Hi Matt,
I have taken a look at the Vampire Preservation Group’s website, and like the overall presentation of it, however I would like to correct some of the Vampire History shown. This paragraph describing the NF.10 design is not correct, and has been often quoted unfortunately.
The next version was the two-seater NF10, adapted from the basic design by grafting the Mosquito’s night-fighter ‘bull’ nose onto the smaller Vampire fuselage pod.
The reality is that de Havilland saw the oportunity to design a new two seat fuselage “pod” that could be used as the basis for both a radar equiped night fighter, or trainer. There is no grafting from one type to another, simply a new fuselage to house the required equipment. This new fuselage was mated to the strengthened clipped wings from the FB.5, providing the core of the new type.
I am very familiar with the construction of the vampire and mosquito airframes, and can confirm there is no commonality in the wooden cockpit primary structure used.
Also, it would be interesting to see a little more history on the Goblin engine too as this was a very significant design for DH right from the start. So much so, that the first Meteor to fly did so with an early version of these instead of the Rover engines it should have, because they were underpowered!
Thanks for that david, i shall forward this on to matt so he can ammend the website
cheers 🙂
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