Originally intended as a replacement for the Hawker Tempest, development of the Sea Fury began in 1942 for the RAF. The Sea Fury’s maiden flight took place on February 21st, 1945. The fully-navalised Sea Fury with arrester hook and folding wings did not fly until October 21, 1945. Due to the end of WW2, the RAF version was cancelled, however the Sea Fury for the Fleet Air Arm continued production to replace the aging wartime fighters.

The Royal Canadian Navy equipped Squadrons VF-870 and VF-871 with the Sea Fury. These Squadrons flew 75 Sea Furies from February, 1948 to April, 1957 operating from HMCS Magnificent. The RCN Sea Fury aircraft were replaced by the RCN's first jet fighter, the McDonnell F2H3 Banshee in 1957.

Hawker Sea Fury’s served not only with the Royal Navy and RCN, but also in Australia, Germany (as target tugs), Netherlands, Pakistan, Egypt, Cuba and Iraq.

The CWH Sea Fury was built in 1954 by Hawker as a T-20 trainer model (Royal Navy VZ 365, S/N 41H623282). It was then supplied to the German DLB for use as a target tug until 1972, registered as D-CACA. It then remained derelict in Cologne until bought by Eric Vormezeele of Belgium as a source of spares in 1975. In 1985 it was sold to Jimmy Hunt of Memphis, and then to George Baker of Florida in 1987, and then to Neil McLain of Alberta where most of the project work was done. It was bought by Sandy Thomson in 2000 out of temporary storage in Cutbank, Montana as N1324. Registered as Canadian C-FGAT in 2005.