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De Haviland 110 Sea Vixen FAW2

The De Haviland 110 was submitted to the Air Ministry to fulfill specification F.4/48 for a high performance all weather radar equipped fighter in 1948. Although the RAF chose the Gloster Javalin the Royal Navy had their own requirement for a state of the art fighter to replace the mediocre De Haviland Sea Venom, then in Navy service. Although the DH110 would be the largest and heaviest aircraft to operate from a British carrier it was considered by the Admiralty to be a promising basis for a fleet fighter. A new specification N.131T was written for the new Navy fighter. Like all previous De Haviland Jet fighter's the DH100 employed the twin boom layout of the Vampire and the Venom, but was much larger with swept wings and twin Rolls Royce Avon engines. Although a less radical machine than the Gloster Javalin the cockpit layout was quite unusual with the pilots canopy offset to port and mounted high on the fuselage with excellent visibility, whilst the unfortunate observer was placed in an uncomfortable and dark little compartment to the pilots right, inside the fuselage. later versions had a clear frangible escape hatch above the observer's head which made the observer's station less claustraphobic.

The DH110 first flew from Hatfield in September 1951 piloted by John Cunningham and exceeded the speed of sound for the first time the following year. Tragedy struck at the 1952 SBAC flying display when John Derry was exhibiting the DH110. Arriving with a sonic boom John Derry made a fast low pass over the airfield before decelerating into a tight circuit towards the crowd line. The aircraft was seen to suddenly pitch up then break apart. One of the engines fell into the crowd killing 28 people as well as Derry and his observer Tony Richardson who died in the machine. The crash caused great disruption of the DH110 program before the fault was attributed to a catastophic failiure of the wing leading edge. Much work had to be done on the DH110 before it was ready for production, now named Sea Vixen. The Sea Vixen was the first British fighter to be designed from the outset as a weapons system and did not carry integral guns. Instead, the Sea Vixen carried a wide range of guided missiles, rockets, and bombs for the inteceptor/strike roles.

Early production Sea Vixen's entered service with No 700Y Naval squadron in 1958 in order to complete the Sea Vixens flying and carrier trials. The first operational Sea Vixen squadron was 892 squadron which was formed in 1959. A total of 119 Sea Vixen FAW1's were built before the the definitive production version the Sea Vixen FAW2 started to come off the production line. The Sea Vixen FAW2 had uprated Rolls Royce Avon 208's of 10,000lb thrust, much improved systems, a refueling capability and increased internal fuel tankage housed in the booms which were extended beyond the leading edge. I personally find it rather amazing that during the 1960's the sea Vixen was flown by two Royal Navy jet aerobatic teams each flying five aircraft, "Fred's Five", and "Simons Circus". The Sea Vixen was retired from navy service rather prematurely in the early 1970's and many aircraft, (they had quite low accumulated airframe hours) were used for trials work. As a result, (unlike the Gloster Javalin) one Sea Vixen has survived in flying condition and is a very popular addition to the airshow circuit in the UK and Europe and is a very sprightly performer indeed.

Performance

A top speed of 690 mph
Weight: 41,575 lb's fully loaded
Powerplant: Two Rolls Royce Avon 208's of 10,000 lb thrust each.
Armament: Up to four Red Top AAM's or up to four Microcell rocket batteries or up to four 1000 lb bombs mounted under the wings and twin retractable batteries in the fuselage for 2" unguided AAM's.+