Vampire sighting in daylight hours.

[Severance]

Many thanks to chap who was putting the Vampire through its paces today over Kemble, very smooth. Kids loved it and asked me why it was called a Vampire which, of course, stumped me!
Is it me, or do those rear booms look awful flimsy?:bored:

[grusome]

Didn't see the show yesterday (eyesight is limited at 10,000 miles!), but I do have a fond recollection of the local scrap dealer standing on an FB Mk30 boom, swinging away with an axe in an effort to reduce his purchase to a lorry sized lump of aluminium. He had failed with hacksaw and chainsaw at that point. I think he finally used an angle grinder.

I have seen an accidental 8.5g not make any mark on the boom (unlike the wrinkles in the wings).

Don't know why DeHavs chose the name, but they did have a thing with "V"s at the time (Venom, Vixen etc)

[Kitbag]

The DH100 aircraft was originally named Spider Crab! Perhaps Vampire sounds a little more aggressive?

[henry crun]

grusome: The bloke you saw was obviously an amateur compared with the scrap metal chappie I once watched dismantling a Venom 1.
IIRC he paid 80 quid for it, that was complete except for blind flying instrument panel.

With an oxy/acetylene torch he had the tailplane off inside a couple of minutes.
Then the booms came off in a minute or so.
Next he ran the torch around the fairing between the fuselage and the wings.
Then he said "watch this cock, this is me piece of resistance".

He laid on the ground under the wheel well and sawed away at the mainspar with the torch for what seemd like about a minute, until there was a long drawn out creeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak.
At this point he withdrew the torch, listened for a few seconds, then resumed playing the torch on the mainspar for about another 5 seconds or so.

Then he got out from under the wing, stood up, turned the torch off, and as he did so the wing broke the root it all collapsed in a heap. :)

When he did the other wing it was from the top, and not from underneath.

[oncemorealoft]

What was the difference between the Vampire and Venom; was the latter just a souped up Vampire or a much different aircraft?

[Kitbag]

Venom from Vampire

The prototype Venom was converted from an early Vampire 1. Essential differences were wing (slight sweep back) and engine (Ghost in place of Goblin). As the aircraft was developed the differences got more and more pronounced. Probably about as much commonality at the end of the process as there was between a Spitfire I and a Spitfire 24. For DH it was essentially a fairly incremental process of improvement of the basic product providing additional range and capability, as well as developing navalised versions and two seat trainers and night fighters to a higher degree than Vampire.