Supermarine Spitfire F.24

Mechanically the Mk 24 stood close to the Mk 22; historically it stands at the end of a development that had begun with a 1936 fighter. It carried two 33-gallon tanks in the rear fuselage, zero-point rocket fittings under the wings and, on every aircraft, the larger Spiteful tail surfaces, with trim-tab gearing reworked until the handling was fully sorted. Late production machines mounted the shorter, lighter, electrically fired Hispano Mk V cannon.

The F Mk 24 reached 731 km/h and climbed to 9,100 m in eight minutes, putting it among the best piston fighters of its day. The comparison with the start of the line is eloquent: twice the weight of a Mk I, nearly twice the power and an 80 per cent better rate of climb than the prototype K5054. Almost all of it followed from a single decision, replacing the Merlin with the Griffon.

Designed as an interceptor, the Spitfire had long since proved its versatility, and the F.24 took that on as standard. As a fighter it carried four 20 mm cannon, because operational experience had shown that only weapons of that calibre would reliably defeat the armour enemy aircraft had accumulated through the war. As a fighter-bomber it could carry one 500 lb and two 250 lb bombs alongside its rockets.

Eighty-one Mk 24s were completed, twenty-seven of them converted from Mk 22 airframes. The last left the works in February 1948. 80 Squadron flew them until 1952, after which some passed to the Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force, which kept them flying until 1955: the last British combat Spitfires, twelve years after the Battle of Britain.