De Havilland Vampire. Part Fourteen. British users, part two.

 

Mass production of the Vampire began on 13th May 1944 when an order for 120 Vampire Mk. I was put, and was quickly increased to 300 machines shortly later. Due to wartime requirements for already existing aircraft (namely, the Mosquito) ,production Vampire didn't fly until April 1945. English Electric Aircraft overtook some production at their factory in Preston, Lancashire. At the end of World War 2, just half a dozen were built, and, as mentioned in the previous post, it didn't enter operational service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1946. 

Although many other aircraft types of the war suffered from post-war cuts, resulting in the end of their production lines, this didn't happen with the Vampire. 

The Vampire was a twin-boom jet-powered aircraft. Its design was very basic as it had not radar, had only manually operated controls, a simple airframe and made use of conventional practices and technologies. The twin-boom tail was the most unorthodox feature the Vampire had. Compared to later aircraft, its cockpit was rather disorganized and lacked ergonomic features, such as the fuel gauges being difficult for the pilot to see without pulling the control column back. Some controls were known to be difficult to handle, or were even obstructed by other systems. This was the case, for instance, with the fuel cock. On the other hand, the pilot had a extremely good external view, aided by the small size of the Vampire. 

On 23rd June 1948 the Vampire FB.5, carried out its maiden flight. The first machine on this variant was made from a modified F.3. The FB.5 was powered by the same Goblin III engine of the F.3 but had more armour protection around the engine, wings clipped back at 1 ft (30 cm) and longer stroke main landing gear to better handle bigger take-off weights and provide clearance for either external fuel tanks or additional weapons. The typical payload consisted on a 500 lb (227 kg) bomb under each wing or eight 3 inch rockets stacked in pairs of four attachments inboards of the booms. 

The Cold War theatre where most Vampires were stationed was, by far, Germany. This measure was took as the emerging Cold War climate between the east and the west escalated, specially during the events of the Berlin Blockade or the Korean War. Vampires were also operated by a number of reserve squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force stationed in the British Isles. 

Sources:

1st https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire

2nd Hall Park Books - Warpaint 27 - De Havilland Vampire