02/28/2010. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "Destined to become the RAF's last single-seat, single-piston-engined fighter to enter production, the Tempest F.Mk.II was actually preceded into service by the Tempest F.Mk.V, deliveries of the former not commencing until October 1944. The first of two Tempest F.Mk.II prototypes was flown on 28 June 1943 with a Bristol Centaurus IV eighteen-cylinder radial engine. The production model had the 2,520 hp Centaurus V or VI and an armament of four 0.787 in (20 mm) cannon.

The Tempest F.Mk.II was intended primarily for use by Tiger Force in operations against the Japanese, but these plans came to naught and this version of the fighter was only to see post-war service, 452 examples being built of which the last 300 or so were delivered after WW II. These equipped eight RAF squadrons; 89 ex-RAF aircraft were supplied to the Indian AF from 1947, and a further 24 to the Pakistan AF."