The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter developed and manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. Development of the aircraft began during the Second World War as an aircraft suitable for combat that harnessed the new innovation of jet propulsion; it was quickly decided to opt for a single-engine, twin-boom aircraft equipped with the Halford H.1 turbojet engine, which was later known as the de Havilland Goblin. Originally ordered as an experimental aircraft only, the decision to mass-produce the aircraft as an interceptor for the Royal Air Force (RAF) was finalised in May 1944.

In 1946, the first production aircraft entered service with the RAF, months after the conflict had come to a close. The Vampire was the second jet fighter, after the Gloster Meteor, operated by the RAF, and it was the service's first to be powered by a single jet engine. Aside from its propulsion system and twin-boom configuration, it was a relatively conventional and unsophisticated aircraft. The Vampire was quickly used to replace many wartime piston-engine fighter aircraft. The RAF operated it as a front-line fighter until 1953, after which the Vampire was primarily assigned to secondary roles such as pilot training as well as ground attack operations, for which dedicated variants of the type were produced.

In 1966, the type was retired entirely by the RAF, having been replaced by more capable jet-powered fighters such as the Hawker Hunter and Gloster Javelin. During its service, the Vampire had achieved several aviation firsts and records, including becoming the first jet aircraft to traverse the Atlantic Ocean. It had been largely successfully upon the export market, having been sold to many other nations and operated by a wide range of diverse air forces around the world. It participated in conflicts including the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Malayan emergency and the Rhodesian Bush War.

Almost 3,300 Vampires were manufactured, a quarter of them built under licence in other countries. The Royal Navy's first jet fighter was the Sea Vampire, a navalised variant which was operated from its aircraft carriers. The Vampire was developed into the DH.115 dual-seat trainer and the more advanced DH.112 Venom ground-attack and night fighter.