The De Havilland Vampire
An offshoot of the Whittle design was the Frank Halford designed Halford H1. It was more powerful at around 2,300 lbs thrust but also larger and heavier. It consisted of a single sided centrifugal compressor and sixteen combustion chambers with a straight through flow from the inlet at the front to the jet pipe. It's development was not however held up like the W2/B hence it powered the DG206 the first Meteor to fly on the 5th March 1943 beating the Rover W2/B 23 powered DG205 by a week.
The greater power of the Halford H1 later renamed the Goblin made it possible to consider the development of a single engined jet fighter. This design the DH100 Vampire to Air Ministry specification E.6/41 was construted in much the same way as another famous de Havilland design the Mosquito and while wood might seem a strange choice for a modern jet fighter the moulded plywood construction did have the advantage of great strength and low weight. The twin boom design featuring an egg-shaped, aluminium-skinned fuselage was choosen to keep the jet pipe as short as possible although the low mounted engine did mean that a Vampire could not be stationary for long with its engine idling or it would melt the tarmac it was standing on.
VF301 preserved at the Midland Air Museum is the only F. Mk1 Vampire in the UK and one of only two in
the world. It served with 208 AFS, 226 OCU, 595 & 631 squadrons. It ended its operational service after an
accident after which it became a gate guardian for RAF Debden, it was acquired by the Museum in 1973.
The Vampire specification E.6/41 was for two prototypes, design work started at de Havilland works at Hatfield in mid-1942 and the first prototype LZ548 flew at Hatfield on the 20th September 1943 with Geoffrey De Havilland Jr at the controls. In April 1944 it was delivered along with three others to Boscombe Down for handling trials.
The first production F.1 Vampire, TG274 built by English Electric flew on the 20th April 1945 with a square cut tail fin and other modifications to establish the best fin and rudder configuration. Although successful the Vampire was not considered important enough to divert significant production resource resulting in just six reaching the RAF by the end of WWII. The first squadron to operate the Vampire was 247 Squadron at Chilbolton in Hampshire, taking delivery of their first aircraft in March 1946 and becoming operational in April.