« The ultimate test of the great powers’ pilots, aircraft and powerplants in the interwar period, the Schneider Trophy seaplane contest pushed forward aviation design to new heights and directly led to the Spitfire and Merlin engine … W. Cox, a member of the trophy winning Supermarine team, takes us through each contest, starting with the pre-World War II contests and highlights how the key technological developments in aircraft design were represented in the race. »

As a kid, my gospel was Aircraft Aircraft by John W.R. Taylor.2 Its pages, all of which were dog-eared, were particularly worn in three places: the X-15 — the seemingly Vader-inspired and arguably Coolest Plane Ever — followed in quick succession by anything involving the Wright Brothers and, in turn, by anything to do with the latter Schneider Trophy racers. In particular the ones from the ultimate 1931 race — even as a ten year old, I somehow recognized the exquisite absurdity of squeezing a mammoth, snarling V-12 into such a tiny plane and gracing it with a wickedly coarse-pitched prop. And then putting the whole enterprise on a pair of unwieldy pontoons.

Imagine my delight when this audio recording from 1965 recently emerged with the speaker who was actually there at the final races. The presentation to the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Historical Group occurred a scant 34 years later. This should have been a short enough period of time for the speaker to still have vivid memories of what it was like to actually participate in the famed race series. By listening, it was easy to imagine it would be like a time machine was going to transport me back to 1931 and bring to life the aircraft pictured on those yellowing, grubby pages I read and reread countless times all those years ago.

Sadly and not surprisingly with expectations this high, it was almost inevitable what is actually delivered in the recording falls short. The speaker — W. Cox — is introduced with a succinct “I’m not going to waste any time introducing Mr. Cox” and therefore without a lot of detail. As a consequence, there’s no context for the rest of the presentation as to precisely what role he played. A web search, unfortuately, doesn’t shed much light on the matter, either.3

What follows in the passably clear but still scratchy audio is a fairly dry recitation of the details of each of the 12 races which were held from 1913 to 1931. There’s the odd tantalising tidbit here and there: the best of which (spoiler alert) is the brief description of the Supermarine Sea Lion ground crew having to stand on the wing to hand crank the engine into life. With that duty completed successfully, these same crew members were obliged to dive overboard and swim to shore given the lack of race venue facilities to accommodate the aircraft at a dock or slipway.

Another disappointment is Cox referring to slides which seem to have been lost to history. So when he says “next slide please” this listener was left to wonder what the image might be. In some cases Cox describes the slide but mostly I had to use my imagination as to what was being seen through the cigar smoke that October evening. Also, speaker Cox makes a passing reference to film being shown but no further details are provided. The recording ends with applause, but no questions from the audience. Perhaps there weren’t any but, again, we’ll never know. It would have been fascinating to hear what the audience thought about what they had just heard and seen and perhaps provide some of their own recollections of the period.

The audio is still highly recommended listening, without a doubt, particularly for those who are aficianados of the Trophy and perhaps also the legions of fans of the legendary Supermarine Spitfire. The greatest accomplishment of the Schneider-winning S.6B, it can be argued, was not bringing the Schneider Trophy to Britain permanently — which it did — but rather the role the S.6B played as staight-unbroken-line precursor to the much beloved, elliptical-winged Battle of Britain hero.  ~TCG, April 2024

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Apple Podcasts	Google Podcasts
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