![]() ![]() ![]() The above mentioned flying boat service was incorporated into the newly formed Imperial Airways Ltd (later British Airways) in 1924. His Swan of 1924, a larger scale development of the Commercial Amphibian which joined the Sea Eagle fleet, was claimed by Supermarine to be the world’s first multi-engined, amphibian passenger-carrying machine. The small fleet of his Sea Eagle flying boats formed the first British scheduled flying boat service, operating between Southampton and the Channel Islands 1923–1928. Mitchell (right) with his S6 Schneider Trophy winner. ‘I have seen the future, and it works.’ – Lincoln Steffens. His modification and uprating of an earlier company machine, the Sea Lion II, won the Schneider Trophy competition for Britain in 1922. Although this aircraft came second to the Vickers Viking, because of the lower powered engine provided by his company, the second prize of £4,000 was doubled in recognition of the promise that the aircraft had shown. The Commercial Amphibian, his first independent design, won an enhanced award at the 1920 Air Ministry competition for passenger amphibian flying boats. Yet, well before the Spitfire appeared, he had emerged as one of the most prominent designers of his time, and a listing of his most significant contributions to aviation reveals promise from the very beginning: Indeed, the designer of this wide range of aircraft types – from transport or reconnaissance seaplanes to high speed Trophy racers – started out in locomotive engineering and never had any formal education as an aircraft designer. However, as we shall see, most of Mitchell’s aeronautical experience was with much slower seaplanes or with even slower amphibians, and it was by no means predictable that he would go on to produce the iconic fighter so strongly associated in the popular mind with the Battle of Britain. It is not just air enthusiasts who might still remember his designs, which won the international Schneider Trophy four times, contributing most significantly to the design of the famous fighter. Mitchell’s fighter must surely have resulted from considerable previous experience of high speed flight. One has only to reflect for a moment on the remarkable advent and success of the Spitfire to realise that R.J. (Courtesy of Solent Sky Museum) NO FLASH IN THE PAN ![]()
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