Sweden thus became one of the first nations with jet fighters in their air force. The early version of Vampire had a very limited endurance, and therefore were of limited use as an air defence asset.
During their first years in service, they had their wingtips clipped, almost to Mk 5 standard, but with a span 1 cm shorter.
When F 13 were reequipped with J 29 Tunnan, their J 28A Vampires were transferred to F 3 at Malmslätt, where they served from 1950 to 1953. Their last years in air force service were at the air force academy, F 20, at Uppsala, where they were retired in 1956.
About 50 of them were exported to The Dominican Republic and Austria.
The wings equipped until 1952 with J 28B were F 8 at Barkarby outside Stockholm, F 9 at Säve outside Gothenburg, F 18 at Tulling outside Stockholm, F 10 at Ängelholm, F 15 at Söderhamn and F 4 at Frösön outside Östersund. Some got them directly from the manufacturer, some from other wings as they were reequipped with Tunnan.
J 28B became outdated as a air defence fighter early on, and remained in front line service as such only until 1955 at F 18 and F 4.
17 were sold to The Dominican Republic in 1957.
Attack armament, apart from the four 20 mm guns, was eight rockets with could be fired in pairs of four at a time.
The designation S 28 was never adopted officially, as they
never got any cameras or other modifications. And as
Spitfire had superior performance in several regards it
would have been useless.
![[Vampire readied for start]](../img/vasteras96/vamp1.jpg)
![[Vampire in the air]](../img/vasteras96/vamp4.jpg)
In 1953 30 de Havilland Vampire Trainer T 55 were
delivered to the Central Flying School F 5, at Ljungbyhed.
Originally they were designated J 28C.
Many of them were passed on to fighter wings.
In 1954, the air force started flight training on jet aircraft. As F 5 still had grass runways, the J 28Cs were based at F 14, Halmstad. In 1956 they moved back to F 5.
The J 28Cs were redesignated Sk 28C-1 (as is proper for a
trainer), a further 15 Vampire T 55s were delivered in
1955-56 and designated Sk 28C-2, as they had different
canopies, fins and avionics. The Sk 28C-1s were rebuilt to
Sk 28C-2 standard, but not redesignated.
In 1959, twelve J 28B were rebuilt into two seat trainers, with front fuselages purchased from England. Their designation became Sk 28C-3.
![[Vampire]](../img/malmen76/vampire-1.jpg)
As the Vampire was very easy to fly, single seaters were
also used as trainers.
Both the single and two-seat Vampires were retired in
1968, after beeing replaced by Sk 60, Saab 105.