Supermarine Swift
Links, References & Credits
Links
- Supermarine Swift page on Vic Flintham's excellent site.
References - Books & Films
Inspired by a wish to rehabilitate the reputation of the type, Nigel Walpole has produced a very good "I was there" style of book on the Swift, beginning with a brief history of the type's development before moving onto his own experiences and those of others on the FR.5 force. The disaster of the early marks is glossed over somewhat but it is unbeatable for giving you an idea of what life on a Swift recce squadron was like during the Cold War. Colour photos are few and far between, it's mostly monochrome (and some poor quality at that), with a good section of colour profiles in the middle. Well worth getting hold of.
Swift From the Cockpit by Nigel Walpole
ISBN 978 0 0946958 75 7
In many ways this is a more lavishly illustrated and more accessible version of Swift Justice, a softback with larger pages but fewer of them. Lots and lots of photos but only two pages in colour, plus a few colour profiles. An excellent intro to the Swift - follow it up with Swift Justice!
Postwar Military Aircraft 7; Supermarine Attacker, Swift and Scimitar by Philip Birtles
ISBN 0-7110-2034-5
Published by Ian Allan
Buy from Amazon UK
Was for a good while one of very few tomes on the Scimitar, and even then only devotes around a quarter of the book to it. A good number of photos and a good history of the development and service. Somewhat superseded these days but worth getting if you can find a copy.
This film is a fictional account of a UK programme to break the sound barrier and includes a number of scenes where one of the Swift prototypes (VV119) stars as the fictional aircraft called Prometheus. If you ever see it on TV or in the video shop, worth a look for that alone. Also includes scenes showing an Anson, Attacker, Vampire and the very first Comet.
References - Magazines
- The Aeroplane, 9th October 1953: Speed in the Desert - article on the briefly held Swift world speed record.
- Aeroplane Monthly, January 1981: part 1 of Bill Gunston's Handley Page Victor article, including two pictures of HP.88 VX330, the Swift-based aircraft used for testing the Victor's wing design.
- AIR International, May 1997 (Vol 52 No 5): Part 1 of From Spitfire to Swift - article on Supermarine aircraft. Part 1 included a colour picture of a Swift F.2 and some colour side views
- AIR International, July 1997 (Vol 53 No 1): Part 2 of From Spitfire to Swift includes a good history of the Swift programme with some interesting pictures. Worth getting hold of.
- FlyPast, May 1987: part 1 of Rise and Fall of the Swift - very good article on the Swift's development and use with a number of black and white pictures.
- FlyPast, July 1987: part 2 of Rise and Fall of the Swift.
- Scale Aircraft Modelling volume 19 number 5: has a review of the Magna Models 1/72 F.7 kit.
- Scale Aviation Modeller April 1998 (Vol 4 No 4): Not Quite Right! (excellent article article by Richard Caruana with scale plans, colour profiles and a few monochrome photos), Aircraft Sketchpad (good drawings of the cockpit area) and Photo Album (detail pictures of WK281 mostly identical to ones on this site but with the addition of cockpit pictures - though WK281 is gutted in this area so the drawings are more useful).
Credits
This section would have been greatly the poorer without contributions from the following - so many thanks to (in
alphabetical order):
Dave Betteridge, Brian Gardner, Nicolas Godfurnon, Hayden Hamilton, Rick Kent, Zvi Kreisler, Garry Lakin and Kim Raquet.
Thanks also to the following organisations:
FotoImages, Ministry of Defence (RAF), Southampton Hall of Aviation and the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.
Visitor Comments
1 person has commented on this page. This is comment section 1 of 1.
Dave Trill from Denham
Posted at 3:45pm on Sunday, October 16th, 2011
The Mk4 Swift is up for sale on ebay for 1/2 a miliion £ !
BTW - just bought the new in the cockpit book on the Swift by Walpole it's fab