de Havilland Vampire G-HELV
| Location: Kemble | In Service: 1946-1990 |
| Manufacturer: de Havilland Aircraft Company, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK | Purpose: Single seat/two seat fighter, fighter/bomber and jet trainer |
|
Power Plant: One de Havilland Goblin turbojet developing 3,350lb thrust |
Length: |
| Construction: Wooden fuselage with wood/metal booms and flying surfaces | Maximum speed: 548mph Range: Service ceiling 42,800ft Rate of climb: Wing loading: Thrust/weight: |
Armament: Four 20mm cannon mounted under nose. Capacity to carry 8x60lb rockets or 2x1,000lb bombs
History: Most people, seeing the Vampire for the first time, are astonished at how tiny it is. The short undercarriage accentuates its ground-hugging attitude - so low that the jet exhaust has been known to melt tarmac and burn airport grass! The RAF christened it the Flying Wheelbarrow, and it's easy to imagine picking it up by the booms to wheel it out to the apron. But it's this compactness that makes the Vampire so thrilling to watch. In the absence of other reference points we judge a plane's speed by the time it takes to travel its own length. Which means that, when this tiny warbird makes a low pass at 400+mph, it looks like the fastest-moving object on the planet. The extremely short fuselage, with the tail surfaces carried on twin booms, was a design feature conceived to make the jet pipe as short as possible. The Goblin engine used new, untested technology whose low efficiency meant that too much power was lost when the compressed gases had to negotiate a longer exhaust. It first flew in September 1943, when Geoffrey deHavilland took it streaking skywards on its first test flight. At this time Germany was known to be developing jet aicraft, so Project Spidercrab was hustled through the design process with almost indecent haste. As things truned out, it never met the Messerschmitt Me262A in combat, entering active service in June 1946 with RAF Sqn 247. Much of the Vampire's role was experimental, and it was one of the first aircraft to be fitted with ejector seats.
