de Havilland Vampire. Part Seven. The Vampire in Venezuela.

 

Note: Normally, these Vampires would've been fitted in the previous post. However, due to the character limitation of blogspot, we're forced to split them and put Venezuelan users of the Vampire in a complete new post.

The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter aircraft designed and developed by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was conceived during World War 2 and developed afterwards, with so many users around the world, among them Venezuela.

Back in 1949 the Fuerza Aérea Venezolana (Venezuelan Air Force - FAV) ordered 24 Vampire FB.Mk.5 to replace their ageing Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. The Vampires were shipped and reassembled at Maiquetía and then moved to Boca del Río located at the islands of Nueva Esparta, for test flying and all the work being completed by 1952.

As transitioning from piston engine aircraft to single-seat jets was a big change, a Vampire T.55 trainer was ordered for evaluation purposes, with five more being ordered to be used as weapons and jet conversion training. They were shipped from Liverpool in May 1958.

On 23rd January 1958,  one Vampire Mk.5 was lost to ground fire during the clashes that took part in the 1958 Venezuelan coup d'état. Later, during July 1961 other more modern aircraft types joined the FAV and the Vampires T.55 were re-serialled. Anyway, by 1972 all of them were withdrawn from active service with many of them being sent to museums and/or being used as gate guards. One Vampire T.55 was donated to the Israeli Air Force museum. 

Sources:

1st Hall Park Books - Warpaint 27 - De Havilland Vampire

2nd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire