Supermarine Scimitar

The Supermarine Scimitar was a British single-seat naval strike aircraft flown only by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, and the final aircraft entirely designed and built by Supermarine. It grew from the Type 505, an undercarriage-less fighter for rubber decks with an unusual V-tail, through the Type 508, which flew on 31 August 1951, to the Type 544, the direct prototype that first flew in January 1956. Powered by two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets mounted side by side in the fuselage, it entered Royal Navy service in 1958 as a low level strike aircraft able to carry nuclear weapons, having been overtaken as a fighter by the Sea Venom and Sea Vixen. A high attrition rate from accidents marked its career, later years saw it used as an aerial refuelling tanker, and it was permanently withdrawn in 1969, replaced by aircraft such as the Blackburn Buccaneer.