Italy Champion

A wire string snored in the sky. Stretched across heaven, above the mudflats of the airdrome at Norfolk, the string of some invisible instrument threw down its drone to the ground. A seaplane tipped out of a cloud. The singing stretched before and behind it like a wire. In the plane Major Mario de Bernardi of Italy moved through a last kilometre of air. He had won the Schneider Cup race. His speed, unprecedented, was 246.496 miles an hour.

The snore of the planes gave the spectators a sensation of excitement. A racing plane, with its enormous dual motors, makes a wilder sound than an ordinary plane. Spectators were reported to be so intent as to pay no attention to ad interim announcements of big football games. Yet an airplane race is better to hear than to watch. Some say that they would rather see two fleas racing across a piece of paper than the fastest planes in the world.

Major de Bernardi landed his Macchi Fiat monoplane. He was strapped in with a separate loop for each arm and leg, the whole contrivance fastening with a buckle on his chest. He creased his wind-stiffened face into a smile for the photographers. In the timers' stand, beside a direct wire to Rome, Luigi Freddi, special correspondent of Dictator Mussolini's paper Popolo d'ltalia, sent his news. Before the race the Dictator had sent Major Bernardi a message, couched in his customary Napoleo-Caesarian rhetoric: "All Italy prays for your success". . . . Now Major de Bernardi made reply. "Your prayers have been answered."

Doubtless, in his report for Popolo d'ltalia, Correspondent Freddi gave full credit to the U. S. flyers. He told of the difficulties before the race--how high winds had delayed the start, how Lieutenant W. G. Tomlinson, on a trial flight, wrecked the best U. S. plane, a Curtiss Packard reputed to be capable of going 250 miles an hour. All week the flyers had been tuning up their seaplanes, practising pylon turns against a factory chimney near the Anacostia River.

Sixty thousand people came out to see the race. When the comparative times for each lap had been computed to a decimal point it was clear that the race had been very exciting. The course was 217 miles (350 kilometres). The high wires snored. The crowd vibrated like a church window shaken by an organ pipe. They discovered that Lieutenant C. F. Shilt, U. S. M. C., flying a 615 horsepower Curtiss, was second with an average speed of 231.363 miles an hour. Lieutenant Tomlinson, in an old Curtiss Hawk, was way behind them all. The third American, Lieutenant Cuddihy, came down with engine trouble. So did Captain Ferrarin, famed Rome-to-Tokyo flyer. Lieutenant Adriano Bacula, 218.006 miles an hour, was third.

Significance. The Schneider Cup was established by Jacques Schneider, French manufacturer, to stimulate inventive genius in seagoing airplanes. This was the fifth competition between Italy and the U. S., and the only international race of the year in this field. Twice the U. S. had won (1923, 1925), twice Italy (1920, 1921). Permanent possession of the trophy is to be gained only by winning three times in five years. _ Hence Italy does not now hold it thus, though winner thrice. It is announced that the next competition will be held in Italy, probably at Venice, in 1928. Preparations for the race this year cost three lives, all U. S., and it is averred that Italy spent $500,000. Though many U. S. troubles were encountered, Rear Admiral Moffett, Director of U. S. Naval Aviation, issued sportsmanlike congratulations to Italy; added, frankly: "The outstanding lesson of the race is ... the Italians won by developing speed planes, while the Americans, except for new Packard and Curtiss motors, merely used planes with one of which they won last year."