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