Jet-Craft and other DH Vampire executive jet projects

[Jemiba]

Someone in another Forum came up with the Jetcraft Mystery Jet, a conversion of the
DH Vampire into an executive jet. The caption to the photo in Airliners.net
( http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=196893) says, that on was built, a fact
I'm not sure about, as somewhere else I read, that it was only a mock-up . From an
unknown source, I have a drawing, ,showing the engine arrangement of a proposal for a
three engined executive jet, based on the Vampire, but I think, that's not identical to the
Mystery Jet.
Anybody, who has more infos, please ?

 

[lark]

Jemiba,

The 3 engined design is in fact the first -end of 1943- of the design studies
which materialised into the Comet.
It was based on the Vampire but with a span of 80ft. and powered
by 3 early Halford H2 turbojets grouped in the rear of the fuselage.
This aircraft would fly London-New York with 2000lb plus six passengers
or a 1400-mile stage with 1500lb plus 9 or 12 passengers cruising
at 500 m.p.h.

sources : De Havilland Gazette No.103 February 1958 or 59
Air International-April 1977.

 

[Antonio]

Some years ago, Tophe produced this sketch from Lark and Pometablava research

 

[zebedee]

I've been mildly intrigued by this bird for a long time, ever since I saw a photo of the "nearly complete" prototype in Air Pictorial when I was a kid.

Now after doing a little digging this morning there would appear to have been 2 projects based around this idea. The first was a British project lead by a former Handly Page designer, with engineering input from Aviation Traders and Marshalls. A mock up, or static test example was built which ended up at North Weald and being burnt around 10 years ago... theres a couple good threads on the Key forums here...

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21759&highlight=mystery+jet
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54340

The american project seems similar, if a slightly bigger design. However from reading between the lines over the years I have a funny feeling that this project was never more than a scam. From what I can gather the prototype and design rights changed hands 3 or possibly more times, each time a new set of investers being shown the nearly complete prototype as proof of the projects viability... the only snag being that the "prototype" was little more than a fibreglass shell...

Zeb

 

[hesham]

Hi,

the Jet Craft Ltd designed the MJ-III Mystery,jet Vampire derivative,
it was accommodated a six-seat and powered by two GE CJ-610-6
engines.

http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1969/1969%20-%200986.html

 

[Just call me Ray]

The american project seems similar, if a slightly bigger design. However from reading between the lines over the years I have a funny feeling that this project was never more than a scam. From what I can gather the prototype and design rights changed hands 3 or possibly more times, each time a new set of investers being shown the nearly complete prototype as proof of the projects viability... the only snag being that the "prototype" was little more than a fibreglass shell...

Zeb

It doesn't necessarily have to be a scam per se, but a lot of projects are prone to sink from the dishonesty and greed of even a single individual. This seems to happen quite a bit in the aviation industry especially, and the more "wild" the project, the more prone it is to these unfortunate pitfalls - ATG seems to be experiencing this right now.

Hi,

the Jet Craft Ltd designed the MJ-III Mystery,jet Vampire derivative,
it was accommodated a six-seat and powered by two GE CJ-610-6
engines.[/img]

That seems to be a rather extreme "reeingineering" of the Vampire - almost seems more worth it to design something from scratch!

 

[lark]

See also :
www.vintage wings.ca
( Vampires of Las Vegas)
Scroll down for the complete story..

 

[Stargazer]

Original company brochure and ad:

 

[Mark Nankivil]

With thanks to RAP for coming across the brochure on EPay, my fingers could not resist the "Buy Now" button.

Not the two different exhause layouts - two somewhat separate engine exhausts and the other with an exhause reminiscent of the F7U-3 with a pen nib type fairing between more closely spaced exhausts.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[riggerrob]

It would have suffered yaw stability problems as proposed.
With all that extra lateral area forward of the wings, it would need much larger vertical tails than the original military Vampires.
We also wonder how much the large cabin cross-section would "blanket" the horizontal tail.