Tuesday 13 December 2022

de Havilland Vampire. Part eight. More Asian users.

The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter developed and manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter employed by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was employed by many users all around the globe, among them, the following ones:
  • Jordan: The British Government offered the Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) 10 Vampire FB.Mk.9 (the tropicalized variant of the FB.Mk.5) in the early 1950s. These machines, ex-RAF ones, were accepted by the RJAF and delivered from November 1955 and February 1956. Once in RJAF hands, the Vampires kept their RAF serials, in spite of having allocated their own serial numbers.
    In July 1955 the RAF gave the RJAF three Vampire T.11 trainers and shortly later in October 1956 Egypt donated seven Vampire FB.52. Two additional Vampire T.11s were supplied in 1960 to assist training as the RJAF had ordered the Hawker Hunter.
    By mid-1958 the Middle East Crisis loomed and there were only six Vampire Fighter-Bomber in service with the RJAF. During the Six-Day War in June 1967, some Vampire were lost on the ground to attacking Israeli aircraft. After the end of that conflict, the last six Vampires remaining were withdrawn from service but the Vampire T.11s were kept in active use until 1972. 

  • Lebanon: The Lebanese Air Force (LAF) was constituted following the guidelines of the RAF and, following advice, they ordered some Vampires. On 24th August 1953 one Vampire T.55 was delivered to convert pilots to jet training. Six additional Vampire FB.52 were also delivered between October 1953 and April 1955. By that date two additional T.55 had been ordered and delivered, together with the last FB.52 in April 1955.
    One T.55 which served as a demonstrator, was sold to the LAF in November 1957. During 1958 the Vampires were used against rebel tribesmen in Shouf Mountains and to patrol the Syrian border and the Bekaa valley.
    Some time later, the LAF acquired some Hawker Hunters together with four Vampires FB.Mk.5 and three FB.Mk.9 which were delivered during May and June 1958. They served until 1964 when they were withdrawn. Some exceptions were employed until September 1974 with one T.55 being used by the Geographical Affairs Directorate.

  • Saudi Arabia: In July 1957 Egypt offered the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) four Vampire FB.52 in order to promote relations between the two countries. That same year Egypt sent further 15 Vampires FB.52 to train Saudi pilots in jet flight before their Lockheed T-33 and North-American F-86 Sabres arrived. The Vampires were written off in as early as 1958, officially because the lack of spare parts. Some of them were left to rot at Jeddah airport. 

  • Ceylon/Sri Lanka: The Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCAF) ordered five Vampire T.55 trainers in 1954. They were built at Chester, Cheshire, and shipped to Katunayake Air Base. Once there, they were believed to be too advanced for the newly founded RCAF and they were returned unopened. The order the RCAF had placed for additional FB.52 fighters was cancelled. The original T.55s were later sold to Finland.

  • Syria: There's not a clear consensus about the actual number of Vampires that Syria received. In 1955 eighteen ex-Italian Vampire FB.52 were delivered to Egypt but, apparently, not every one of them ended up there. Macchi (the Italian licensed manufacturer of the FB.52) revealed that, in 1954, they got an order from Syria for 13 Vampire FB.52 and it was these, probably staging through Syria to Egypt, that were retained.
    In 1956 further 10 FB.52 refurbished by Macchi made their way to Syria (although it's doubtful if any machine arrived) and, later that same year, two Vampires T.55 destined for Syria were held at Hatfield as the British Government imposed an arms embargo on the Middle-East country. Both the FB.52s and the T.55s received Syrian markings and were never released from Great Britain and Italy and were eventually scrapped.








Sources:
1st Hall Park Books - Warpaint 27 - De Havilland Vampire
2nd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_de_Havilland_Vampire_operators


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