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Supermarine Attacker

1951 COLD WAR X-PLANE

History of Super Ocean Attackers

Supermarine was a long-term partner of the British Air Force, Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy (RN) until the 1950s. With the end of World War II in 1945, the company followed others into the turbojet field and delivered several other notable products, one of which became the short-lived Supermarine Attacker, a compact single-seat single-engine variant . The carrier-based fighter served with the Royal Navy and the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and the Pakistan Air Force during the early Cold War, and was retired in 1954 and 1957.

And in 1964, total production, including three contract prototypes, reached 185 examples by the end.

The Attacker has the distinction of being the Royal Navy's first front-line jet fighter.

Fighter jets were born from the E. 10/44 specification, written in 1944 during World War II (1939-1945), when propeller fighter jets seemed to be at their absolute peak and turbojets were the future in fighter jets the road. An experimental form is needed to test the performance of the new Rolls-Royce "Nene" jet engine. This entry was formed from work on the Supermarine Spiteful, a high-performance propeller-driven fighter prototype considered late in the war (only 19 will be built).

The Spiteful's straight, laminar-flow wings shaped the design lines of the future "Attacker" - leading to the new aircraft being called the "Jet Spiteful," at least for a while.

The Malicious Jet was accepted for further development as insurance for the upcoming Gloucester Meteor fighter jet (detailed elsewhere on this site), which will also rely on an internal turbojet as a power source. To ensure this work went smoothly, the UK Department of Air commissioned Supermarine to provide three complete airworthy prototypes to advance the Jet Spiteful programme.

The order was delivered in August 1944, and the outcome of World War II was still largely in doubt. The aircraft is intended to be stockpiled by the RAF and RAF, the first prototype is intended to be built to RAF standards (i.e. land-based), with subsequent models serving development programmes in the naval form of existing UK carrier operations .

Subsequent contracts covered 24 pre-production vehicles, divided into two service divisions, and arrived in July 1945 - by then the war in Europe had ended (May 1945).

Jet Spiteful was an important stepping stone for British pilots, as it represented one of the earliest forms of jet technology powering available - requiring pilots to understand the nuances of high-speed flight. However, problems in prototype development, in turn, led to delays in planning, which meant that the RAF quickly abandoned the Malicious/Attacker jet, leaving it to the Royal Navy to continue pursuing their first fighter jet.

The RAF ultimately selected 18 de Havilland Vampire fighter jets because they were "ready".

Finally, the prototype (Type 392) finally flew for the first time on July 27, 1946. Nearly a year later, on June 17, 1947, the Navy version (Type 398) followed.

The resulting aircraft became a strange hybrid of the aviation age, using the straight wings and "trailer" landing gear of earlier propeller-driven vicious fighter jets. These main planes are located forward amidships, as was common on older monoplanes of WWII, and have traditional monoplane tails (low-positioned, rear-mounted horizontal planes) mounted aft of the fuselage. With the exception of the principal plane, all presented tail surfaces rely on straight lines that are not swept. The turbojet was concealed in the fuselage in the usual fashion, sucked in through a crescent-shaped air intake spanning the cockpit and expelled through a single port under the tail. The pilot sits under a framed canopy near the nose, which is short and tapered.

Each wing member carries 2 x 20mm Hispano Mark V No. 3 automatic cannons as standard armament.

As a naval fighter tasked with a mission on a British aircraft carrier stranded in space, the Aggressor has limited range "wing flaps" near its wingtips to improve storage space. Additionally, the chassis and structure have been reinforced for harsh carrier operations, and a stern hook has been added under the stern.

During her brief time aboard the Royal Navy aircraft carrier, attackers proved to be reliable, if unremarkable. It had a glaring problem with its "nose-up" stance, which proved to be poor in terms of pilot vision - a WWII-era fighter failure. This limited field of view during deck running maneuvers as well as all important maneuvers of landing. The jet's jet-powered nature, coupled with its nose-up design, also made it impossible to operate as a land-based fighter at soft-terrain airfields, and its overall performance was generally inadequate compared to the fastest propeller-powered fighters. postwar era.

This led the Royal Navy to drop the attacker's offer as a frontline as early as 1954.

Attacker in service as Attacker F.1, based on the Type 398 prototype. 50 were built to the standard, the last 11 were completed as fighter-bombers, hence the designation "FB.1". These special aircraft received provisions for airborne missiles and conventionally dropped bombs at fixed points located under each wing. Facebook.

A refinement of the 1 appeared in the "Attack FB.2", now upgraded to the Rolls-Royce Nene 102 series turbojet and offering slightly better performance - 84 were built to this standard.

When completed, the Attacker F.1 has a 1-crew and a structure with a barrel length of 37.5 feet, a wingspan of 36.10 feet, and a height of 9.10 feet. The curb weight hits 8,435 pounds and the MTOW is 12,215. Propulsion is provided by a single Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet with 5,000 pounds of thrust. This enables a top speed of 590 mph, a range of 590 miles, a service ceiling of 45,000 feet, and a climb rate of nearly 6,350 feet per minute. Standard armament consists of 4 x 20mm Hispano No.

3 Mark V automatic cannons mounted in pairs on the leading edge of each wing main aircraft.

The attacker's last entry was 36 "Type 538" models built for and sold to the Pakistan Air Force in 1953. These are powered by "Nene 4" turbojets and are intended for use as land-based fighter-bombers from prepared airfields.

A swept-back version of the Attacker eventually emerged, the "Type 510", which was eventually developed into the RAF's super-navy Swift jet fighter. This aircraft is described elsewhere on this website.

For the British, the attackers ended up stockpiling no more than four FAA squadrons (one of which was set up as a dedicated training unit). Five Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve squadrons were subsequently equipped with this type.

In Pakistan, the attackers were in the air with the 11th Squadron "Arrow".