SCHNEIDER TROPHY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17436, 7 April 1931, Page 2

SCHNEIDER TROPHY

CONTEST PREPARATIONS INTENSIVE WORK ON PLANES LONDON, Feb. 17. British preparation for the Schneider Trophy contest, scheduled to bo held over British waters in September, proceeds rapidly and smoothly. Tho constructors of the racing seaplanes and engines on which Britain will rely again this year to defend the trophy against foreign challengers, have begun intensive work based on detailed technical investigation begun as far back as last February. At Felixstowe three officers who may form the nucleus of the Schneider team— Flight-Lieuienants Hope, Bootlmum, and Long—are in readiness for the intensivo training period when the reconditioned racing planes are delivered from the manufacturers. These men have been engaged for several months on high-speed flying designed to elucidate problems met by the aeroplane designer in constructing aeroplanes able to move at speeds of live miles a minute or more.

Tho zone of speeds extending upwards from about. 250 miles an hour is largely unknown. It has not yet been explored and dialled satisfactorily in tho elaborate formulae and astonishing graphs beloved of the aircraft designer, and the (lying done al Felixstowe last year is hoped to supply dala and information enabling the performance of a superspeed racing aeroplane to be deduced from tests of models ill the laboratory wind tunnels ns accurately as the designer now estimates from the model icsiills the performance of slower machines. The third organisation deeply interested, counting! tlio industry as one group, and. Air Ministry and Royal Air Force as another, is the Royal Aero Club, which, as the body responsible for all spoiiing flying in this country, plays a. considerable part in tho organisation of the contest. The special .Schneider Trophy Committee of the club, reconstituted under a new chairman, is launching immediately on the manifold details of preparation, which include the organisation of the contest ilself apart from the Royal Air Force, side and numerous arrangements for its efficient running. How complicated the task may be is illustrated in the fail (hat in'l929, when the last contest was held over the Solent, ocean liners duo to reach. Southampton around the day fixed for the contest were warned." six months previously. Some ocean ships were actually instructed by 4

wireless when Ihev were separated from Southampton by the width of the world. The new chairman of the Schneider Trophy Committee is Squadron-Com-mander James Bird, one of the best known men in the British aircraft industry and a prominent yachtsman, lie succeeds Colonel Mn.rvyn O''Gorman, who was obliged to resign by pressure of other work. Squadron-Commander Bird is director of the Supermarino Aviation Works, where tho successful British machines in three previous Schneider contests wore constructed, and has an unrivalled fund of knowledge about the event,