Supermarine Spitfire T IX

Although there were wartime conversions of the Spitfire into a two-seat trainer including the one-off modification of a Mk VC by RAF no. 261 Squadron and a Mk IX converted for use as a trainer by the Soviets, the two-seat Spitfire trainer was primarily a postwar programme. In 1946, a Mk VIII (MT818) was the first Vickers-built trainer built as a demonstrator, but in 1948, 10 Spitfire T Mk IXs, were exported to India. In 1951, a further six TR 9 trainers were converted from the standard Mk IX to train pilots for the Irish Air Corps (IAC) Seafire fleet. The Spitfires provided transition training that included gunnery practice since the type was equipped with two .303 Browning machine guns, one in each outer wing bay. Most of the TR 9 aircraft passed to the ground technical training school at Baldonnel where they were used as instructional airframes for the training of aircraft engineers for the Air Corps. Four of the IAC aircraft survived and two went on to join the warbird fleet in the 1970s and later.