Recalling the Speed Rules of the Past

Schneider Trophy air races led the way to a place where no one goes.

Peter Garrison

Wednesday, January 29, 2025 at 08:55 AM ET

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Edited By: tccjeremy

Francesco Agello’s small—31-foot span—and elegantly shaped Macchi M.C.72. [Alamy]

Key Takeaways:

In 1935, Italian pilot Francesco Agello set an unsurpassed world speed record of 441 mph in the Macchi M.C.72 piston-engine seaplane, a mark that was for several years the absolute world speed record for all aircraft and is likely to remain permanent for its class.
Agello's record was the culmination of the fiercely competitive Schneider Trophy races, an international aeronautical competition established in 1912 that spurred significant advancements in seaplane technology and design.
Over its two-decade run, the Schneider Trophy competition drove the evolution of seaplanes from early, slower biplane designs to highly powerful and streamlined monoplane floatplanes, exemplified by the M.C.72.
The races also saw the rise of legendary designers like Reginald Mitchell of Supermarine, whose S-series seaplanes won multiple trophies, though his famous Spitfire fighter was not a direct descendant of these designs.

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In fall 1935, an Italian pilot named Francesco Agello set a speed record that has remained unsurpassed for 90 years. In fact, it will probably remain that way forever. It is the mark for hyper-fast piston-engine seaplanes, and they have gone the way of velociraptors.

Agello’s small—31-foot span—and elegantly shaped Macchi M.C.72 had two 12-cylinder engines bolted together end to end driving steeply pitched, contra-rotating propellers through coaxial shafts. By then, streamlining had gone as far as it could and speed was all about raw power.