Whoopee. A record held by a one-off variant for a whole week until it was demolished by an aircraft that was actually fit for purpose, the American Skyray, and then by the far more effective F-100. The Swift was the shame of Supermarine, a piece of aeronautical rubbish, an embarassment to the RAF and a pointless waste of taxpayers’ money.
I think thats a bit harsh on Supermarine. The Swift was designed at a time when much was unknown about high speed flight. Designed to take an engine that was never produced it was too wide and sluggish but later showed development potential. Supermarine were (and I don’t quite know why) still working with wartime dispersal of design groups and that caused problems of it’s own. Not an outstanding design by any means, but it had its uses, could have/would have/should have, but taking into mind the “learning curve” of the time, there were other designs that were worse.
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