De Havilland Vampire. Part Thirteen. British users, part one.

 

The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second British jet to serve with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the first to do so with a single jet engine. 

Its inception can be traced back to 1941 when, in January, Sir Henry Tizard made an informal approach to the de Havilland company suggesting that they should design a fighter aircraft employing the, back then, revolutionary jet propulsion technology. De Havilland designed, unofficially, a single-engined aircraft with air intakes at the roots of the wings, to feed a central engine. For this commitment, Major Frank Halford (aero-engine designer working at de Havilland) was given access to Frank Whittle's pioneering engine and, from it, Halford adapted Whittle's engine to generate 3.000 lb of thrust, renaming it to Halford H.1 (and would eventually be known as de Havilland Goblin). By April 1941 the first H.1 was successfully tested.

De Havilland's first jet fighter design, named as DH.99, was considered as undetailed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP), however, given the high expectations raised by the company, they gave the project permission to proceed in July 1941. 

The DH.99 was soon modified to incorporate some design recommendations from the MAP and was, therefore, renumbered to DH.100 in November 1941. As the design was considered unorthodox, the authorization for a prototype didn't come until 22nd April 1942, when the MAP issued a specification E.6/41 to cover the work. 

Initially named as "Spider Crab" the DH.100 was entirely developed at Hatfield aerodrome, Hertfordshire, which was de Havilland's private proving grounds. 

The DH.100 was powered by a single jet engine housed in an egg-shaped fuselage which was mainly composed of plywood in the forward section and aluminium in the aft. It had conventional straight wings, which were equipped with air-brakes to slow down the aircraft (feature also present in the Gloster Meteor). It was armed with four 20 mm Hispano-Suiza cannons placed underneath the nose. 

It wasn't until 20th September 1943 when the prototype made its maiden flight at Hatfield. With Geoffrey de Havilland Jr. (company's chief test pilot and son of the company's founder) at the controls. This flight took place six months later than the maiden flight of the Gloster Meteor because the only available jet engine was sent to the United States to replace one that was destroyed on ground at Lockheed, when testing the XP-80 prototype jet fighter, which would eventually become the P-80 Shooting Star. 

Testing of the Vampire's prototype showed some directional instability, but this was solved in production versions by redesigning the tail section. 

The Vampire entered official service with the RAF in 1946, after the war, in the interceptor role. Many were sent to equip the squadrons of the Second Tactical Air Force, stationed in Northern Germany, mainly replacing the Hawker Typhoon, Hawker Tempest and North American Mustang.

The Royal Navy also showed interest on the Vampire after some carrier take-off and landing trials were made on board HMS Ocean (R68) using a modified Vampire in December 1945. In 1947 the Royal Navy placed an order for a navalised version of the Vampire FB.5, which was quickly given the name of Sea Vampire.

Sources:

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

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