Halford H1 (Goblin)
The Goblin was designed by Frank Halford and built by de Havilland, initially called the Halford H1 it was renamed Goblin before it entered production. It had a single sided centrifugal impeller and sixteen combustion chambers making it a much larger engine than the Rover/ Rolls Royce W2/B. This meant that DG206 had to have specially modified engine nacelles although delays in the development of the W2/B meant that it was still the first Meteor to fly.
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Although the Goblin was a straight through design like the 2,000 lb Rolls Royce Derwent I it was still very compact design. In addition to DG206 and the Vampire the Goblin was also fitted to the prototype Bell XP-80 with a complete engine shipped to Muroc for installation in the aircraft. After this was mated to the airframe, foreign object damage during the first run-up destroyed the engine, delaying the first flight until a second engine could be delivered.
The Goblin was a very successful design and later versions produced over 3,000 lbs of thrust, its only disadvantage, shared with many early turbojets was high fuel consumption giving the Vampire Mk I a limited range, although this was partly alleviated by increasing fuel capacity in later marks and the development of both jettisonable external fuel tanks and air to air refuelling capability. It would be the first jet engine to power supersonic flight when John Derry exceeded Mach 1 in a DH108 on 9th September 1948. It was later developed into the Ghost and used on the early Comets.