Fly Past

May 2018 FLYPAST 119

NF.38 VX916 – was rolled out
at Hawarden. It saw no RAF
operational service and was
handed over to the Yugoslav Air
Force in December 1951.
Reconditioned examples for
export continued to be money
spinners for another two years,
while the final version was the
ugly, stretched TT.39 target-tug,
a conversion of the B.XVI.

Last of the pistons

As with the Mosquito before it, the

Hornet fighter began as a private

venture. An entirely new design,

bearing only a familial likeness to

its predecessor, it took in all of the

lessons learned since the ‘Wooden

Wonder’ first flew in 1940.

The fuselage employed the

same production technique as

the Mosquito: moulded ply. The

laminar flow wing combined

wood and metal – its lower wing

skin was aluminium and the top

surface was plywood – and the

Hornet was the first aircraft in

Britain, if not the world, to employ

wood-to-metal bonding.

The prototype, RR915, first flew

at Hatfield on July 28, 1944 and

during trials reached

485mph (780km/h). Entering

service in May 1946, the type was

the fastest and the last of all of

the RAF’s piston-engined fighters,

and also served the Fleet Air Arm

(FAA). The final Hornets left the

factory at Hawarden in 1951.

Jet pioneers

It was to have been called Spider

Crab – but, thankfully, common

sense prevailed and the much

more dramatic name Vampire

was substituted for Britain’s

second jet fighter. The type first

flew at Hatfield on September

29, 1943, just seven months after

the prototype Gloster Meteor had

taken its maiden flight.

The Vampire’s pilot sat in

a pressurised cockpit

immediately in front of the DH

Goblin turbojet, and beneath

him were four 20mm cannon.

To keep the weight down,

the Mosquito’s moulded ply

construction was used to create

the ‘pod’; even in the jet age,

wood still had a place.

Like the Mosquito, the

Vampire became a major cash

cow for DH. More than 3,000

were built, many for export

with licences being granted in

Australia, France, India, Italy

and Switzerland. Development

extended to two-seat night-

fighters and the T.11 trainer

series.

While the later Venom shared

the same ‘pod and boom’

layout of the

Vampire,

it was

“In November 1950 the last of 6,439 British-built Mosquitos, radar-equipped

night-fi ghter NF.38 VX916, was rolled out at Hawarden”

When World War Two ended, de Havilland had turned from a light

aircraft specialist to a giant of the British industry.

Ken Ellis describes the tragedies among its triumphs

Left

Sea Hornet F.20 TT210 of 703 Naval Air

Squadron carrying out deck landing trials on

HMS ‘Illustrious’ in the summer of 1950.