An experimental work was conducted to investigate the characteristics of the onset of flooding in vertical annuli with a direct injection mode using air and water. The onset of flooding was determined by means of pressure drop measurement while the air velocity was increased gradually under fixed liquid flow rates. Data of the onset of flooding were collected for various combinations of the tube size and the nozzle number. A theoretical analysis of the onset of flooding was also performed based on an envelope theory. The result shows that the onset of flooding in small-scale annuli can be predicted relatively well by the theory. A modified Wallis parameter was used to investigate the scaling effect of flooding phenomena in the annuli, indicating a relatively reasonable result. The number of nozzle has no effect on the flooding velocity when liquid was injected through 2, 3, 4 and 6 nozzles but the initiation of flooding was significantly expedited when 12 nozzles were employed for liquid injection.