Schneider Trophy Use
The Schneider Trophy was a prestigious annual prize competition for seaplanes that was first held in 1913. The 1926 race was the first where all the teams fielded pilots from their armed forces, the Air Ministry financing a British team known as the High Speed Flight drawn from the Royal Air Force. Sometimes known simply as The Flight, the team was formed at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, Felixstowe, in preparation for the 1927 race in which Supermarine's Mitchell-designed, Napier Lion-powered Supermarine S.5s placed first and second. 1927 was the last annual competition, the event then moving onto a biannual schedule to allow more development time between races.
During the 1929 race at Cowes between Great Britain and Italy, Richard Waghorn flying the Supermarine S.6 with the new Roll-Royce R engine retained the Schneider Trophy for Great Britain with an average speed of 328.63 mph (529 km/h), and also gained the 50 km and 100 km (31 mi and 62 mi) world speed records. The records were subsequently beaten when Richard Atcherley later registered higher speeds when he completed his laps of the circuit. The Italian team placed second and fourth using Fiat AS.3 V-12-powered Macchi M.52 aircraft. Another racing seaplane, the Fiat C.29 powered by the AS.5 engine attended the contest but did not compete.
More comparable to the R engine was the Fiat AS.6 engine developed for the 1931 contest; effectively a coupled, double AS.5 that suffered from technical problems. With the assistance of Rod Banks, the AS.6 powered the Macchi M.C.72 to a new speed record for piston-powered seaplanes in 1934 of 440.6 mph (709.2 km/h), a record that still stands as of 2009.
In 1931 the British Government withdrew financial support, but a private donation of £100,000 from Lucy, Lady Houston allowed Supermarine to compete on 13 September using the R-powered Supermarine S.6B. For this race the engine's rating was increased by 400 hp (300 kW) to 2,300 hp (1,700 kW). The Italian and French entrants however, failed to ready their aircraft and crews in time for the competition, and the remaining British team set both a new world speed record at 379 mph (610 km/h) and, unopposed, won the trophy outright with a third consecutive victory. "The Flight" was wound up within weeks of the 1931 win as there were to be no more Schneider Trophy contests. The original Trophy is on display in the London Science Museum along with the S.6B that secured it, as well as the R engine that powered this aircraft for the subsequent airspeed record flight.
Read more about this topic: Rolls-Royce R