The next airplane in my Golden Age of Flight Series will be the famous Supermarine S.6

Champion of the 1929 Schneider Trophy Air Race, the S6 would eventually set a world speed record of 357mph later that year. But this was not the first Supermarine to become a world champion, nor would it be the last. What sets the S6 apart from all the other gorgeous and innovative planes of the Schneider Trophy era was its influence. This plane marks the first partnership between RJ Mitchell, the man who would design the Supermarine Spitfire and Sir Henry Royce, the man who would begin work on the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.

The story of any great airplane is really the story of a great aircraft engine. Mitchell had already won big with the venerable Napier Lion W-12 in his Supermarine S.5, but he knew the engine was at the end of its development life. Smaller W12 engines were popular for their lightness, but they couldn't be enlarged without seriously compromising aerodynamics, and Mitchell needed a bigger engine. At the same time, Rolls-Royce was getting nowhere with their massive V-12 Buzzard engine and the board of directors would have preferred to focus on more lucrative projects. But Henry Royce prevailed over the naysayers within his company and presented Mitchell with a revised design of the Buzzard that used forced induction. The result was their mediocre 800hp engine had been transformed into a 1,900 horsepower supercharged monster.

This experience convinced Royce that the supercharged V12 was the way of the future and he had the company set to work designing a new engine from the ground up to be as powerful as the Buzzard-R but massively more reliable. The British Air Ministry wasn't interested, and Rolls-Royce had to develop the whole thing out of their own pocket. Royce called it the PV-12 (standing for Private Venture, 12-cylinder) but he died before it reached production. That engine became known as the Rolls-Royce Merlin.

Work continues on the S6. Hopefully I'll have it up by the end of the week

Please check out my other planes in this series:
The Curtiss JN4D "Jenny"
The mobile version of the Curtiss JN4D "Jenny"