It was a single-engine biplane flying boat purchased to meet a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) demand for a smaller aircraft than the Vickers Viking with a much greater rate of climb, to be suitable for forestry survey and fire protection work.

The design was passed to the subsidiary Canadian Vickers Limited of Longueuil, Quebec (formed in 1911) where Wilfrid Thomas Reid served as Chief Engineer, whose duties included overseeing the creation of all the needed detail drawings.

Visible differences included the wingtip floats, fuel tanks, and external strakes add to the rear fuselage.

The Vedette undertook photographic and forestry patrols satisfactorily and provided a backbone for RCAF flying operations through the lean peacetime years.

(Jack) Caldwell, while testing the aircraft at the Canadian Vickers factory, entered an uncontrollable spin after the engine failed and bailed out successfully over the St. Lawrence River.

A single mark V was refurbished and converted by the factory into the sole Vam and given a new metal hull, as well as a new serial number, the last for a Vedette, but it retained its original RCAF call sign as "ZD."

At least one of the Vedettes (and possibly all six) was lost due to hurricane-force winds, which also caused the loss of two lives when one of the aircraft overturned while on the water.

The Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan provincial governments used ex-RCAF Vedettes extensively for spotting forest fires in the heavily wooded areas of those provinces.

These fragments helped with the creation of blueprints created by a WCAM volunteer who had worked for Canadian Vickers as a junior draughtsman.

The original CF-MAG was built in 1929 and stored until purchased by the Manitoba Government in 1934, along with five ex-RCAF Vedettes (for $1 each) for forest fire patrols.

With plans loaned from the Western Canada Aviation Museum, a group of volunteers from the Vintage Aircraft Restorers undertook the construction.