[1] The Scimitar was developed out of an earlier effort, internally designated Type 505, an undercarriage-less fighter aircraft intended to be flown from rubber decks.

Much of the aircraft's features, including its unorthodox V-tail (or "butterfly tail") and its thin straight wing, were shared with this ancestor; however, the Admiralty reconsidered their requirements and specified a conventional undercarriage be used.

Work on what would eventually lead to the Scimitar officially commenced in 1945 following the release of a requirement for an undercarriage-less fighter aircraft, which was intended to land on flexible "sprung" rubber decks.

Specifically, the weight reduction achieved by eliminating the reinforced undercarriage used on naval aircraft would lead to substantially great rates of climb and acceleration.

[1] Seeking to keep the airframe compact and fairly lightweight, it was also desirable to adopt the most powerful powerplants available while restricting its diameter and thus its overall size; it was promptly determined that placing a pair of engines in a side-by-side configuration resulted in a relatively flat fuselage cross-section that generated favourable characteristics for undercarriage-less landings.

[4] On 31 August 1951, the first Type 508 performed its maiden flight from RAF Boscombe Down; by May 1952, the aircraft had commenced carrier-based trials aboard HMS Eagle.

[11] The resulting Type 525 also featured conventional swept tail surfaces as well as blown flaps to reduce the aircraft's landing speed and first flew on 27 April 1954.

[13] Thus, the basic design was considered to have been sufficiently proved to the extent that officials decided to proceed with an outwardly fairly similar looking aircraft, the Type 544, to fulfil Specification N.113.

[16] The Scimitar pioneered fuel flow proportioning and integral main-plane tanks, along with "blown" flying surfaces to reduce landing speeds.

[18] In June 1958, operational training on the type commenced with 803 Naval Air Squadron at RNAS Lossiemouth, prior to their embarkment upon the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious during September of that year.

[24] Late in the Scimitar's operational career, 16 examples were flown between 1965 and 1970 by the Fleet Requirements Unit (FRU) based at Bournemouth Airport (Hurn).

[25][26] The FRU was managed by Airwork Services and provided realistic flight operations for land and sea-based naval training units.