History of the Vampire
The De Haviland Vampire became Britain's second operational jet fighter on September 20th 1943. The Meteor entered service with 616 Squadron in 1944, but owing to De Haviland's committment to build the Mosquito the Vampire missed operational service during World War 2.
De Haviland's had long been famous for it's range of wooden civil aircraft and had shown with the Mosquito and Hornet that innovative wooden construction could also be applied to very high performance aircraft. Equally innovative, was De Haviland's determination to produce a jet engine of their own design in cooperation with Major F.B. Halford.
The Vampire represented a creative and elegant approach to the problems inherent in producing a first generation jet fighter. De Haviland produced a very small and light airframe utilising mixed wood and alloy construction powered by a single engine. To overcome the power loss of a long jet pipe a twin boom arrangement was selected. The aircraft looked decidely odd, but the arrangement worked fine.
The Vampire F1 entered service in 1946 and in so doing became the first RAF fighter with a top speed of over 500 mph and by virtue of being one of the first jet aircraft set a number of records. In 1948 John Cunningham set a new world altitude record of 59,446 ft, and the same year the Vampire made the first Atlantic crossing by jet. The Vampire was also the first jet fighter to operate from an aircraft carrier. Due to the extreme simplicity and economy of the Vampire's construction the Vampire was exported widely providing a painless introduction to jet flying for many air forces.
The Vampire F3 was an attempt to improve the basic Vampire design by increasing the engine power output and internal fuel capacity alongside wing hard points for external drop tanks. The tailplane was re-designed to increase longitudinal stability and a clear vision hood was introduced as standard. The Vampire F3 replaced the F1 in 1948 with the RAF, and introduced the RCAF to jet fighter's.
In comparison with the Gloster Meteor the Vampire was found to be somewhat underpowered with a poor climb performance and so it was decided to retain the Meteor as an interceptor and develop the Vampire as a ground attack strike aircraft, resulting in the Vampire FB5 which had clipped wings and hardpoints suitable for carrying bombs and rockets. The Vampire FB5 was built in larger numbers than any other single seat version of the Vampire.
With the onset of the "cold war" a pressing need for jet powered night fighter arose to replace the piston engined Mosquito in RAF service. De Haviland's produced the Vampire NF10 as a private venture by essentially mating a Mosquito forward fuselage onto the Vampire fuselage. The Vampire NF10 was operated as a stop gap nightfighter by the RAF until replaced by the Meteor night fighter. The Vampire NF10 was never really popular with it's crews due to the cramped cockpit and lack of ejector seats.
Finally the nightfighter was developed into the two seat trainer Vampire T11 which extended the types life well beyond the expectations of the designers in 1943. The side by side seating arrangement was ideal for teaching with good visibility and the Vampire's inherent stability made the Vampire a very safe training platform. Also, unlike the Meteor trainer the Vampire retained its four 20mm cannon and could be used for tactical weapons training. The RAF operated the Vampire T11 until the 1970's and the Swiss Air Force operated their's until the 1990's!
All in all a grand total of 4366 Vampire's were built in the UK and under license abroad making the Vampire one of the most successful jet fighter's of all time. Today there are a considerable number of Vampire's still flying, (most of them ex Swiss Air Force machines) and it is likely that this remarkably long lived little jet fighter and trainer will grace our skies for many years to come.
