A British Airways VC.16 pictured from above.
The Vickers VC.16 is a long-range wide-body twin-engine jet airliner built by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd. The VC.16 is powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, seats 255-345 passengers and has a range of 6,200-7,500 nm depending on variant. The VC.16 features light-weight construction-Vickers-Armstrongs lists its materials by weight as 50 percent composite, 20 percent aluminum, 15 percent titanium, 10 percent steel, and 5 percent other. The VC.16 has a "fly-by-wire" control system. The flight systems replaces bleed air and hydraulic power sources with electrically powered compressors and pumps, while completely eliminating pneumatics and hydraulics from some subsystems, e.g., engine starters or brakes. The VC.16 flight deck includes two head-up displays (HUDs) as a standard feature.
Vickers began development of the VC.16 in the early 2000s as a replacement for the aging VC.14. The VC.16 made its first flight on July 18th, 2009 and entered service in October 2010 with British Airways. As of June 2017, Vickers has sold 600 VC.16s.