Supermarine Seafang

The Supermarine Seafang was a British naval fighter aircraft powered by a Rolls-Royce Griffon engine and designed by Supermarine to Air Ministry specification N.5/45. It was essentially the Spiteful redesigned for Royal Navy carrier use, with an arrester hook, a contra-rotating propeller to remove engine torque effects and power-folding outer wing panels. The Spiteful itself was a development of the Griffon-engined Spitfire, and by then the Spitfire design was ten years old in a period of rapid change; the Seafang was outmoded by jet aircraft. Two Mark 32 prototypes were ordered in March 1945 and 150 interim Mark 31s in May 1945, but only nine of the interim type were completed before that order was cancelled. The first flew in 1946, and only eighteen Seafangs were built in all.