The Vampire Plane That Changed Aviation Forever

Absolute joy to see one of these flying at the RAF Museum Duxford this year. Stunning silhouette and sound. So iconic.

My late father did his national service, with the RAF, as a Vampire jet airframe fitter with 249 squadron, based in Egypt from 1950 to 1953.

Hey Dark Skies, can you do a video of the Hawker Hunter? It's one of my favourite 1950's plane along with the B-58 Hustler

De Havilland doing De Havillandy things yet again . A Beautiful and Elegant Fighter from the Nursery Years of Jet Power .

It was a golden era for British military jet aviation: the Meteor, Vampire, Hunter, Vulcan, Buccaneer, Canberra, Harrier and others. All had their design origins in the 1940s and 1950s. All flown and operated for decades by airforces around the world, both the Harrier and Canberra became important to the USAAF. An era that is completely gone now.

In January 1941, Sir Henry Tizard made an informal approach to the de Havilland Aircraft Company, suggesting that the company proceed to design a fighter aircraft that would use the revolutionary new jet propulsion technology then under development, not 1914!

We still have one of these Vampires flying in Norway. Also a Mig 15. Awesome aircraft.

Having flown the T11, FB 9 and Hawker Hunter FGA 9 in the Rhodesian Airforce, I can say that they were really pleasant to fly, the Hunter was the finest in the air to ground attack role in operations in the Bush War.

4:13 The P-38 was not the only other fighter with twin boom design. The P-61 Black Widow night fighter also had a twin boom design. Yes it was as big as a light bomber but its designation and role was definitely a fighter.

The writer Fredrick Forsythe, the author of The Day of the Jackal flew the Vampire while in the RAF. In his novella Sheppard he writes about an incident where the pilot goes through a systems failure while flying from Germany to Britain in a Vampire, only to be saved by someone flying a Mosquito bomber (don't want to spoil it). Its an interesting read because Forsythe shows you the details that go into flying this kind of craft.

I was at the Mildenhall Airshow when one of these collided with a Meteor. A sad loss of pilot and planes. I can't get over how tiny the Vampires and Foland Gnats were, you could run over them in a Lightning if you weren't careful. If you haven't already found it, look up "cart start" and see one started by a glorified shotgun cartridge.

Great doco on a great little fighter jet. Thanks for all your work. I grew up watching them fly over our home in the mid to late 50's. Our house was only three miles from Richmond's RAAF Willberforce air force base. Home of the Canberra, Vampire and the landing place of the first non stop flight from England to Australia, by that other famous giant jet bomber, the iconic Avro Vulcan. We went to watch the landing and later the almost vertical takeoff of this wonderful plane. I used to lie on our back lawn and watch the Vampires screaming overhead on their way toward Sidney and their daily exercises. Great memories of a 'plane loving kid. 😁😁

I stumbled across the Vampire at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville Oregon (parked under the wing of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the "Spruce Goose"). I was struck by how small/compact, and low this airplane was. I thought it was very attractive, loved the twin-tail boom design, and wondered if anyone was able to own one privately. Anyway, what a cool design and I'm glad it served well during the very early stages of jet aviation.

I sat in one years ago. Absolutely scary being shoehorned into that tiny cockpit realizing you could go that fast, or even 200MPH. More like some daredevil contraption. On par with the ME109.

Growing up in the UK about 3 miles from RAF Thornaby, I saw these everyday and Meteors , wonderful aircraft.

Vampire was also the first jet fighter of the Finnish Air Force replacing the aging Messerschmitt BF-109 G-6 fighters in the mid 1950´s.

great to see the SAAF Museum Airforce Base Swartkop Vampire in your video...one of the best preserved in the world

I went to Boarding School in Reading, Berks. At the Entrance to the school was a Vampire jet! It was just a shell, but inspired me into aerodynamics that I later studied at Farnborough, Hants. Love that Plane!! ❤

Thank you for the video. My name is Mario, I am from Chile (South America). Our first jet engine aircraft for the Chilean Air Force, was vampires. Widely loved and remembered jets for pilots and crews.

I watched a restored vampire jet take it's maden first flight at Van Nuys airport, in Calif. I have super 8 film footage of it too. Darryl Greenamyer and Clay Lacy took out their P-51's and escorted the vampire after take off. When the vampire put the throttle full open, it quickly left the P-51's behind! It's a beautiful aircraft!