What was wrong with the Swift?

As for the Shorts capacity, I don’t know anything about it, but they hardly churned out hundreds of aircraft post-war.

Which has no bearing on their capacity at all.

Swift Was Not Interim or Junior to Hunter

(Source, at the level of lathes and lumps, is H.Leigh-Phippard, Congress and US Military Aid to Britain (1949-56),Macmillan,1995. Key Dates:

9/9/44: MAP Instruction to Proceed, Nene Jet Spiteful; first flight as VS.510, 13/3/47. Nene P.1040 began with Hawker funds, MoS ITP 1946, first flight 2/9/47. These went to RN as Attacker/Sea Hawk, with part-MDAP funding. RAF did forego 2nd. generation jet fighters after the Medium Bombers were funded end-1947, and was to tart up Meteor/ Vampire. We would not be able to afford flocks of day fighters to disperse swarms of Yaks/MiGs/LaGGs coming at our Zones of W.Germany and Austria after US left with Dewey’s expected election in November,1948, but we began NF/F(AW) (to be Javelin/Lightning). From 4/3/47 we had a Mutual Defence Treaty with France, but her Chief “concurred (USSR) would be in Paris by August.” Bullock,Bevin,P537. But then came Berlin Blockade, Truman’s re-election, founding of NATO, passing by Congress 27/1/50 of US/UK Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement, and 25/6/50 invasion of South by North Korea.

MoS had funded P.1052, then P.1067 (to be Hunter) as swept-wing experiments on 23/3/47 and 25/11/48, alongside comparable VS steps; final VS type VS.541 (to be Swift F.1) was funded as prototype in October,1950, 100 as F.1-5 in November,1950 with part MDAP funds, as were on 20/10/50 200 Kingston Hunter F.1 and 200 AWA Hunter F.2, 140 Swift F.4 in April,1951 from Short’s and 300 more in January,1953. UK’s bid to MDAP for NATO Standard Type production 18/6/52 was for 220 Swifts for RAF, 500 for RBAF/RNethAF, 40 Aquilon, 400 Venom NF for Italy and 200 Venom Trainers for France (L-P,P.103, ref. PRO: FO371/100172, M1029/18). No more Hunters. The first 6 UK types designated as Super Priority for access to the output of ALCOA/ALCAN were Gannet, Scimitar, Canberra, Javelin, Hunter and Swift (we eroded that by extending to 43 types, inc. Comet, Britannia and Viscount!)

V-S reported directly to the Main Board of Vickers Ltd. until 1/1/55 when it became a Division of V-A (A/c) Ltd. MoS cancelled Super Javelins, Swifts and Hunters in hope the basic models might emerge. Their production programmes were spread widely beyond the design centres: Swift wings were from Boulton Paul, Hunter rear fuselages from Pressed Steel, MoS Agency Factory Squire’s Gate was assigned July,1954 to Hawker. Swift F.1 entered RAF service 13/2/54 (56 Sqdn), Hunter F.1 (43 Sqdn), 29/7/54. Be glad you were not the Air Minister watching neither of them offering advantage over our interim Canadair Sabres. Macmillan, faced with this sad state of confusion, chose to abandon point defence, dismantle RAuxAF, and concentrate on covering launch of the Deterrent. As Defence Minister he cancelled Swift F.1-3/P.R.6 23/2/55 and as Chancellor, F.4/5/7(original) 20/3/56. Hunter F.6, 100% initial R&D US MSP-funded 8/54, served him, as PM, as interceptor only 1957-60.

I’ve often wondered, what is the reality of the Hunter being an excellent fighter?
Its close support and ground attack history is excellent, but was it the superb pure day fighter that we often hear?

From most accounts, even though it was a rather lovely looking aircraft and seems to have done well as a GA aircraft, it wasn’t a particularly stand out fighter. The F86 was considered to be a much better pure fighter.

I seem to recall one aviation writer who had worked at Hawkers saying that he got into some trouble with Sir Sidney Camm by suggesting that it would have been a nicer looking aircraft if it had had an extra 2 feet of fuselage ahead of the intakes.

Certainly it had some design problems like the location of the airbrake and the problem of ejected casings actually being forced by the slipsteam to hit the bottom of the fuselage (hence the Sabrinas).

But nothing is perfect and what it lacked in the fighter department it made up for in good looks 🙂

‘We’ is not ignoring anything.
Compared with Hawker and the HS group, Vickers Supermarine had smaller departments.

Well at least its moved from being Supermarine to being Vickers Supermarine now, thats some progress!:D Maybe V-S did have more on their plates at the time than H-S but is it a real reason for the Swifts apparent second place?

I can’t see how the Swift could be considered an interim design, it was ordered as the main RAF day fighter of the era, and afforded ‘Super-Priority’ status, it didn’t get any more important than that with best materials being sent to the companies, with finished aircraft rolling of the production line straight away.
It certainly needed a redesign to make a very successful fighter, even if it was very good low-level PR aircraft.

All true, but the Swift was always the Hunter fill in and back up – the initial orders were 650 Hunters from 1953 and 150 Swifts from 1952. After the end of Korea fighter production was slashed from an intended 50 aircraft *per week* and the decision was taken to moce towards a single type of day fighter.

‘We’ is not ignoring anything.

Compared with Hawker and the HS group, Vickers Supermarine had smaller departments.

The limitations within Supermarine were small design, development, and manufacturing depts. This would effect the descission to start again with the Swift design.

Yet again we seem to be ignoring the fact that they were part of a big company which did not have all those limitations.

I’ve often wondered, what is the reality of the Hunter being an excellent fighter?
Its close support and ground attack history is excellent, but was it the superb pure day fighter that we often here?

Where was it tested as a day fighter; India vs. Pakistan, Jordan vs. Israel? It did not particularly excel in either conflict, though that may have been down to other factors?

The limitations within Supermarine were small design, development, and manufacturing depts. This would effect the descission to start again with the Swift design.
As for the Shorts capacity, I don’t know anything about it, but they hardly churned out hundreds of aircraft post-war.
Hawker were definatley on a better manufacturing capability footing.
The final Swift design really happend by way of so many proceeding designs, Atttacker, VS.510 and VS.535 (amongst others), this really did limit it, and as mentioned above the wing issue was one, but it also had a fuselage designed for the fatter Nene.

I can’t see how the Swift could be considered an interim design, it was ordered as the main RAF day fighter of the era, and afforded ‘Super-Priority’ status, it didn’t get any more important than that with best materials being sent to the companies, with finished aircraft rolling of the production line straight away.
It certainly needed a redesign to make a very successful fighter, even if it was very good low-level PR aircraft.

Lets not forget that the Swift was the first swept wing aircraft to enter service with the RAF, and the first to have reheat.

I’ve often wondered, what is the reality of the Hunter being an excellent fighter?
Its close support and ground attack history is excellent, but was it the superb pure day fighter that we often hear?

But also indicating that there was a potential solution to production limitations for the Swift at Supermarines, so that cannot really be said to be a reason why it was not produced in quantity.

True.

If I recall correctly a lot of the planned production run of Swifts was to be carried out by Shorts in Belfast – indicating production limitations for Supermarine.

But also indicating that there was a potential solution to production limitations for the Swift at Supermarines, so that cannot really be said to be a reason why it was not produced in quantity.

Were they not still part of Vickers at the time? Surely if so the resources would have been available, if required?

If I recall correctly a lot of the planned production run of Swifts was to be carried out by Shorts in Belfast – indicating production limitations for Supermarine.

To All Who Have Replied,
Very mni tks for all yr inputs. I had expected to see most of the ‘reasons’. My intention was to try to find out which of “the usual suspects” came top of the list! Tks also for the reading list (my local library will love me!!)
Yrs Aye
Resmoroh

If you want to know what was actually wrong with the Swift and how it compared with the Hunter try getting hold of a copy of Peter Caygill’s book Jet Jockeys (Airlife 2002) 😉

To quote Nigel Walpole:

In developing what was to become the Swift, Supermarine laboured under many political, military and commercial pressures, sometimes reacting to changing requirements without sufficiently firm or precise guidance or the time to do the job properly…….In his book project cancelled Derek Wood suggested that ‘too much had been called for in too short a time and production aircraft were rolling off the line before a major redesign could be accomplished’. In fact, it is very doubtful whether the ministries were ever inclined, let alone in a position to support a fundamental redsign of the mainplane (as discussed in the RAE memorandum – ed: from December 1950) which was crucial to the survival of the Swift as a high level fighter.

I still find it hard to believe that a company the size of Vickers, despite ongoing Valiant and airliner work (presume we are talking Viscount/Vanguard/early VC10 development?), would have not put their full weight behind a project that could have (potentially) delivered several hundred aircraft ……

Were they not still part of Vickers at the time? Surely if so the resources would have been available, if required?

Part of the problem was that Supermarines were running two super priority projects at the time and the Attacker programme had strung out longer than it should have. Agree – Swift Justice is the place to go!

I’ll second that! Nigel flew the Swift in Germany and his book is very much worth a read. he also flew the RF-101 Voodoo in exchange with the USAF at Shaw. and later the Hunter FR-10. After reading the book you will not deem the Swift a failure ever again………….hence the title.
Try also his book on the Hunter…Best of Breed.

“Swift Justice” by Nigel Walpole , Pen & Sword 2004 explains the whole Swift history . It became a super low level recon machine, after poor performance at high altitude due to an inadequate mainplane on the early versions.

I recommend that you get hold of a copy of “Swift Justice,” by Nigel Walpole; I bought mine at a much reduced price last year. The F.R.5 was flown, by two Squadrons, for 5 years, so it was hardly a failure; down low it had few equals, but it took too long to fix its initial problems.
Edgar

They were, but it seems the fighter division was the poor relative, possibly for good reasons.
I suppose the Bomber programme wasn’t huge after the Valiant had been ordered into service, concentrating on airliner designs taking priority.
Hawker had a massive family that it could rely on with the Hawker Siddely Group