A DH 100 Vampire at North Shore

I have been aware of John Scott's Vampire that he has been assembling at North Shore over the last several years, but I have not had the opportunity to photograph it completed until I spied its hangar open back on 3 August and John was happy for me to take photos:

John's Vampire is a FB 6 model that was imported into New Zealand way back in February 2001 by Sir Kenneth Hayr who was a retired RAF Air Marshall who divided his time between New Zealand and the UK.

DH 100 FB 6 Vampire c/n 658 was built by the Swiss Federal Aircraft Factory for the Swiss Air Force where it became J-1149.  Upon disposal from the SAF it was registered in the UK on 25/1/91 as G-SWIS to Hunter Wing Ltd of Hurn.  It was cancelled from the UK register on 3/4/97 before eventually coming to New Zealand.  Tragically Sir Kenneth Hayr was killed flying a Vampire in June 2001 at an airshow at Biggin Hill.

The Vampire is powered by a DH Ghost Mk 35 jet engine, but this is now installed in another New Zealand Vampire.

You can see in this photo that it still marked as J-1149 and wears the registration G-SWIS, and also that it is hangared along with a lot of other interesting aircraft from the Don Subritsky collection.