The finalized Vampire was designed as a twin boom layout with the cockpit seated in its centralized nacelle along with the engine. Intakes were fitted at the wing roots and aspirated the de Havilland Goblin series turbojet powerplant which exhausted out of the rear of the nacelle through a ring. The booms extended from mid-chord on the monoplane wings which were themselves mid-set along the fuselage sides. Each boom held a small-area vertical tail fin and were connected at the extreme aft of the design by a large-area horizontal stabilizer. While a fighter first, the Vampire was eventually given strike duties as second. Standard armament centered around a battery of 4 x 20mm Hispano Mk.V cannons fitted to the forward fuselage underside. Optional ordnance - up to 2,000lbs - could be carried under the wings (or fuel drop tanks in their place) when provisions were ultimately added. This also included up to 8 x 3-inch 60lb unguided rockets or 2 x 500lb drop bombs.
The F.Mk I fighter model was followed by the F.Mk 3 fighter which was given underwing hardpoints for external stores. Some modifications to the airframe were also accomplished to help improve the aircraft's longitudinal stability. The F.Mk 3 was then followed into service by the FB.Mk 5 development which was a fighter-bomber construct, further modified with a shorter - yet inherently stronger - wingspan for improved ordnance capability. The FB.Mk 5 became the basis for the "navalized" FB.Mk 20 and FB.Mk 21 "Sea Vampires" of the Royal Navy. These featured improved storage capability and a reinforced structure. A Sea Vampire prototype completed a carrier landing (HMS Ocean) on December 3rd, 1945, selling the Royal Navy on the Vampire line for its future carrierborne fighter needs. The FB.Mk 5 spawned the similar FB.Mk 6 and the FB.Mk 50 featuring a variety of deHavilland Golbin and Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet engines. Other Vampire marks went on to serve as "one-off" developmental models or limited production examples.
The FB.MK 9 was a "tropicalized" Vampire modified for the rigors of high-temperature operations particularly in the Middle East and included a cockpit air conditioner. De Havilland completed production of some 326 of these aircraft. Further developments included a side-by-side nightfighter in the form of the NF.Mk 10 to which France received as the NF.Mk 54. Ninety-five NF.Mk 10 nightfighters were produced for the RAF who later sold these as refurbished units to the Indian Air Force during the 1950s. The T.Mk 11 trainer mimicked this same side-by-side style cockpit arrangement as did the Sea Vampire T.Mk 22 series. Australian trainers were the T.Mk 33, T.Mk 34 and T.Mk 35 models. The export two-seat trainer Vampire was sold under the T.Mk 5 designation.
Upon inception, the Vampire was fielded as part of the United Kingdom homeland defense force throughout the early years of the Cold War and served as the nation's first line of aerial defense against expected aggression from the Soviet Union. Vampires served in this role until being replaced by the improved Gloster Meteor F.Mk 8 series. The fighter also served in the inventories of the British Commonwealth nations including Australia and Canada. Furthermore, the Vampire was ultimately offered up for export and customers included countries across both Europe and the Middle East. The Vampire was eventually superseded in the de Havilland family line by the DH.112 "Venom" series, another of de Havilland's jet-powered, twin-boom designs.
The Vampire series as a whole was active in the skies around the world well into the 1980s, a sure testament to her design and value. Without much of an air industry in the post-war world, France undertook local production of the British Vampire through SNCASE (Societe nationale des constructions aeronautiques du Sud-Est - or simply "Sud-Est") at Marseilles and designated their machines as SE 535 "Mistral". Similarly, the Italian firm of Macchi produced some 80 Vampires all their own, as did the Swiss with a production total of 178 aircraft.
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