Supermarine Seafire F.XVII
Supermarine Seafire F.XVII
Airfix 1:48
The Supermarine Seafire is a naval version of the Supermarine Spitfire adapted for operation from aircraft carriers. It was analogous in concept to the Hawker Sea Hurricane, a navalised version of the Spitfire's stablemate, the Hawker Hurricane. The name Seafire was derived from the abbreviation of the longer name Sea Spitfire.
The Seafire F Mk XVII was a modified Mk XV; the most important
change was the reinforced main undercarriage which used longer oleos and
a lower rebound ratio. This went some way towards taming the deck
behaviour of the Mk XV, reduced the propensity of the propeller tips
"pecking" the deck during an arrested landing and the softer oleos
stopped the aircraft from occasionally bouncing over the arrestor wires
and into the crash barrier. Most production XVIIs had the cut down rear
fuselage and teardrop canopy (the windscreen was modified to a rounded
section, with narrow quarter windows, rather than the flat windscreen
used on Spitfires) and an extra 33 gallon fuel tank fitted in the rear
fuselage. The wings were reinforced, with a stronger mainspar
necessitated by the new undercarriage, and they were able to carry
heavier underwing loads than previous Seafire variants. 232 of this variant were built by Westland (212) and Cunliffe-Owen(20)
Supermarine Seafire F.XVII, No.767 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, Somerset, England, 1950. (A)
Supermarine Seafire F.XVII, No.807 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Vengeance, 1947. (B)
