Racing Ace

Samuel ‘Kink’ Kinkead won two DSCs with the Royal Naval Air Service, two DFC with the fledgling RAF and the DSO in Russia.

A brilliant pilot, postwar he was a long range aviation pioneer and leading racing ace selected for the international Schneider Trophy in Venice in 1927. Tragically, he was killed in 1928 when he was only 31 during his attempt to shatter the World Air Speed record. He is honored by several memorials, at Cranwell, the RAF Club in Piccadilly, at Fawley and a permanent exhibition in the Kinkead Room at Calshot from where he set out on his final flight.

Julian Lewis MP has pieced together Kink’s extraordinary story of achievement during his short but eventful and glamorous life. A fascinating account of flying derring-do in war and peace.