de Havilland DH.100 Vampire
The Wooden Jet
“A jet fighter with a plywood nose, straight from the Mosquito's workshop.”
de Havilland · military
De Havilland built the Vampire's egg-shaped cockpit pod the way it built the Mosquito: moulded plywood and balsa. Behind it sat a Goblin turbojet and two slender booms, a layout chosen to keep the exhaust short in the days when a jet lost thrust in a long tailpipe. It was the RAF's second jet fighter and the first to cross the Atlantic. Switzerland flew Vampires until 1990, which is why most survivors wear Swiss roundels.
On 3 December 1945 Eric 'Winkle' Brown landed a Vampire on HMS Ocean, the first time a pure jet had ever landed on an aircraft carrier.
Twin tail booms with a flat tailplane between them and a stubby central pod. If the booms are there and the wing is straight, it is a Vampire; a swept wing with the same booms is a Venom.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Wooden Jet from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
