Supermarine Spiteful

Spiteful
Supermarine Spiteful FXIV, RB517
General information
Type	Fighter
National origin	United Kingdom
Manufacturer	Supermarine
Designer	Joseph Smith
Service	Royal Air Force
Prototypes	NN660, NN664, and NN667[1]
Number built	19 (including the three prototypes)
History
First flight	30 June 1944
Developed from	Supermarine Spitfire
Developed into	Supermarine Seafang

The Supermarine Spiteful was a British fighter aircraft designed by Supermarine during the Second World War as a successor to the Spitfire. Powered by a Rolls-Royce Griffon engine, it had a radical new wing design to allow safe operations at higher speeds and incorporating inwards-retracting undercarriage. Other changes included a larger fin to improve the marginal stability of Griffon Spitfires. Development of the wing was formalised by Air Ministry specification F.1/43; as well as a new aircraft, there was an expectation the wing could be used as a replacement for the elliptical wing on Spitfire production.

The Spiteful was ready for production as the war was ending, but in testing had shown only marginal improvements over existing types, and was now being overtaken by jet-powered designs. Of the original order for 150 Spitefuls, only 19 were built. Meanwhile the Royal Navy opted for a navalised variation of the Spiteful type, the Supermarine Seafang, but few of those were built either. The wing developed for the Spiteful was used for the Supermarine Attacker jet.