SUPERMARINE SEAFIRE FR. Mk.47

Description

The Supermarine Seafire was a naval version of the Supermarine Spitfire adapted for operation from aircraft carriers. The name Seafire was arrived at by abbreviating the longer name Sea Spitfire. The final version of the Seafire was the Seafire F Mk 47 and FR Mk 47. There was no true prototype, instead the first production aircraft PS944 and PS945 served as trials aircraft. As the "definitive" carrier based Seafire the Mk 47 incorporated several refinements over earlier variants. After the first four aircraft, with manually folded wings, the Mk 47 incorporated hydraulically powered wing folding, the outer wings folding upwards in one piece, without the folding wingtips of earlier marks. All Mk 47s adopted the Rotol contra-rotating propellers. The Seafire 47 saw action with 800 Squadron on board HMS Triumph during the Malayan Emergency of 1949 and during the Korean War in 1950. However, in 1951 all Seafires were withdrawn from front-line service. In all 90 F Mk 47s and FR Mk 47s were built, all by Supermarine. The last aircraft of the 22,000 of the entire Spitfire/Seafire lineage VR971 left the production line at Supermarine on 28 January 1949. (Scale : 1/72e)