[MOC] Schneider Trophy - Macchi M.7bis (Venice 1921)

Hod Carrier · April 9

<-- Savoia S.12bis (Venice 1920)

The Schneider Trophy meet for 1921 was held again at Venice and followed a broadly similar pattern to that established the previous year. The Italians could select their entries from a field of no fewer than sixteen aircraft, while the opposition comprised just a single entry from France. Once again, accident and technical problems had reduced the Italian field from sixteen to nine, from which three were selected for the contest. These were a Macchi M.19 and two Macchi M.7s.

The Macchi M.7 was a single seat flying boat fighter which enjoyed a very long service life. Its slender hull and slightly swept-back wings made it a very pretty aircraft. In its definitive form, as the M.7ter, it was exported and used by air forces across the world. For racing, the M.7bis was stripped of its military equipment and had its wingspan reduced to help improve performance.

The rules of the contest had undergone another change in order to encourage more entries. Gone was the requirement to carry 300kg of ballast and the seaworthiness trial was changed from two mandated alightings during the race to a mooring-out trial, where competing aircraft were required to be left moored, fully loaded and unattended for six hours.

Once again, the French opposition dissolved when their aircraft’s alighting gear failed during the navigability trial causing it to be withdrawn, gifting the Trophy to Italy. However, there was still a race to be won between the three Italian entries to decide whose name would go on the Trophy.

In the end, the race became more about reliability than speed. The crankshaft in the M.19’s Fiat engine broke and caused a fire, forcing the pilot Arturo Zanetti to alight hurriedly, and Piero Corgnolino’s M.7 ran out of fuel just 2km from the finish. The winner was Giovanni di Brigante in the slowest of the M.7s.

(Finding accurate sources for modelling these aircraft has been difficult, especially for the early contests, due to the lack of photographs. Colours, markings and details have sometimes had to be guessed and reference made to verbal descriptions of what an aircraft may have looked like. This is especially the case for the Macchi M.7 that won the 1921 Schneider Trophy, as there do not appear to be any published contemporary pictures or descriptions of this aircraft. The only sources that I can find are for the M.7bis that was entered into the 1922 event, which may be a completely different aircraft. However, given the lack of information, I have no choice but to model this aircraft instead as an example of the type. I hope that I can be forgiven for this.)

Macchi_M.7bis.jpg