page_title: Schneider Trophy
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Schneider Trophy / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Jacques Schneider debout à l'avant d'un petit voilier donnant le départ d'une course
context_page_description: The Coupe d'Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider, commonly called the Schneider Trophy or Schneider Prize, was a trophy awarded annually to the winner of a race for seaplanes and flying boats. The Schneider Trophy is now held at the Science Museum, South Kensington, London.
  Announced in 1912 by Jacques Schneider, a French financier, balloonist and aircraft enthusiast, the competition offered a prize of approximately £1,000. The race was held twelve times between 1913 and 1931. It was intended to encourage technical advances in civil aviation but became a contest for pure speed with laps over a triangular course, initially 280 km and later extended to 350 km. The contests were staged as time trials, with aircraft setting off individually at pre-agreed intervals, usually 15 minutes apart. The contests were very popular and some attracted crowds of over 200,000 spectators. An earlier trophy, also presented by Jacques Schneider in 1910, in France, was the Schneider Cup, which is now in the possession of the RAF College Cranwell.
context_section_description: Schneider was a hydroplane racer who came from a wealthy family; his interest in aircraft began after he met Wilbur Wright in 1908, but a boating accident in 1910 crippled him and prematurely ended his racing and flying career. Schneider served as a race referee at the Monaco Hydroplane Meet in 1912, where he noted that seaplane development was lagging land-based aircraft; seeking to spur amphibious aircraft development, capable of reliable operation, extended range, and reasonable payload capacity, he announced the annual Schneider Trophy competition at a race banquet on December 5, to cover a distance of at least 150 nautical miles (280 km; 170 mi).
  The first competition was held on 16 April 1913, at Monaco, consisting of six laps, 300 kilometres (190 mi) distance in total. It was won by Maurice Prévost, piloting a French Deperdussin Monocoque (Coupe Schneider) at an average speed of 73.56 km/h (45.71 mph). Although Prévost had averaged a faster flying speed, he lost 50 minutes when he landed prematurely after losing count of the laps completed. All four entrants were flying French-made aircraft; two withdrew before completing the race. The British won in 1914 with a Sopwith Tabloid flown by Howard Pixton at 139.74 km/h (86.83 mph); the 1914 race was contested by three nations: France, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. The United States and Germany failed to qualify. From 1915 to 1918, competition was suspended for the duration of World War I.
  After the war, the competition resumed in 1919 at Bournemouth where in foggy conditions the Italian team won. They were later disqualified and the race was voided, as the referees ruled they had incorrectly flown around a marker buoy. In 1920 and 1921 at Venice the Italians won again; in 1920 no other nation entered and in 1921 the French entry did not start.  Had it not been for the 1919 disqualification, Italy would have been awarded the trophy permanently. After 1921, an additional requirement was added: the winning seaplane had to remain moored to a buoy for six hours without human intervention.
  In 1922 in Naples the British and French competed with the Italians. The British private entry, a Supermarine Sea Lion II, was the victor, flown by Henry Biard. The French aircraft did not start the race, which became a competition between the Sea Lion and three Italian aircraft, two Macchi M.17s and a Savoia S.51.
caption: Jacques Schneider (1913)
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