De Havilland Sea Vixen

what is it?

The de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen is a British twin-engine, twin boom-tailed, two-seat, carrier-based fleet air-defence fighter flown by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The Sea Vixen was designed by the de Havilland Aircraft Company during the late 1940s at its Hatfield factory in Hertfordshire, developed from the company's earlier first generation jet fighters. It was later called the Hawker Siddeley Sea Vixen after de Havilland was absorbed by the Hawker Siddeley Corporation in 1960.

🔎How to recognise it: 2 jet engines · retractable tricycle gear · 15.5 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 1,110 km/htop speed
• size 21.2 tmax take-off weight
• built 151made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 75 years ago, in 1951.
• 🏎️Top speed is 8.5× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 15.5 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 4 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🏔️Can fly 1.7× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1951-09-26

introduced

1959

retired

1972

status

retired

number built

151

role

carrier-based fighter

origin

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

makers

de Havilland Aircraft Company, Hawker Siddeley

engines

2× Rolls-Royce Avon 208 / Avon

crew

2

length

16.9 m

wingspan

15.5 m

height

3.3 m

max take-off weight

21.2 t

top speed

1,110 km/h

range

—

ceiling

14,630 m

landing gear

retractable tricycle gear

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.