Long to mature and only in service for a relatively short time, the Wyvern was the only single engined turboprop strike type to enter service with any naval air arm. Planning for the type actually began in 1944, as the W.34 long range fighter to be powered (initially) by a Rolls-Royce Eagle piston engine. This did not fly until late 1946, far too late for wartime use, and only a few of the derived Wyvern TF.1s were built. Attention then shifted to developing the type with a turboprop engine as a torpedo strike aircraft, and this led to the TF.2 evaluation variant that flew with both the Python and Clyde engines. The former was chjosen for the production TF.4/S.4, but engine problems kept the Wyvern from operationally deploying aboard ship until a good decade after the program had started.
The Wyvern was to have a short service life; No. 813 Squadron converted to the type in the spring of 1953, but the unit would not make a carrier deployment (aboard HMS Albion) until the following autumn. No.830 Squadron flew combat missions with the type during the Suez operation, from HMS Eagle; in the course of some 79 sorties, a pair of Wyverns were lost to Egyptian AAA, although both crewmen were recovered. This would be the only action seen by the type, as No. 830 disbanded shortly after Suez, with No. 813 following suit in April 1958. Today, the only surviving Wyvern is TF.1 VR137, preserved at Yeolvilton.
One of the Wyvern's primary roles in wartime would have been attacking Soviet Sverdlov class cruisers; these large surface combatants posed a large threat to Western shipping in the North Atlantic, especially given the rundown of the postwar RN carrier force. Conclusively dealing with a Sverdlov required a large weapon, and a Wyvern was used for trials of such a munition - the Red Angel, a half-ton unguided rocket some ten feet long and fitted with an armor-piercing warhead.
