The Racing Aircraft That Gave Us The Spitfire | Supermarine Schneiders 

F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.

My Great great (great?) Uncle won the 1929 Schneider Trophy in an S6B, earning the AFC. Unfortunately he died in 1931 testing new engines in a Hawker Horsley. Both he and an engineer bailed out after engine failure. The engineer landed safely, but Uncle Richard hit a wall and died a couple of days later from his wounds. His plane is in the Solent Sky Museum along with his sword. Wonderful to see this lesser known aircraft in the spotlight. Family connections aside, I'd love to see more documentaries about lesser known aircraft. Cheers!

Back in the late 1970s, as a boy I built a motorized model of the S.6 and thought it was the most elegant airplane I had ever seen.

RR engineers actually helped the Fiat engineers stop their engines from detonating (in the MC. 72) through being over stuffed with air from the long ram intake. The RR team helped to stabilise the fuel mixture control to stop the fatal inflight backfires. So Britain helped Fiat/Macchi set their still standing record when you think about it. Gotta give the Italians credit though in developing tandem engines behind a contra prop in the 1st place.

My Great Uncle did the wind tunnel tests on the S6B at the National Physics Laboratory. I have a letter from the Aeronautical Research Committee, thanking him for his work, 14th May 1932. During the war he went to America to work on the Manhattan project.

The R engines were not just confined to the air they were also used by Sir Henry Segrave, Campbell's Bluebird and Eyston's Thunderbolt capturing world speed records on land and water.

What amazes me is that these racing aircraft were faster than land planes with those huge floats hanging out in the breeze.

Man that MC 72 is such a good looking plane, it looks like its going fast just sitting still

The 109 ended up with aspirations at the same common ancestry. The Spitfite/109 rivalry began long before the war had started with envious eyes.

The Macchi Castoldi MC 72 was a absolute stunner. I think that was was the most beautiful sea plane ever created for the Schneider Trophy. What a beauty.🤩🤩😍😍

It's funny that the Curtis floatplane beat everyone so bad that they canceled the race and everyone built floatplanes 😂

I love the art deco look of those planes. Beautiful.

I look forward to your Schneider Cup videos for US and Italy air craft now. This was damn fun :) Thanks!

This makes me want to rewatch Porco Rosso.

Crazy how ahead of its time and utterly quick it was for the period.

The Supermarine racers are rather well known, but I still learned so much. I feel this is the best summary of the history and details of this line of aircraft I've ever seen.

Well done Rex - your choice of in-depth subject matter and handling of the story and material is spot on once again. Keep ploughing this rich furrow! As tempting as the mainstream manufacturers marques are concerned, the lesser told histories are the ones which have forged your brand as the best RU-vid channel for historical aviation documentary. Don't stop, and don't change!

Great photo of Jimmy Doolittle (10:25) with the 1925 Curtiss entry. His auto-biography "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again" is fantastic -- and a wealth of aviation anecdotes and history.

All that horsepower in a fuselage the size of a shoe ! 😊

I hope you’ll do a video on the Bendix Trophy which ran from 1931 to 1962. I’d like to see the evolution of airplanes during the run of these races.

It was amazing how fast top speed progressed. They were making like 50km/h improvements each year!

Did anyone count how many videos Rex promised us over the course of this one? Cause it feels like there was one every five minutes 😂

The Schneider aircraft have to be some of the most stylishly sexy aircraft ever built.

Fab! I had the great pleasure of seeing Supermarine S6A N248 (the 1929 world speed record holder that also appeared in the 1942 film biography of R. J. Mitchell, "The First of the Few") at the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton earlier this year.

Great video as always, Rex! I knew about the Supermarine Schneiders from various books, but your video made me know more about the story of these beautiful machines.^^

Fantastic Video. Thanks for covering this elegant and capable aircraft. Just beautiful along with the Spitfire they not only fulfilled their roles but looked so beautiful.

Man can't wait for the full coverage of all the planes involved in the Schneider cup! All my respect to the people of Supermarine but my heart lies with the MC.72.

One of these, an S6A that competed in the 1929 event, is preserved in the excellent Solent Sky museum, along with a Spitfire 24, Short Sandringham and many other excellent exhibits. It's well worth a visit.

Far and away the best work I've ever seen on the Supermarine Schneider Cup aircraft. Thanks, Rex, for putting it together.

Simply, a video of outstanding quality. Thank you, Rex.

What an absolutely fantastic video you've made here. Thank you!

Marvelous presentation. I have read about the Schneider trophy for years, and your delivery hit all the right highlights. Loved it and look forward to the series!

Love your work, Rex. Informative and entertaining, too. Keep it up 👍🏻

Great episode Rex. The aviation history of the 1930's is interesting stuff

The solent sky museum in Southampton has a schneider trophy racer in its collection, well worth a visit

Rex keep up the fantastic work, always love your videos, especially the long form content like the Douglas series

Just another great one. thank you very much.

Another excellent video, with great use of archive materials. Top video.

20 years ago I used to love drawing these aircraft as a child. I'm not sure why but they were fascinating

I wait with anticipation the cover of the Schneider Trophy, the very big leap forward for aviation in general. Great video, as always! Have a nice time.

Absolutely fantastic video! Thank you!

Great video, and looking forward to the mentioned series of videos to come.

Great documentary ! Well done Rex !

The STONES, by far the stones are the most impressive! Learned a lot this morning. Thank you for the long video!

It really is a shame that Mitchell didn't live to see his creation turn out to be such a legend.

I look forward to watching the Scheider Cup Race series!

So, can we expect a similar segment on the Macchi-racers?

Well done Mac. hope your vacation goes well!

Great documentary!!!

You can find the trophy in Southamptons museum of aviation along with a short Sunderland seaplane and much more, worth a visit as I did many many years ago.

Definitely looking forward to the series on the Schneider Trophy!

I built the SE 5 in the old Airfix polybag kit as a kid , I luv'd it ..mind you it didnt float well in the Bath..Great vid Rex..look forward to the Italians input especially the Machis .

Amazing aircrafts. A very detail story. 👍👾

All of the schneider racers are fascinating and whilst the S5-6-6b series won in the end, the Macchi racers were just as interesting and the Mc 72 is a beast which deserves it's own video. The float plane speed record it holds has to be one of the longest standing speed records in aeronautics, possibly for any vehicle?

While you were talking about the napier lion engine I noticed how low down the engine was, went "I bet that needs a negative pitch trim to fly" and then saw that on the tail Feeling megamindian for a moment

Excellent commentary, looking forward to more inter-war coverage

Brilliant, I love calshot, so much hidden history.

Great vid!

Thanks for great vid.

Very good video. Thanks!

Great video!!!

brilliant, a few of my family worked at supermarine, southampton

Absolutely brilliant! This is one of the best vids you have done so far. My father took me to the science museum when I was but a wee nipper, and I will never forget how enthralled I felt upon casting my eyes on the S6B with the beautiful Schneider trophy on open display in front of and between the floats of R J Mitchells winning masterpiece. Emotive stuff indeed. I thank you Sir.

Hi. Excellent historical video, many thanks. P.R.

Thank you for this very informative video Rex. You could have added that the actual Snider Trophy is ( or was the last time I went there) at the Royal Airforce Museum at Hendon and it's a pretty impressive bit of kit in its own right! Well worth a visit for any aircraft aficionado.

As always I appreciated the WH40k reference - praying to the machine spirit :)

Great content. Thanks

Brilliant Thank you

Superb video

my dad was in the RAF in WWII. He also went to the Schnieder Trophy race in questyion and I remember him showing me the race day programme into which he had written the lap times.

Such beautiful planes

Great video, Rex...👍

Great video, great planes and great men that pushed aeronautical engineering to its possible limits.

I’d love to see a full video on the Merlin engine and it’s development, great video as usual btw

What an utterly beautiful and graceful looking aircraft. The nose-on view looks like a razor slicing through the air. Thank you for covering these aircraft! (but my favourite is still the r3c-2 ;P)

This may not have much to do with this particular aircraft, but i've seen some of you crazy Brits stuffing WW1 biplane engines into tiny little vintage racers. As a hot rodder from the US, this absolutely fascinates me.

nice - awesome vid

Love your work lol praying to the machine spirit

As a US Military UFO dismantler, I found this video interesting.

I love the innovation involved in these aircraft. The S6 was basically a flying radiator in an effort to manage the engine temperature. The S6B also had the port float moved out by 8 inches to help handle the torque reaction.

22:35 "the 1930s equivalent of a Top Gear Challenge" ...and here I had to pause the video for a solid minute or more of laughing hysterically, as I imagined those three blokes reading the challenge card...

Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.

I usually skip the ad placement but I do love me a good watch 👍

I'm touring Italy right now and got to see the Macchi M.C. 72 which is currently housed at the Italian Air Force Museum. An absolutely gorgeous aircraft in her bright red paint with bronze radiators. After the races were over it set a new world speed record for piston powered float planes at 440mph (709 kph) that it still holds to this day. Would have been very interesting if it could have competed in the race.

can you please create video about that Schneider cup, its rules and how it was organized?

Extrem good Rex👍👍👍

I genuinely had no idea that the planes we see in Porco Rosso are so close to their real life counterparts: 5:42 and 6:17 😳 But given that Miyazaki probably is the president of aviation nerds, it really shouldn't come as surprise.

This video really makes me want to watch Porco Rosso again and see how many familiar profiles I can pick out 😁

Excellent content. The watches look amazing, but are out of my price range.

I see a lot of ads in the plane magazines for assorted repurposed plane bits. Key tags for your fob, aluminum squares mounted on a picture of the noseart of the plane it came from. I heartily approve of R.E.C. doing this with class. I look forward to seeing the video on the Macchi M.39. That cowling looks like it's barely holding back the beast pounding away inside!

That was a very thrilling era in the late 20s and early 30s for Britain which was sinking into the Depression, increasing labour troubles, and the bureacratic mire of the government. Lady Huston was a charismatic person who even illuminated her private yacht with a sign expressing her unvarnihed opinion of Prime Minister Ramsey McDonald!

Thanks!

One other book that would be worth adding to your recommended reading - the Haynes book on the S6B covers the development of the entire series, particularly the lessons learned from each one and how they were all incorporated into the S6B, in depth - imo it's one of the best books in the entire Haynes series, and a fantastic read for anyone interested in these racers!

Midnight blue is a good choice Rex! That’s the one I would get if possible.

Reginald Mitchell was my uncles great great grandfather (according to his side of the family) haven’t been able to verify it for certain but his grandparents told him and they have the same last name and their heritage family home is the same place where Mr. Mitchell either grew up or lived during his later years

Excellent research and presentation. Imagine reviving the Schneider Cup starting in NZ, moving to AUZ, then BRT, US?

Love me some 20's racers.

the Schneider trophy is on display in London. its a beautiful sculpture.

I understand the Schneider Cup was more commonly known as the Schneider Trophy

Wait are we doing Schneider Racers? YES!