ''Coogee'', ''Corio'', and ''Coorong''. ''Carpentaria'', ''Coolangatta'', ''Cooee'' delivered but not used, and transferred to [[Qantas]]||provided mail and passenger service to Bermuda, South Africa and Australia.<ref name="Bluffield213" /><ref name=Empire1>Stroud, Dec 1989, pp.763–769</ref><ref name=Empire2>Stroud, Jan 1990, pp.51–61</ref>
|-
|[[Short S.26]]||flying boat<br />''G class''||3||1939–40
|''Golden Hind'', ''Golden Fleece'' and ''Golden Horn''||Built for trans-atlantic service, impressed by RAF before entering revenue service.<ref name="Bluffield213" /> 2 returned to BOAC service and used until 1947.
|-
|[[Short Empire|Short S.30 Empire]]||flying boat<br />''C class''||9||1938–47
|''Champion'', ''Cabot'', ''Caribou'', ''Connemara'', ''Clyde'', ''Clare'', ''Cathay'', ''Ao-tea-roa'' (to [[Tasman Empire Airways Limited|TEAL]] as ''Aotearoa''), ''Captain Cook'' (to TEAL as ''Awarua'').||long range variant of S.23<ref name="Bluffield213" /><ref name=Empire1 /><ref name=Empire2 />
|-
|[[Supermarine Sea Eagle]]|| rowspan="3" |flying boat||2||1924–29
|''Sarnia/G-EBGR'' (retired 1929) and ''G-EBGS'' (wrecked 1927)||ex-[[British Marine Air Navigation]]<ref name="Bluffield213" />
|-
|[[Supermarine Southampton]]||1||1929–30
|''G-AASH''||RAF ''S1235'' on loan for 3 months to replace crashed Calcutta on Genoa-Alexandria airmail run.<ref name="Jackson443">Jackson, 1974, p.443</ref>
|-
|[[Supermarine Swan]]||1||1925–27
|''G-EBJY'' (scrapped 1927)||RAF prototype loaned for cross-Channel service
|-
|[[Vickers Type 170 Vanguard|Vickers Vanguard]]|| rowspan="5" |landplane||1||1926–29
|''G-EBCP'' (wrecked 1929)||on loan from Air Ministry for evaluation
|-
|[[Vickers Vellox]]||1||1934–36
|''G-ABKY'' (wrecked 1936)||cargo/experimental flights.<ref name="Bluffield213" /> Crashed at [[Croydon airport|Croydon]] in August killing pilots and two wireless operators.<ref>[http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1936/1936%20-%202214.html "Commercial Aviation"] ''Flight'' 13 August 1936 p181</ref>
|-
|[[Vickers Vimy Commercial]]||1||1924–25
|''City of London'' (wrecked 1925)||ex-Instone Air Line<ref name="Bluffield213" /><ref name=Vimy>Stroud, Feb 1984, pp.101–105</ref>
|-
|[[Vickers Vulcan]]||3||1924–28
|''G-EBLB/City of Brussels'' (wrecked 1928), ''G-EBFC'' (withdrawn 1924 unused), G-EBEK (loaned from Air Ministry for 1925 Empire Exhibition Display.<ref name="Bluffield213" />)||<ref name=Vulcan />
|-
|[[Westland Wessex (fixed wing)|Westland IV and Wessex]]||3||1931–37
|''G-AAGW'', ''G-ABEG'' (wrecked 1936), ''G-ACHI'' ||2 leased to other operators. IV (G-AAGW) upgraded to Wessex.<ref name=Wessex>Stroud, Dec 1985, pp.657–661</ref>
|-
|}