Supermarine Spiteful
| Spiteful | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Supermarine Spiteful FXIV, RB517 | |
| Role | Fighter |
| Manufacturer | Supermarine |
| Designer | Joe Smith |
| First flight | 30 June 1944 |
| Status | Out of service |
| Primary user | Royal Air Force |
| Number built | 19 (2 prototypes and 17 production) |
| Developed from | Supermarine Spitfire |
| Variants |
Supermarine Seafang Supermarine Attacker |
The Supermarine Spiteful was a British Rolls-Royce Griffon-engined fighter aircraft designed by Supermarine to Air Ministry specification F.1/43 during the Second World War as a successor to the Spitfire.
By 1942, Supermarine designers had realised that the characteristics of the Spitfire's wing at high Mach numbers might become a limiting factor in increasing the aircraft's high-speed performance. The main problem was the aeroelasticity of the Spitfire's wing; at high speeds the relatively light structure behind the strong leading edge torsion box would flex, changing the airflow and limiting the maximum safe diving speed to 480 mph (772 km/h) IAS. If the Spitfire were to be able to fly higher and faster, a radically new wing would be needed.
Joseph Smith and the design team were aware of a paper on compressibility, published by A D Young of the R.A.E, in which he described a new type of wing section; the maximum thickness and camber would be much nearer to the mid-chord than conventional airfoils and the nose section of this airfoil would be close to an ellipse. In November 1942, Supermarine issued Specification No 470 which (in part) stated:
A new wing has been designed for the Spitfire with the following objects: 1) To raise as much as possible the critical speed at which drag increases, due to compressibility, become serious. 2) To obtain a rate of roll faster than any existing fighter. 3) To reduce wing profile drag and thereby improve performance.
The wing area has been reduced from 242 sq ft (22.5 m2) to 210 sq ft (20 m2) and a thickness chord ratio of 13% has been used over the inner wing where the equipment is stored. Outboard the wing tapers to 8% thickness/chord at the tip.
Specification 470 described how the wing had been designed with a straight taper to simplify production and to achieve a smooth and accurate contour. The wing skins were to be relatively thick, aiding torsional rigidity which was needed for good aileron control at high speeds. Although the prototype was to have a dihedral of 3° it was intended that this would be increased in subsequent aircraft. To improve the ground-handling the Spitfire's narrow-track, outward-retracting undercarriage was replaced with a wider-track, inward-retracting system. (This eliminated a weakness in the original Spitfire design, giving the new plane similar, safer landing characteristics, comparable to the Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Mustang, and Focke-Wulf 190.) The Air Ministry was impressed by the proposal and, in February 1943, issued Specification F.1/43 for a single-seat fighter with a laminar flow wing; there was also to be provision made for a wing folding scheme to meet possible Fleet Air Arm requirements. The new fighter was to use a fuselage based on a Spitfire VIII.
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