A beautiful photo of Supermarine S.6B, taken at Calshot prior to the the 1931 Schneider Trophy race. The S.6B was the famous predecessor of the Spitfire and the aircraft which won the permanent Schneider Trophy to Britain in 1931.
The S.6B was a racing seaplane developed by Reginald Mitchell and the Supermarine specifically for the Schneider Trophy competition. The S.6B marked the culmination of Mitchell’s quest to “perfect the design of the racing seaplane” and was the last in the line of racing seaplanes developed by Supermarine, following the S.4, S.5 and the S.6/S.6A.
For its time, the S.6B represented the cutting edge of aerodynamic technology. It has been claimed ever since that Mitchell’s experience in designing the Schneider Trophy floatplanes provided him and his design team with valuable experience in producing high-speed aircraft, greatly contributing to the development of the Spitfire in 1935-1936.
[Crown Copyright]
Hi,
I’m currently undertaking a project to survey and record the archaeology of the New Forest coast for the National Park and one of the areas is Calshot. As a result am very interested in this image. Where does it come from as I have contacted the National Archives about it re.Crown Copyright that is credited above, but they can’t find it.
Do you have any more details about the image?
Thank you,
James,
This particular image has been sourced from RAF official website, which also explicitly states that it falls under the Crown Copyright.
http://www.raf.mod.uk/downloads/1920s_1930s.cfm
Hope this helps,
/Martin
Further photographs of Calshot 1927 & 31 may be found in “The Schneider trophy contest 1913-1931” published by Schneider 81