That Tallmantz Aviation owned and operated a DeHavilland Vampire jet is but an obscure footnote in the story of the company. Surprisingly, though, what information that is out in the worldwide web and elsewhere about the Tallmantz Vampire and, in a parallel story, two other Vampire jets that were present at Orange County Airport for the better part of a decade, is largely inaccurate. This page is an attempt to separate what is really known from what is conjecture, and present the history of these three airplanes.

The short version for the Tallmantz Vampire: it was an ex-RCAF Vampire Mk. III, RCAF 17072, that carried the civil registration of N6878D. It was purchased by Frank Tallman from an aircraft broker on June 27, 1963. It remained in Tallman’s name and ownership never transferred to Tallmantz Aviation. It was used in a role for at least one television production, an episode of the Kraft Suspense Theater entitled The Kamchatka Incident, that first aired in November 1964. Presumably, the filming of that episode occurred earlier in 1964, probably the summer or early fall. Frank Tallman sold the Vampire, along with a large part of the Tallmantz collection, to Rosen-Novak on February 18, 1966. Though the collection, including the Vampire, remained on display at the Movieland of the Air Museum, Rosen-Novak subsequently conducted an auction on May 29, 1968, to dispose of the acquired collection, and the Vampire was sold to a new owner.

The Pre-Tallmantz History of Vampire N6878D

The FAA registration record shows the N6878D was purchased as RCAF surplus from Crown Assets Disposal Corporation on January 14, 1958, by Fliteways, Inc. of West Bend, Wisconsin. This was part of a purchase by Fliteways of 27 surplus RCAF Vampire fighters; these were all assigned a block of U.S. civil registrations between N6860D and N6886D. In the days before Learjets and Citations, there were no jet powered small aircraft available for the businessman or the sport pilot. Fliteways saw an opportunity to clean up and sell into this untapped market; however, such ambitions were not generally realized and most of the aircraft ended up languishing as unwanted hardware. Nonetheless, a few found new owners including RCAF 17072 that became N6878D.

The Vampire was sold to International Management Consultants of Corton-on-Hudson, New York, on July 24, 1958. No information has come to light about what it was used for or where it was based. As indicated below, some sources presume that N6878D was owned or operated by airshow performer Johnny Skyrocket, but there is nothing in the FAA registration file that indicates any association with any company or individual that John Morgan (a.k.a Johnny Skyrocket) of New Martinsville, West Virginia, was associated with at any time in the Vampires civil utilization. This Vampire has been confused, apparently, with N6876D as it had a similar (but not identical) paint scheme.

(If I am missing something and there is something that definitively ties N6878D to Johnny Skyrocket, I’d love to see it…)

On December 9, 1961, N6878D  was sold to Airplanes, Inc., of Hominy, Oklahoma, evidently an airplane broker. Again, no information about what the new owner did with it or where it was based. On June 21, 1963, about eighteen months later, it was sold (or transferred) to J.B. Terrell of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who all indications suggest brokered the airplane for sale to Frank Tallman a week later. 

Frank Tallman Purchases Vampire N6878D on June 27, 1963

The Vampire was purchased by Tallman on June 27, 1963. The FAA airworthiness file shows it was inspected and issued an FAA airworthiness certificate (first one for the airplane) on July 1, 1963, and the paperwork suggests that this occurred in North Carolina. JD Davis took several photos of N6878D at Orange County in July 1963, shortly after its presumed arrival at Tallmantz, and this is how the airplane looked at that time.

The gold paint scheme has, I think, caused the assumption that this airplane was operated by one Johnny Skyrocket, aka John Morgan, who did fly a similarly painted ex-RCAF Vampire Mk III, civil registered as N6876D, for a number of years beginning in 1958 or 1959. But, it should be noted that N6878D was never registered to John Morgan or any company he was affiliated with. So lacking any actual verifiable information that it was used as a backup to Johnny Skyrocket’s N6876D, this assumption is tenuous at best. (More information about Johnny Skyrocket and the exploits of John Morgan and his Vampires, including the assertion that N6878D was a backup airplane, can be found at this very interesting article by Dave O’Malley.)

The name painted on the nose of the Tallman Vampire, The Golden Eagles, and the basis of the paint scheme is, however, also unknown. The three named civil owners prior to Tallman, Fliteways, Inc. from RCAF purchase in January 1958 to March 1958; International Management Consultants from March 1958 to December 1961; Airplanes, Inc., from December 1961 to June 1963; and the week it was held by broker J.B. Terrell in June 1963, do not provide any information about the source of the paint and markings. Photos of this airplane between 1958 and July 1963 have not been located. There remains the possibility that this airplane was put into this paint and markings by Tallman for a project undertaken immediately after it was purchased (and thus possibly the reason Tallman purchased it?) but no information about this possibility has been located either.

Vampire N6878D Appears in TV’s The Kamchatka Incident

The only confirmed use by Tallmantz of N6878D was for the filming of an episode of TV’s Kraft Suspense Theater. That episode, as noted above, was called The Kamchatka Incident and it first aired on NBC on November 12, 1964. The few details about the episode can be found at IMDB. The story revolves around a USAF transport plane diverted off course by weather to penetrate USSR airspace. It is intercepted by a Soviet fighter that threatens to shoot it down. The USAF transport ends up landing in a remote area of the USSR and the story continues about the travails of the crew and passengers, one of which is a Soviet defector to the U.S. who’s life is now endangered. Unfortunately, details about the aviation hardware used for the filming are scant, other than the use of the Tallmantz Vampire flown by Frank Tallman. Though not documented, no doubt one of the Tallmantz B-25 cameraships, N1203 or N1042B, was used to film the aerial sequences that were shot off the California coast. There was some nice footage of the DC-7 flying over the Channel Islands that showed up in the completed project, as well as quite a bit of footage of the Vampire and DC-7 flying formation.

For as long as the link lasts, the entire episode is available on YouTube.

The reason the episode is notable is that Frank Tallman later told the story about the filming. According to his account, the Vampire was painted in Soviet markings and armed with dummy missiles for the filming. The sequences were shot offshore of southern California, and he then proceeded back to Orange County. Things seemed normal enough until a pair of Marine F-8 Crusaders from nearby MCAS El Toro pulled up beside him. He realized the appearance of his apparently armed Soviet fighter heading toward the heart of Orange County was not a good one and he frantically found the tower frequency for the air base to try to explain what was actually going on. Eventually the Marine interceptors were satisfied and they pulled away to leave him to make his approach into Orange County Airport.

The FAA airworthiness records for the airplane show the initial issuance of the FAA airworthiness certificate on July 1, 1963, and a renewal issuance on July 28, 1964, with the purpose of “Experimental Exhibition.” It was probably after July 28, 1964, that the filming for the TV episode occurred. Tallmantz did not renew that certificate after it expired in July 1965 so the airplane was most likely not flown by Tallmantz after that.

Vampire N6878D Sold to Rosen-Novak

As noted above, it was sold in February 1966 to Rosen-Novak, along with much of the Tallmantz collection, but it remained on display at the Movieland of the Air until May 1968 when sold at auction. The reported sales price of the Vampire at auction? $1,100. And, that’s pretty much the known story of this Vampire in Tallmantz service.

 

In summary, I think these published accounts of this aircraft can be corrected: this Vampire was not owned by Paul Mantz in the 1950s and this Vampire was not flown by Johnny Rocket in his unusual airshow act.

The subsequent history of Vampire N6878D is twisted and does not end well. A gentleman named James Brucker purchased the Vampire at the May 1968 auction for, as noted earlier, the princely sum of $1,100. Ten months after purchase, on April 18, 1969, Brucker ferried the airplane from Orange County to the Barstow-Daggett (California) airport without securing any recorded annual inspection, ferry permit, airworthiness certificate, or other marks of officialdom. He also personally lacked a valid pilot certificate and medical certificate, for all of for which Brucker got into a bit of trouble with the FAA. The airplane, in fact, was impounded at Barstow for several months as things were sorted out. It was sold by Brucker the following year, on September 30, 1970, to Pete Regina, a well-known warbird restorer and operator located at the Van Nuys (California) airport.

Regina reportedly got the airframe and paperwork in working order and he held the airplane for nearly three years. He sold it on June 28, 1973, to Letcher & Associates of Reno, Nevada, but the airplane was based at the Mojave Airport in the high desert north of the Los Angeles basin.

Al Letcher very much enjoyed having the Vampire and flew it from the Mojave airport for about six years. He and fellow Vampire owner Al Hansen, who owned N41J (RCAF 17031) flew together often and they even took a turn around the pylons at the 1978 Mojave Air Races as a demonstration. The airplane gained an RAF paint scheme at the time.

N6878D was then sold in 1979 to John T. Downing of Cummins, Georgia, and went through a number of subsequent owners in the following two decades. Among those owners was ATLO, Inc., of Studio City, California, which just happened to be actor John Travolta’s company. Travolta is a pilot but it is doubtful he ever took the Vampire aloft…it is a single-seater and studio rules being what they are, well, like I said, doubtful.

In December 2002, N6878D ended up with Lake Air, Inc., and based at Placid Lakes Airport in Florida. It was returned to good airworthy condition and flown for several years.

In October 2005, it was sold to Wings of Flight at Rochester, New York. Various reports indicate that Wings of Flight was a flying club based at the Genesee County Airport at Batavia, New York. The Vampire was, according to one account, placed on loan to the Genesee Warbirds Museum.

Vampire N6878D Badly Damaged in Accident.

It was badly damaged in an accident on June 6, 2009, when it landed short of the runway due to an engine failure. The pilot was seriously injured but recovered and continues to fly.

The U.S. civil registration was cancelled on September 10, 2014. The airframe wreckage was stored at the Markham Airport outside of Toronto for several years. The late Al Rubin was the president of Wings of Flight, Inc. and an owner of the Markham Airport, so his finger was on the Vampire for the years it was operated by Wings of Flight and after the accident.

On Februrary 12, 2021, the New Brunswick Aviation Museum at Miramichi, New Brunswick, announced that they had obtained the Vampire RCAF 17072 airframe. The museum’s Facebook posting on that date states:

“The Museum is very happy to announce that Wings of Flight, Inc and the family of the late Major Al Rubin have donated deHavilland Vampire serial #17072 to us. Although the aircraft was badly damaged in a crash in 2009, we plan to restore the aircraft to running condition over the next few years. “

Thus, it is possible the old Tallmantz Vampire might arise once more.