Scheiffer Trophy

Origins
In 1948, with the world still reeling from the aftermath fo WW2, and the threat of WW3 or at the very least, the cold war on the horizon, American industrialist Leo Scheiffer had an idea to promote international peace, good will and co-operation by channeling the super power's aggressive tendencies into a much more harmless source of national bragging rights. He decided to fund an annual air race, a concept similar to the famous Schneider trophy, but with some major differences. The Scheiffer Trophy was to be a rally style event. Planes where limited to carrying a single engine, but had to carry a crew of two. This crew was to consist of a pilot and a navigator/mechanic. Each day would consist of a single stage of the race. At the end of each stage, each crew would land and be able to make repairs and/or modifications to thier plane using supplies shipped in by thier team. However, only the crew of the plane where allowed to work on the plane. The route would take racers around the world, through Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, and stages would often end in out of the way locations, so a rough field landing capability would be needed. The first such rally was to take place in 1950, giving the participants time to prepare.

First Race
Naturally, the Soviet Union and America where seen as the two big participants, each entering a state backed team flying thier latest jets. While the Americans entered a specially designed machine, the Russians, being low on cash, entered a modified MiG 15UTI as it, like most russian planes, already had rough field capability, and was a proven design. The American machine had not undergone sufficient testing before the race and proved troublesome, however the winner was a suprise - a privately funded machine from Italy.

Later races
The rules stipulated that the race would take place every second year, and, like the Schneider Trophy, the prize would go to the nation who won three times in a row. Italy never managed to win again, the majority of wins being from Russia or the US, although England, and Sweden have both won several times, while Germany, Israel, Poland and France have all had wins. The trophy has yet to be claimed, despite the collapse of the soviet union causing a massive swing in favour of the US (The US won in '92 and '94, but where roundly thrashed by Germany in '96 and France in '98, much to thier national disgust). In the 21st century, the number of privately backed teams has increased, with coroprate sponsorship, logos and colours adorning many of the enterants. This has led to some of the wildest colourschemes ever placed on an aircraft, including Japan's infamous 'Hello Kitty' Mitusbishi JX-23 racer of 2002, and Russia's recent alliance with Coke to form the New World Order Red AirForce Race Team, flying heavily modified MiGs painted bright red with white dynamic ribbons since 2000.

Rules and classes
There was no requirement in the original rules that planes be thrust driven, only that they have a single engine. This was the downfall of Team Argentina in 1950, when they fielded a rocket plane designed by ex-german rocket engineers. It finished the time trial with an incredible record (not borken until 1986), but failed to get half way through stage one. Apparently the engineers got mixed up converting Imperial race materials to metric and assumed much shorter stages. The first plane to win, the Italian entry in 1950 was propellor driven. In fact, it was a simple radial engine, as the Italian team did not trust any sort of hi-tech turboprop or contra-rotating system to stand up to the preassures of racing (and they where right!)

Stages are of mixed lengths, and there are occasional rest days. Teams usually run two sets of support vehicles and leap-frog them past each other to keep up - the support crews do a lot of all night driving, while some teams (ie: the russians) favour transport planes with rough field capacity. It should also be noted that Germany was disqualified in 1980 over a sneaky in-fligth refueling fro a support crew transport attempt during one of Africa stages. In the hearing, it came out that they had successfully carried out the manouever without being noticed three times already.

New rules introduced in 1964 limited teams as to what they could carry in thier support convoy, the number of replacement units, and the types of replacement units which could be used. (for instance, the US Republic YR-12 Thunderacer of that year carried a complete replacement unit for only three components - the Instrument pack, the ejector seats, and the coffee machine.)

In 1976, with many smaller countries staggered by the rising cost of fuel and the rocketing cost of participation, not to mention the highly publicized oil crisis, the race was finally divided into classes (somewhat like the Paris-Dakar rally). The classes became Thrust Powered, Propellor Powered, Rotor craft and Lighter Than Air. The single engine rule was still enforced across all categories as was the two man crew, but now it was possible for smaller teams to enter cheaper craft into the prop category and more environmanetally freindly teams to enter then LTA category with solar powered blimps and so on. The incredible range of LTA competitors lead to some special rules for that class. LTA entrants do NOT have to land at the end of each stage and can complete as many stages as they like before landing. However, they may ONLY land at the end of a stage for repairs, if they land anywhere else, they are out of the race. This has lead to the LTA category putting an increased emphasis of reliability, aerial repairs and accurate weather forecasts.

The thrust powered class has remained the firm favorite of fans, and is the most watched and most hyped class. Prize money is considerably lower for the other classes, and some people accuse them of being added simply to increase TV ratings and pacify the greens. The introduction of dirigibles and blimps with thier large surface areas has lead to some huge corporate sponsorship deals as the racers are essentially enourmous flying signboards. It is generally agreed that brand awareness of such obscure things as Twiglets, Newcastle Brown Ale, and Castlemaine XXXX is 200-400% greater amongst people living along the rally route than those living away from the course. This has led to some rather bizzare export orders being placed from small, isolated communities in various out of the way parts of eastern europe, northern africa and south-east asia.