ORIGINAL: wdolson
If the Firefly was a dive bomber, it would have been fairly good looking. Unfortunately it was a fighter. Other navies did away with the two seat fighter concept in the mid-30s. I think the FF was the last USN two seat fighter.
The Fleet Air Arm didn't get a decent looking, home built fighter (ignoring lend lease aircraft here) until the Sea Fury came into service.
Bill
ORIGINAL: Terminus
Seafire, Sea Hurricane.
I meant to add purpose built to that. The Sea Hurricane and Seafire had the graceful look of their land based cousins, but they were not designed for carrier use and they suffered high ops losses.
Due to politics within the British government the FAA got the short end of the stick until well after the war started and by then British naval aircraft designs were obsolete with most flawed designs in the pipeline. The Americans and Japanese had put a lot of emphasis on naval aviation and some of the best aircraft designers had a lot of experience with carrier aircraft design by the time the war started. The first war generation of US fighters (Wildcats) were not on par with land based fighters, but the next generation was and those designs were in the pipeline with Pearl Harbor happened.
The specs that produced the Corsair and Fairey Firefly were issued in 1938. Work on the Hellcat didn't start until 1941 (when it became obvious the Corsair was having problems). All three entered service in 1943. The specification that produced the Albacore was issued while the TBD was nearing the end of its development and just starting production.
Bill