The Supermarine 224 was a fighter designed to give Britain’s Royal Air Force a new fighter. It’s performance was below expectations so it was not produced, but the lessons learned through this failure were later put to good use.

The Supermarine 224 fighter was designed by R J Mitchell to meet the Royal Air Force’s specifications for a new fighter to replace the Gloster Gauntlet biplane fighter.

This new fighter was to use the Rolls Royce Goshawk engine with an experimental evaporative cooling system which eliminated the need for a drag inducing radiator.

The 224 made its first flight on 19 February 1934 but it’s performance was below expectation and the Goshawk engine gave many problems, so this fighter was not selected for production, and it ended its days on a firing range.

Despite its failure, Mitchell used the lessons learned from the 224 in designing a new fighter that became the Supermarine Spitfire.

This model represents the sole Supermarine 224 in mid 1934.

Heritage Aviation Models 1/72 kit. Completed in October 2014.