Aeroplane Aviation Archive — Issue 33 The World’s Fastest Aircraft

(Jacob Rumans) #1

(^50) UNITED KINGDOM


S

wift by name, swift by nature. With its
swept-back wings and tail, the Swift
looked futuristic when it first graced
the skies. Indeed, for a short eight-day
period in 1953, the Swift held the distinction
of being the fastest aircraft on the planet.
Its brief moment of glory cannot be denied,
but unfortunately, its operational career was
similarly short-lived.
Given the success of the Spitfire in World
War 2, it was reasonable to expect that
Supermarine would extend its domination in
the post war years with a jet-powered design.
The aircraft that was to become the Swift
evolved from several prototypes based on the
Supermarine Attacker. The final variant of these,
the Type 541, first flew in1951 and to all intents
and purposes constituted the pre-production

Supermarine Swift


Swift – an aircraft designed to replace the
Meteor in the air defence role. Despite its swept
wings, the portly fuselage of the design gave it
a rather ungainly poise and this was reflected in
its performance.
The first production Swift F1 took to the air
in 1953 and the aircraft entered service as a
fighter with No 56 Squadron, RAF Waterbeach,
in February 1954, thus becoming the RAF’s first
swept-wing aircraft. Armed with two 30mm
Aden cannon, it was powered by a Rolls-
Royce Avon 109 turbojet. Almost immediately
thereafter came the F2, the only difference
being the addition of two more Aden cannons.
Handling problems persisted, as did the
unreliability of its engines. Tragedy struck very
early in the career of the Swift and following a
number of accidents the type was grounded.

Above: The record-breaking Swift F4 WK198
was briefly the fastest aircraft in the world in
September 1953. WK198 first flew on 27 May 1953
as an F1 to F4 conversion. On 5 July 1953, it made
a record breaking flight from London to Paris in
19min 5sec. Shortly afterwards it broke the world
absolute speed record at 737.7mph in Libya.
Very little is known of its service career but it did
display at Farnborough and was used by Vickers
for trials. Retired on 1 January 1957 the aircraft is
now on display in the Brooklands Museum.

The resulting afterburner equipped Swift F4
did enter operational service with the RAF
and featured a number of improvements but
the aircraft’s handling was still quite lacklustre
especially at high altitudes. By this time, the
concept of using the Swift as a fighter was
falling out of favour, so the aircraft’s nose was
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