The de Havilland Sea Vixen was the last in the trio of twin tailboom jet fighters and represented the climax of a design which had begun with the earlier Vampire. Although sharing the same overall fuselage design, the Sea Vixen was a vastly different aircraft, something which was apparent from first sight: it had deeper tailbooms, an all flying tailplane, resesigned engine inlets, and a longer, pointed nose housing AI radar for all-weather operations. It was also notable for being the first British aircraft to be armed solely with missiles: no fixed defensive armament was included. The Sea Vixen was eventually adopted for extensive use by the Fleet Air Arm until replaced by Phantoms during the early 1970s. Nevertheless, they had a mostly uneventful service life where they were not used in combat despite forming part of various power projection missions in Africa and the Middle East. Most were later converted into drones.

The DH.110 had been designed for the RAF as an all-weather fighter but in the event, lost to the Gloster Javelin. A substantial redesign led to the first naval prototype flown on 20 June 1955 which entered service as the Sea Vixen FAW.1. These were followed by the improved FAW.2 with more fuel capacity and more advanced missiles; a number of FAW.1s were converted to this standard.