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. Also 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. In contrast with the Gloster Meteor which used
a twin engined layout to compensate for the low power offered by the primitive jet engines.
The shape was dictated by the engine. In contrast to the twin-engined Meteor, De Havilland chose a single-engined aircraft and a twin-boom layout adopted to reduce the
length of the jetpipe, in order to get maximum engine performance from the low-powered engines of the time. The fuselage nacelle was constructed from Mosquito-style
plywood sandwich with balsa wood as a stabilising fillingAlmost 3,300 Vampires were built, a quarter of them under licence in other countries.
The Vampire design was also developed into the de Havilland Venom fighter-bomber as well as naval Sea Vampire variants.The Vampire F1 entered service in 1946,
being the first RAF fighter with a top speed exceeding 500 mph, the first jet to take off from and land on an aircraft carrier and in 1948, a new world altitude record of 18,119m
and the Vampire made the first Atlantic crossing by jet.
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.
Tehnical Specifications (Vampire FB.6)
* Crew: 1
* Length: 30 ft 9 in (9.37 m)
* Wingspan: 38 ft (11.58 m)
* Height: 8 ft 10 in (2.69 m)
* Wing area: 262 ft² (24.34 m²)
* Empty weight: 7,283 lb (3,304 kg)
* Max. takeoff weight: 12,390 lb  (5,620 kg)
* Engine:Goblin 3 centrifugal turbojet, 3,350 lbf (14.90 kN)
* Maximum speed: 548 mph (882 km/h)
* Range: 1,220 mi (1,960 km)
* Service ceiling: 42,800 ft (13,045 m)
* Rate of climb: 4,800 ft/min (24.4 m/s)
* Guns: 4 × 20 mm (0.79 in) Hispano Mk.V cannons
* Rockets: 8 × 3-inch "60 lb" rockets
* Bombs: or 2 × 500 lb (225 kg) bombs or two drop-tanks
* DH 100: three prototypes.
* Vampire Mk I: single-seat fighter version for the RAF; 244 production aircraft being built.
* Mk II: three prototypes, with Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet engine. One built and two conversions.
* F.3: single-seat fighter for the RAF. Two prototypes were converted from the Mk 1; 202 production aircraft were built, 20 were exported to Norway
* Mk IV: Nene-engined project, not built.
* FB.5: single-seat fighter-bomber version. Powered by the Goblin 2 turbojet; 930 built for the RAF and 88 for export.
* FB.6: single-seat fighter-bomber. Powered by a Goblin 3 turbojet; 178 built, 100 built in Switzerland for the Swiss Air Force.
* Mk 8: Ghost-engined, one conversion from Mk 1.
* FB.9: tropicalised fighter-bomber through addition of air conditioning to Mark 5. Powered by Goblin 3 turbojet;
326 built, mostly by de Havilland, but also by Fairey Aviation.
* Mk 10 or DH 113 Vampire: Goblin-powered two-seater prototype; two built.
* NF.10: two-seat night fighter version for the RAF; 95 built including 29 as the NF.54.
* Sea Vampire Mk 10: prototype for deck trials. One conversion.
* Mk 11 or DH 115 Vampire Trainer: private venture, two-seat jet trainer prototype.
* T.11: two-seat training version for the RAF. Powered by a Goblin 35 turbojet engine; 731 were built by DH and Fairey Aviation.
* Sea Vampire F 20: naval version of the FB.5; 18 built by English Electric.
* Sea Vampire Mk 21: six aircraft converted from F.3s with strengthened belly and arrester hook for trials of undercarriage-less landings on flexible decks.
* Sea Vampire T 22: two-seat training version for the Royal Navy; 73 built by De Havilland.
* FB 25: FB.5 variants; 25 exported to New Zealand
* F.30: single-seat fighter-bomber version for the RAAF. Powered by Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet; 80 built in Australia.
* FB.31: Nene-engined, 29 built in Australia.
* F 32: one Australian conversion with air conditioning.
* T.33: two-seat training version. Powered by the Goblin turbojet; 36 were built in Australia.
* T.34: two-seat training version for the Royal Australian Navy; five were built in Australia.
* T.34A: Vampire T.34s fitted with ejection seats.
* T.35: modified two-seat training version; 68 built in Australia.
* T.35A: T.33 conversions to T.35 configuration.
* FB.50: exported to Sweden as the J 28B; 310 built, 12 of which were eventually rebuilt to T.55 standard.
* FB.51: export prototype (one conversion) to France.
* FB.52: export version of Mk 6, 101 bouilt; 36 exported to Norway and in use from 1949 to 1957
* FB.52A: single-seat fighter-bomber for the Italian Air Force; 80 built in Italy. .
* FB.53: single-seat fighter-bomber for the Armee de l'Air; 250 built in France, as the Sud-Est SE 535 Mistral.
* NF.54: export version of Vampire NF.10 for the Italian Air Force; 29 being built.
* T.55: export version of the DH 115 trainer; 216 built and six converted from the T.11
de Havilland Vampire
2 replies to this topic
Posted 23 February 2012 - 10:42 AM
Posted 23 February 2012 - 12:09 PM
I really like the looks of this plane
thanks shnbwmn for this sig!
Posted 26 February 2012 - 09:37 AM
The Sea Vampire was also the first jet powered aircraft to land on and take off from an aircraft carrier, flown by Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown RN (HMS Ocean, 1945)
1 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users