Fifty years ago, at 1.30 pm on 13 September 1931. Flt-Lt John Boothman , RAF, landed his sea
Plane, a Supermarine S6, on the Solent. He'd just completed seven laps of a 50km course at an average speed of 340 mph and had won the Schneider Trophy outright for Britain. It was a competition for racing seaplanes which had spanned 18 years and attracted entries from Britain, America, Italy and France. It had costs hundreds of thousands of pounds and many lives, and was the biggest stimulus to aeronautical development between the wars. David Lomax tells of the men and machines who became part of aviation history.
Film editor PETER HUNT Producer JOHN COLEMAN