The de Havilland Vampire was a jet-powered twin-boom aircraft, typically employed in the fighter and fighter bomber roles. Aviation author Francis K Mason referred to it as being "the last unsophisticated single-engine front line aircraft to serve with Britain's Fighter Command"; the Vampire was a relatively straightforward aircraft, employing only manually-operated flight controls, no radar, a simple airframe, and, aside from the propulsion system, made use of mostly conventional practices and technologies. The destinctive twin-boom tail configuration of the Vampire was one of the only non-traditional airframe features when compared to its contemporaries.

In comparison to later aircraft, the Vampire had a relatively disorganised cockpit that in some aspects lacked ergonomic measures; such as the fuel gauges being difficult for the pilot to observe without pulling the control column back. A few controls, such as the low-pressure fuel cock, were known for being difficult to move or were otherwise obstructed by other controls. The pilot was provided with a fairly favourable external view, in part aided by the relatively small size of the Vampire