De Havilland Venom
| DH 112 Venom | |
|---|---|
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| Privately owned Venom FB.50 in flight. | |
| Role | Fighter-bomber |
| National origin | United Kingdom |
| Manufacturer | de Havilland Aircraft Company |
| First flight | 2 September 1949 |
| Introduction | 1952 |
| Retired | 1983 Swiss Air Force |
| Primary users |
Royal Air Force Royal Swedish Air Force Swiss Air Force Venezuelan Air Force |
| Number built | 1,431 (including Sea Venom/Aquilon) |
| Variants | de Havilland Sea Venom/Aquilon |
The de Havilland DH 112 Venom was a British postwar single-engined jet aircraft developed from the de Havilland Vampire. It served with the Royal Air Force as a single-seat fighter-bomber and two-seat night fighter. The Venom was an interim between the first generation of British jet fighters – straight-wing aircraft powered by centrifugal flow engines such as the Gloster Meteor and the Vampire and later swept wing, axial flow-engined designs such as the Hawker Hunter and de Havilland Sea Vixen. The Venom was exported to Iraq, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela.
The Sea Venom was a navalised version for carrier operation.
The Venom was produced as a successor to the Vampire, which had been the second jet aircraft to enter service with the RAF. In 1948, de Havilland proposed a development of the Vampire with a thin wing and more powerful engine as a high altitude fighter, the Vampire FB 8. Although generally similar in appearance to the Vampire, sharing the distinctive twin-boom tail and composite wood/metal structure, the Venom was a completely new design. The proposal was adopted and a Vampire F 1 was converted by fitting the new de Havilland Ghost engine, which was more powerful than the de Havilland Goblin used on the Vampire. As the DH 112, the Venom filled an Air Ministry requirement for a fast, manoeuvrable and capable fighter-bomber to replace the Vampire.
The first Venom prototype flew on 2 September 1949, and the first Venom variant, a single-seat fighter-bomber, entered service in 1952 as the FB 1. 375 were built. The F.B.1 was armed with four 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk V in the nose and could carry either two 1,000 lb (approx 450 kg) bombs or eight RP-3 60 lb (27 kg) air-to-ground rocket projectiles – the heavier bombs being an improvement over the Vampire FB 5. It was powered by a single 4,850 lbf (21.6 kN) thrust Ghost 48 Mk.1 engine.
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