AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 104 / 166

Plate 104 of 166 · Early jet age · Carrier fighter

Supermarine Attacker F.1

Attacker F.1, painted as WA473, the Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Supermarine Attacker F.1 and the only Attacker left anywhere, completed at South Marston in July 1951, flown by 702 and 736 Naval Air Squadrons, retired in 1956 to stand at the gate of RNAS Abbotsinch and at Yeovilton since the early 1960s: the Royal Navy’s first jet fighter in squadron service, a single-seat carrier fighter of 36 ft 11 in span with a Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow turbojet fed by two tall D-shaped side intakes, the straight-tapered laminar-flow wing of the Spiteful with a fold just outboard of the four 20 mm Hispano cannon, a bubble canopy, a deck hook and, unusually for a jet, a tailwheel undercarriage, shown standing tail-down with the wings spread (the museum displays it with the outer panels folded): the markings of 800 Naval Air Squadron in HMS Eagle, Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces on the wings and tailplane and a grey spine band along the fuselage over Sky fuselage sides, undersides, fin and rudder, Type D roundels on the rear fuselage, upper wings and under the outer wings, a black side code ‘102’ with ‘ROYAL NAVY’ and ‘WA473’ in small capitals beneath the fin, the deck letter ‘J’ on the fin, black ‘WA473’ serials under the wings, red rescue triangles on the nose and the 800 Squadron crest on the port side.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as WA473, the Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Supermarine Attacker F.1 and the only Attacker left anywhere, completed at South Marston in July 1951, flown by 702 and 736 Naval Air Squadrons, retired in 1956 to stand at the gate of RNAS Abbotsinch and at Yeovilton since the early 1960s: the Royal Navy’s first jet fighter in squadron service, a single-seat carrier fighter of 36 ft 11 in span with a Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow turbojet fed by two tall D-shaped side intakes, the straight-tapered laminar-flow wing of the Spiteful with a fold just outboard of the four 20 mm Hispano cannon, a bubble canopy, a deck hook and, unusually for a jet, a tailwheel undercarriage, shown standing tail-down with the wings spread (the museum displays it with the outer panels folded): the markings of 800 Naval Air Squadron in HMS Eagle, Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces on the wings and tailplane and a grey spine band along the fuselage over Sky fuselage sides, undersides, fin and rudder, Type D roundels on the rear fuselage, upper wings and under the outer wings, a black side code ‘102’ with ‘ROYAL NAVY’ and ‘WA473’ in small capitals beneath the fin, the deck letter ‘J’ on the fin, black ‘WA473’ serials under the wings, red rescue triangles on the nose and the 800 Squadron crest on the port side. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (966 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Attacker F.1 modelled here.

History

The Attacker F.1

The Attacker began as a quick way to get a jet fighter into service. Supermarine took the laminar-flow wing it had designed for the Spiteful, the Spitfire’s intended successor, and put it on a new fuselage built round the Rolls-Royce Nene, with the engine fed by two tall intakes on the fuselage sides behind the cockpit. Because the wing and its undercarriage came from a piston fighter, it kept a tailwheel, which made it one of very few jets to sit tail-down on the ground. The first prototype, TS409, flew on 27 July 1946 with Jeffrey Quill at the controls.

The RAF did not want it, but the Royal Navy did. A navalised prototype with folding wings and a deck hook flew in June 1947, and after a long period of trials the Attacker F.1 joined 800 Naval Air Squadron at Ford in August 1951. It was the first jet fighter to serve with a front-line Fleet Air Arm squadron, armed with four 20 mm Hispano cannon in the wings. The FB.1 and FB.2 fighter-bombers followed, able to carry bombs or rockets under the wings, and the FB.2 had an improved Nene.

In all 182 production Attackers were built, 36 of them for the Pakistan Air Force, which flew a land-based version without the hook and wing fold. Its time at sea was short: the swept-wing Sea Hawk and Sea Venom were already on their way, and the Attacker left front-line Fleet Air Arm squadrons in 1954. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve squadrons flew it until early 1957.

This airframe

Attacker F.1 WA473 (102/J)

WA473The airframe modelled

WA473 is the only Attacker left anywhere. It was completed at Supermarine’s South Marston factory in July 1951 and flew with 702 and 736 Naval Air Squadrons, both training units, before it was retired in 1956. It then stood at the gate of RNAS Abbotsinch near Glasgow, and in the early 1960s it was moved to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, where it is displayed with its outer wing panels folded. It wears the markings of 800 Naval Air Squadron in HMS Eagle: Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces over Sky, Type D roundels, the side code “102” and the deck letter “J” on the fin. The model shows it in that scheme, but with the wings spread to show the shape of the Spiteful wing.

See it at Fleet Air Arm Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Attacker F.1 in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 166 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.