I wish to thank the Institute for having offered me the opportunity to talk about a quite peculiar facet of the history of Aviation: the Schneider Trophy contest and the attempts to break the world speed record. America, Great Britain and Italy were the main contenders in the most exciting phases of the contest. As the Macchi aircraft were the most successful defenders of the Italian colours and, being myself the successor of Dr. Mario Castoldi, designer of the famous Macchi racers for the Schneider Trophy, I was very pleased to accept the kind invitation of the Institute to give this lecture especially in consideration of the fact that, as far as Macchi contribution is concerned, it was possible for me to collect first hand information directly from the people who actively collaborated with the racing effort.

The Schneider Trophy and the world speed record attempts are now well established in the history of aviation and are quite representative of the extent to which a sporting competition may contribute to the development of new technologies.

When Jacques Schneider, a well known pioneer of French aviation and motoring, created the Schneider Trophy Contest (Fig. 1), he certainly did

not imagine in what measure aircraft speed would progress and how great

technological advances would be entailed by his initiative; in fact the

winner speed increased eight times, rising from 72.3 km/h in 1913 to

546 km/h in 1931.

Following the end of the contest in 1931, further attempts were made to

reach higher speeds in the machines designed for the Trophy.

Eventually in 1934 the Italian MC.72 raised the world speed record to

709.209 km/h-a record which stands today unbeaten in the piston engined

seaplane class.

The rules governing the Schneider Trophy contest provided that competition

should be by international seaplane challenge and the holders of the

Trophy were to organise the succeeding contest. The course was to be not

less than 278 km flown either in a straight line, a broken line or in a closed

circuit.

A maximum of three aircraft from anyone country were allowed to

compete in each contest. A country winning the event three times in 5

years was to become the outright winner of the Trophy.