For a few days in the autumn of 1953, the fastest aircraft on Earth was British, and it was called the Supermarine Swift. Then the same aircraft became one of the most embarrassing fighters the Royal Air Force ever bought. The Swift is the rare jet that set a world record and flopped — almost at the same time.

It came from Supermarine, the company that had given Britain the Spitfire. Expectations were sky-high. What arrived was a cautionary tale about rushing a fighter into service before it was ready.

Record-breaker

On 26 September 1953, test pilot Mike Lithgow pushed a Swift F.4 across the sky above Libya at 735.7 mph, snatching the world absolute air-speed record. It was a genuine triumph — the last British production aircraft ever to hold the outright speed record. For a nation anxious about the jet age, it was a proud moment.

...and fighter failure

Behind the record lay a troubled aircraft. The Swift had been ordered "off the drawing board" in 1950 as insurance in case the rival Hawker Hunter ran into trouble. It kept a fat fuselage designed for an earlier engine, and it handled badly where it mattered: a dangerous tendency to pitch up, cannon that jammed, and an afterburner that would not relight at high altitude. It simply could not fight effectively above about 40,000 feet.

After fatal accidents in 1954 the early fighter versions were grounded, and the whole affair blew up into a public scandal over millions of pounds spent. By 1955 the Swift's career as an interceptor was over, and the Hunter — the aircraft it was meant to back up — took the job instead.

Redemption at low level

The story has a happier ending than it deserves. The Swift's strong airframe made it a fine low-level machine, so the RAF turned it into the FR.Mk 5, a tactical reconnaissance aircraft screaming across the plains of Germany at treetop height. In that role it even won NATO reconnaissance contests in 1957 and 1959. Retired in 1961, the Swift is remembered as the fighter that couldn't — but also as the record-breaker that briefly made Britain the fastest nation in the sky.

Sources: Wikipedia; Thunder & Lightnings (Damien Burke); Derek Wood, "Project Cancelled"; British Pathé.