The Supermarine Spitfire was a British single seat fighter, used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries during the Second World War, and into the 1950s. It was produced in greater numbers than any other Allied design. The Spitfire was the only Allied fighter in production at the outbreak of the Second World War that was still in production at the end of the war.

Produced by the Supermarine subsidiary of Vickers Armstrongs, the Spitfire was designed by the company's Chief Designer R. J. Mitchell, who continued to refine the design until his death from cancer in 1937; the position of chief designer was then filled by his colleague, Joseph Smith. Its elliptical wing had a thin cross-section, allowing a higher top speed than the Hawker Hurricane and other contemporary designs; it also resulted in a distinctive appearance, enhancing its overall streamlined features. Much loved by its pilots, the Spitfire saw service during the whole of the Second World War and subsequent years, in most theatres of war, and in many different variants.

The Spitfire will always be compared to its main adversary, the Messerschmitt Bf 109; both were among the finest fighters of their day.

Supermarine's Chief Designer, R.J. Mitchell, had won four Schneider Trophy seaplane races with his designs: (Sea Lion II in 1922, S5 in 1927, S6 in 1929 and S6b in 1931), combining powerful Napier Lion and Rolls Royce "R" engines with minute attention to streamlining. These same qualities are equally useful for a fighter design, and, in 1931, Mitchell created such an aircraft design in response to an Air Ministry specification (F7/30) for a new and modern monoplane fighter.

This first attempt at a fighter resulted in an open cockpit monoplane with gull wings and a large fixed, spatted undercarriage powered by the evaporative cooled Rolls Royce Goshawk engine. The Supermarine Type 224 did not live up to expectations; nor did any of the competing designs, which were also deemed failures. Mitchell immediately turned his attention to an improved design as a private venture, with the backing of Supermarine's owner, Vickers Armstrongs. The new design added undercarriage retraction, an enclosed cockpit, oxygen breathing-apparatus and the much more powerful newly developed Rolls Royce PV12 engine, later named the Merlin.

By 1935, the Air Ministry had seen enough advances in the industry to try the monoplane design again. They eventually rejected the new Supermarine design on the grounds that it did not carry the required eight-gun armament, and did not appear to have room to do so.

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