From wartime specifications to the last Supermarine aircraft

The Scimitar first flew on 19 January 1956, yet its ancestry reached back roughly a decade and a half. Specification N.9/47 produced the Supermarine Type 508, whose lineage ran through the Type 505 to work begun in 1944-45. The aircraft entered service in 1957 and retired in 1969, too late for the Korean War or the Suez Crisis. Its history joined wartime design ideas to the fast-changing postwar jet age. It was also the last aircraft to come from Supermarine as a distinct design company after Vickers acquired the firm.