[MVDS] de Havilland Vampire

[Phaelen Bleux]

de Havilland DH.100 Vampire
Initial British thought was that any successful jet design would require a pair of engines. Hence, the Gloster Meteor (p. W:MP88) was given preference, and became Britain's first jet fighter. De Havilland chose to pursue a single-engine design, however, creating the DH.100. The design featured a twin-boom tail. This was to keep the rocket tube as short as possible, thereby conserving thrust from the turbojet. (As an unwanted side effect, the tube was mounted low in the fuselage, and would slag the tarmac to lava if the plane sat idle too long.) The RAF became interested in the design, and in 1942 ordered it into production (two years behind the Meteor). Because of this delay, the Vampire arrived too late to see any action in WWII.
In the post war years, however, the Vampire was a very successful design. It served in the RAF from 1946 to 1955. It was used in the air forces of 31 countries, and has been retired by Chile, Zimbabwe, and Switzerland as recently as the 1990s.
The Vampire has a crew of one. It burns 300 gallons of jet fuel per hour at routine usage. A full load of fuel and ammo (not including bombs or drop tanks) costs $321.

de Havilland Vampire FB.Mk 5
Subassemblies: Light Fighter-Bomber chassis with Very Good streamlining +3; Heavy Fighter wings +2; 3 retractable wheels +1.
Powertrain: 3,350-lb. thrust turbojet with 636 gallons self-sealing fuel tanks [Body and Wings]; 4,000-kWs batteries.
Occ.: 1 CS
Cargo: 0 Body

Armor F RL B T U
All: 2/3 2/3 2/3 2/3 2/3
Cockpit: 0/+20 0/+0 0/+20 0/+0 0/+20

Weaponry:
4x20mm Long Aircraft AC/Hispano Mk V [Body:F] (150 rounds each).*
*Linked in pairs, plus additional links can fire all four at once.
2x1,000-lb. bombs or 8x60-lb. rockets or 2x135-gallon drop tanks [Wings:U].

Equipment:
Body: Medium radio and transmitter and receiver, navigation instruments, autopilot, life support, recon camera. Wings: 1,000-lb. hardpoint each.

Statistics:
Size: 31'x38'x9' Payload: 2.55 tons Lwt.: 6.20 tons
Volume: 272 Maint.: 43 hours Cost: $21,600
HT: 8. HPs: 165 Body, 180 each Wing, 15 each Wheel
aSpeed: 548 aAccel: 5 aDecel: 21 aMR: 5 aSR: 2
Stall Speed 102.
gSpeed: 372 gAccel: 19 gDecel: 10 gMR: 0.5 gSR: 2
Ground Pressure Extremely High. No Off-Road Speed.

Design Notes:
This design takes advantage of Very Good Streamlining. Calculated aSpeed was 512 mph; the historical value is shown. The historical wing area (262 sf) and loaded weight were used for performance calculations. Design loaded weight was decreased 13%.
Design payload was 6,679 lbs.; the historical value is shown. An alternate internal tankage of 480 gallons was found; this lower tankage would reduce both the excess in loaded weight and payload. However, as empty weight was only over by 4%, and the increased fuel load fit the chassis and wings, the higher value was used. Historically, fuel capacity was increased in each Mk to extend the range of gas-guzzling turbojet engines.
The design purchases 585 rounds of ammo. The historical value is shown.

Variants:
The DH.100 (1943) was the prototype.
The Vampire F.Mk 1 (1946) was the initial production jet for the RAF, with a 3,100-lb. turbojet. 244 built.
The Sea Vampire was a navalised version of the FB.Mk 5.
The DH.113 was a two-seat night-fighter variant. 95 built.
The DH.115 (1950) was a trainer version.
There is an alphabet soup of versions produced for export or under license.