Spitfire Mark II Tigershark
prototype utility helicopter
The Spitfire Mark II, later given the name Tigershark, was a utility helicopter built in the United States in the late 1970s and intended for series production. It was a further evolution of the Spitfire Mark I design, a turbine-powered conversion of the Enstrom F-28. Although airframe changes on the Mark I had been minimal, the Mark II had a substantially redesigned fuselage that rearranged the F-28's 2+2 seating to move the pilot's seat forward in the nose by itself and add a bench seat for three passengers abreast behind it. The leftmost seat on the bench could be fitted with dual controls. The fuselage was lengthened, and the powerplant installation (the same Allison 250 used on the Mark I) was mounted well to the rear. The Mark II still used the dynamic components of the F-28, plus some of its airframe.
Spitfire displayed a mockup of the Mark II at the Helicopter Association of America meeting in Anaheim, California in February 1977. The prototype first flew in February 1979 and by July that year, the company reported that it had sold 42 examples of the Mark I and Mark II and expected to build 60 aircraft during 1980.
However, Spitfire remained dependent on Enstrom to supply airframes for remanufacture, and Enstrom distanced itself from the project somewhat. Competing plans by Enstrom and Spitfire to market Polish-built Mil Mi-2 helicopters in the United States might have contributed to the friction.
“Spitfire Mark II Tigershark” enters the record as prototype utility helicopter. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Spitfire, Mark and Tigershark can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7578301. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1979 and 1980.
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