Wings Over Water

Announced in 1912, the Schneider Trophy stole the imaginations of pioneering aircraft manufacturers in America, France, Britain and Italy, as they competed in a series of air races that attracted a hugely popular following. Perhaps inevitably, the dynamism of rival engineering led to the most potent military fighters of World War Two and Reginald Mitchell's record-breaking Supermarine seaplanes morphed into the Spitfire.Wings Over Water tells the story of the Schneider air races afresh and also examines the wider politics and society of the early twentieth-century that framed the event. It is an exhilarating tale of raw adventure, public excitement and engineering genius.