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DH.99 Vampire prototype


steelpillow

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Some of you will know that the famous DH.100 Vampire twin-boom jet fighter began life as the DH.99, an all-metal design proposal. This was later changed to a partial use of wood and redesignated DH.100. Still later it was named the "Spider Crab" and then subsequently renamed the "Vampire".

My "researches" show that DH actually submitted two parallel proposals for the DH.99, both all-metal. The other was this little critter. It had much the same fuselage but a near-delta wing with 45 deg leading edge sweep and 5 deg at the trailing edge. As de Havilland's preferred design, they pressed ahead with it early in order to parallel Halford's H.1 engine development and get something flying before the competition could could get its act together. It was unofficially named the "Vampire" because its small twin fins were colloquially referred to in the design office as "vampire claws". After the Gloster "Whittle" it was only the second British jet to fly. Despite all this, the Ministry's abiding mistrust of tailless types led to the selection of the twin-boom submission. When they discovered that the name "Spider Crab" was a derogatory one dropped on it by a disgusted DH design office, they backtracked and stole the Vampire's name.

The front fuselage and some other bits of this 1:72 model come from a Frog Vampire. The rear fuselage and some of the wing structure come from a lousy rip-off of an Airmodel DH.108 Swallow vac-form that I was once conned into buying. Other bits are scratchbuilt. Essentially I built a supporting frame and covering skin to the wing, much like the real thing. There is a girder running right through the engine bay, behind the undercarriage. Used a mix of plastikard and hacked-about vac-form bits for most of all that. The paint job is a bit dodgy, my camera certainly bends the truth even if it doesn't lie! Most decals are home-printed, the P symbols sent to me by a very kind John R.

dh99Front3Q.jpg?dl=1

dh99FrontUpper.jpg?dl=1

dh99Under.jpg?dl=1

Edited by steelpillow
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Would it have suffered the same problems and fate as the Swallow, I wonder? Interesting effort

John

Good question. The only researcher to fly turned-down tips at any speed was Lippisch, though even "the father of the delta" only tried them on a swept wing. he reckoned that at transonic speeds they tended to flutter so he abandoned them (Northrop tried, but his engine installation let him down). Aileron flutter was the main cause of the Swallow crashes. I like to think that a delta would have been stiff enough to resist wingtip flutter, while the bizarre cross-linking of the DH.99 controls would have led to one set remaining safely usable while another suffered flutter (until it could be cured).

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