"Dover and Boulogne but later also Ramsgate (Pegwell Bay) to Calais. The journey time Dover to Boulogne was roughly 35 minutes, with six trips per day at peak times. The fastest crossing of the English Channel by a commercial car-carrying hovercraft was 22 minutes, recorded by the ""Princess Anne"" MCH SR-N4 Mk3 on 14 September 1995, The first aircraft to cross the Channel was a balloon in 1785, piloted by Jean Pierre François Blanchard (France) and John Jeffries (US). Louis Blériot (France) piloted the first airplane to cross in 1909. The sport of Channel swimming traces its origins to the"
"25, 1909, was the first person to fly across the English Channel. He flew from the beach at Sangatte to the White Cliffs of Dover, to claim the prize offered by the Daily Mail. The crossing took 37 minutes in his aeroplane, Blériot XI, built in collaboration with Raymond Saulnier. It was powered by a 3-cylinder engine. At the western end of the beach, a statue of the French aviator Hubert Latham overlooks the sea (). Latham was another pioneering cross-channel pilot whose earlier attempt on July 19 had failed. Sangatte also achieved notoriety as the location of a controversial"
"Hubert Latham Arthur Charles Hubert Latham (10 January 1883 – 25 June 1912) was a French aviation pioneer. He was the first person to attempt to cross the English Channel in an aeroplane. Due to engine failure during his first of two attempts to cross the Channel, he became the first person to land an aeroplane on a body of water. In August 1909 at the ""Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne"" he set the world altitude record of in his Antoinette IV. In April 1910 he set the official World Airspeed Record of in his Antoinette VII. Latham was"
"January 1916. Eleanor Trehawke Davies Eleanor Josephine Trehawke Davies (1880 – 1915) was an English aviator and the first woman to fly across the English Channel and to have ""looped the loop"" in an aircraft. Davies was born in 1880 in St Pancras, London, the daughter of Frederick and Eleanor Davies. Davies who was known as ""Miss Trehawke Davies"" was never a pilot but known at the time as an ""air companion"" to a number of early aviators. In August 1911 she chartered Horatio Barber to fly her from Hendon to Brighton and back. The flight, hampered by cloud and"
"the flight. At 4:15 am on the 25 July 1909, watched by an excited crowd, Blériot made a short trial flight in his Type XI, and then, on a signal that the sun had risen (the competition rules required a flight between sunrise and sunset), he took off at 4:41 for the attempted crossing. Flying at approximately and an altitude of about 250 ft (76 m), he set off across the Channel. Not having a compass, Blériot took his course from the ""Escopette"", which was heading for Dover, but he soon overtook the ship. The visibility deteriorated, and he later"
"of 1909. Like some of the other prizes offered by the paper, it was widely seen as nothing more than a way to gain cheap publicity: the Paris newspaper ""Le Matin"" commenting that there was no chance of the prize being won. The English Channel had been crossed by an unmanned hydrogen balloon in 1784 and a manned crossing by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries followed in 1785. Blériot, who intended to fly across the Channel in his Type XI monoplane, had three rivals for the prize, the most serious being Hubert Latham, a French national of English extraction flying"
"Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, a number of examples have been preserved. Both the British and American restored-to-airworthiness examples, each now over a century old and believed to be the two oldest flyable aircraft anywhere on Earth, are usually only ""hopped"" for short distances due to their uniqueness. Blériot XI The Blériot XI is a French aircraft of the pioneer era of aviation. The first example was used by Louis Blériot to make the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft, on 25 July 1909. This is one of the most famous accomplishments of the"
"Blériot XI The Blériot XI is a French aircraft of the pioneer era of aviation. The first example was used by Louis Blériot to make the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft, on 25 July 1909. This is one of the most famous accomplishments of the pioneer era of aviation, and not only won Blériot a lasting place in history but also assured the future of his aircraft manufacturing business. The event caused a major reappraisal of the importance of aviation; the English newspaper ""The Daily Express"" led its story of the flight with the headline"
"Claude Grahame-White Claude Grahame-White (21 August 1879 – 19 August 1959) was an English pioneer of aviation, and the first to make a night flight, during the ""Daily Mail""-sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race. Grahame-White was born in Bursledon, Hampshire in England on 21 August 1879, and educated at Bedford Grammar School. He learned to drive in 1895, was apprenticed as an engineer and later started his own motor engineering company. Grahame-White's interest in aviation was sparked by Louis Blériot's crossing of the English Channel in 1909. This prompted him to go to France, where he attended the Reims"
"Claude Grahame-White Claude Grahame-White (21 August 1879 – 19 August 1959) was an English pioneer of aviation, and the first to make a night flight, during the ""Daily Mail""-sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race. Grahame-White was born in Bursledon, Hampshire in England on 21 August 1879, and educated at Bedford Grammar School. He learned to drive in 1895, was apprenticed as an engineer and later started his own motor engineering company. Grahame-White's interest in aviation was sparked by Louis Blériot's crossing of the English Channel in 1909. This prompted him to go to France, where he attended the Reims"
"a similar prize for a flight to Mars. On July 25, 1909 Louis Blériot won their £1000 prize for the first flight across the English channel. One contemporary newspaper led its account of the event with the headline ""Britain is no longer an island"", and the flight caused a reassessment of Britain's strategic reliance on the Navy for defence. Blériot became world-famous, and the publicity resulted in over a hundred orders for copies of his design within a few weeks. The year also saw the ""Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne"" at Rheims, attended by half a million people, including"
"hotelier Giacomo D'Angelis built an aircraft and tested it. Inspired by Louis Blériot, a Frenchman who was the first to fly across the English Channel in July 1909, D'Angelis collaborated with Simpson's, a leading coach-builder in the city, to build a biplane. The biplane was built entirely from D'Angelis's own designs, fitted with a small horse-power engine. Samuel John Green, a motor engineer at Simpson's, helped with the manufacture and assembly of the biplane. On 10 March 1910, D'Angelis tested the aircraft in the suburb of Pallavaram, making it the first flight ever in Asia. While demonstrating it to the"
"Cecil Grace Cecil Stanley Grace (1880 – 22 December 1910) was a pioneer aviator who went missing on a flight across the English Channel in 1910. Grace was born in Chile, the son of John William Grace of New York. His uncle was W. R. Grace, a former mayor of New York City. Grace was naturalised as a British citizen in October 1910. In 1909 members of the Aero Club of Great Britain established a flying ground at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. Grace was one of this early group of pioneering aviators, and in 1910 he was awarded"
"Eleanor Trehawke Davies Eleanor Josephine Trehawke Davies (1880 – 1915) was an English aviator and the first woman to fly across the English Channel and to have ""looped the loop"" in an aircraft. Davies was born in 1880 in St Pancras, London, the daughter of Frederick and Eleanor Davies. Davies who was known as ""Miss Trehawke Davies"" was never a pilot but known at the time as an ""air companion"" to a number of early aviators. In August 1911 she chartered Horatio Barber to fly her from Hendon to Brighton and back. The flight, hampered by cloud and high winds,"
"first crossing of the English Channel 20 years earlier. On 9 October 1930, Following the R101 Airship disaster in Beauvais, France, 41 Squadron pilots and ground crew formed a part of the Guard of Honour for the Lying-in-State of the 48 victims in the Palace of Westminster. Amongst the dead were the Secretary of State for Air, Brig. Gen. Lord Christopher Thomson PC CBE DSO, and the Director of Civil Aviation, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Sefton Brancker KCB AFC. Thousands filed past to pay their last respects. During the 1930s, displays, sports, competitions, tactical exercises and flying practice were a part"
"the French military trials two years later, wrote the following about Hubert Latham in his final book, published in 1956: A statue erected by the French to Latham's memory overlooks the English Channel near the Dover Patrol Monument, on top of Cap Blanc Nez between Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer. According to Henry Villard in his 2002 book - ""Contact! The Story of the Early Aviators"" : As the D939 route passes through Maillebois it is named 'rue Hubert Latham'.() Hubert Latham Arthur Charles Hubert Latham (10 January 1883 – 25 June 1912) was a French aviation pioneer. He was the first"
"1785, when Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel in a hot air balloon. It took more than a century for the first heavier-than-air object to repeat this process: Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel on July 25, 1909, winning a ""Daily Mail"" prize of £1,000. Aviation technology developed during World War I, with aviation between the World Wars seeing the development of international commercial flights. There was a combination of aircraft types which included airships and airplanes. The first airline to operate international flights was Chalk's Ocean Airways, established 1917, which operated scheduled seaplane services from Florida"
"that take-off and landing were to be at locations no more than five miles from the newspaper's offices in those cities. Powered flight was a relatively new invention, and the newspaper's proprietors were keen to stimulate the industry's growth; in 1908 they offered £1,000 for the first flight across the English channel (won on 25 July 1909 by the French aviator Louis Blériot), and £1,000 for the first circular one-mile flight made by a British aviator in a British aeroplane (won on 30 October 1909 by the English aviator John Moore-Brabazon). In 1910, two men accepted the newspaper's 1906 challenge;"
"twenty seconds. He bought one of six Wright Flyer aircraft built by Short Brothers under licence from the Wright Brothers and from early October 1909 made more than 200 flights. Founder in 1901 with Frank Hedges Butler of the ballooning club that became the Royal Aero Club in March 1910 he was the second person they licensed to fly an aeroplane. He became the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane taking 95 minutes on 2 June 1910. For this feat, which included the first East-bound aerial crossing of the English Channel, he"
"in 1923 for the longest time to make the crossing successfully. Henry Sullivan (swimmer) Henry Sullivan (born c. 1893) was an American marathon swimmer who is best known for becoming the third person and the first American to swim across the English Channel, beginning his swim on the afternoon of August 5, 1923, from Dover, England and finishing 27 hours and 25 minutes later on the evening of August 6 at Calais, France. The son of a businessman from Lowell, Massachusetts, Sullivan had been swimming since he was eight years old. He first attempted to make the crossing in 1913,"
"of varying configurations were produced, each one marginally more successful than its predecessor, and culminating in the Type XI with which he became famous for being the first to fly across the English Channel in 1909. The publicity gained by this achievement brought the company orders for large numbers of the Type XI, and several hundred were eventually made. This commercial success enabled the research side of the business to expand considerably, and in the years before the First World War a startlingly heterogeneous collection of aircraft were produced, although none came close to being as successful as the Type"
"in October 1927. A cairn erected to his memory exists near Gaspé. It records that de Lesseps was the second man to fly the English Channel by airplane. He was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, held the Croix de Guerre and the United States Distinguished Service Cross. Jacques de Lesseps Jacques Benjamin de Lesseps was a French aviator born in Paris on 5 July 1883, killed in an air accident presumably on 18 October 1927 along with his flight engineer Theodor Chichenko. He was the son of French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps. In 1910 he married Grace Mackenzie,"
"an altitude of , landing at Saint-Inglevert after a flight of one and a half hours to the surprise of the airfield manager. The first double crossing of the Channel in a glider was made by Austrian Robert Kronfeld on 20 June. In a glider called ""Wien"", he took off from Saint-Inglevert by means of an aero-tow to an altitude of , and landed at the former RAF Swingfield airfield near Dover, Kent. From Swingfield, another aero-tow to an altitude of enabled him to return to Saint-Inglevert. Kronfeld received a £1,000 prize from the ""Daily Mail"" for his flights, which"
"John Moisant John Bevins Moisant (April 25, 1868 – December 31, 1910), known as the ""King of Aviators,"" was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, flight instructor, businessman, and revolutionary. As a pilot, he was the first to conduct passenger flights over a city (Paris), as well as across the English Channel, from Paris to London. He also co-founded a prominent flying circus, the Moisant International Aviators. Moisant funded his aviation career with proceeds from business ventures in El Salvador, where he had led two failed revolutions and coup attempts against President Figueroa in 1907 and 1909. Only months after becoming"
"the first time. Esnault Pelterie paced out the length of the flight, measuring it at . This made it the longest flight achieved in France that year to date, and although the flight had not been officially witnessed, Blériot was awarded a special medal by the Aero Club de France for the feat. Blériot VI The Blériot VI ""Libellule"" (""Dragonfly""), was built in 1907 and was one of the series of experimental aircraft built by Louis Blériot which eventually led to the Blériot XI aircraft in which he made the first flight across the English Channel. Abandoning the canard layout"
"Aviators flying circus, as his passenger. On August 17, 1910, he flew the first flight with a passenger across the English Channel. His passengers on the flight were Albert Fileux, his mechanic, and his cat, Mademoiselle Fifi. This feat was accomplished on Moisant's sixth flight as a pilot. At the Belmont International Aviation Tournament at Belmont Park, New York, John Moisant flew his Blériot XI around a marker balloon 10 miles (16 kilometers) away and returned to the racetrack in only 39 minutes, winning an $850 prize. After this initial competition, Moisant collided his brake-less Blériot into another aircraft while"
"mass for the Channel flight was almost . To maintain the craft in the air, it was designed with very long, tapering wings (high aspect ratio), like those of a glider, allowing the flight to be undertaken with a minimum of power. In still air, the required power was on the order of , though even mild turbulence made this figure rise rapidly. Just before 6 am on June 12, 1979, amateur cyclist and pilot Bryan Allen, powered the ""Albatross"" to the rehearsed speed of 75 revolutions per minute and took off from a point near Folkestone, England. The Channel"
"English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft and set up his headquarters in the unused shed. In Britain, the earliest aircraft hangars were known as aeroplane sheds and the oldest survivors of these are at Larkhill, Wiltshire. These were built in 1910 for the Bristol School of Flying and are now Grade II* Listed buildings. British aviation pioneer Alliott Verdon Roe built one of the first aeroplane sheds in 1907 at Brooklands, Surrey and full-size replicas of this and the 1908 Roe biplane are on display at Brooklands Museum. As aviation became established in Britain before World War I, standard designs"
"Edward Temme Edward Harry Temme (16 September 1904 – 26 June 1977) was an English swimmer and insurance clerk. Temme was the first man to swim across the English Channel both ways, from France to England on 5 August 1927 and from England to France on 18 August 1934. He was also a water polo player who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Temme was born in Stratford Road, Plaistow, Essex (now part of east London). He was a member of the British water polo team that finished fourth at the"
"trail"". Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, (6 June 1868 – 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ""Discovery"" Expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ""Terra Nova"" Expedition of 1910–1913. On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Antarctic Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. On the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, less than five weeks after Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition. On"
"and with similar honours from Turkey, Brazil and Sweden. Charles Manby Charles Manby, FRS (4 February 1804 – 31 July 1884) was Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers from November 1839 to 1856, and engineer of the first iron steamer to cross the English Channel. Fluent in French, he installed gas piping into Paris and advised on the construction of the Suez Canal. Manby was born in Cowes on the Isle of Wight to Aaron and Juliana Manby, née Fewster. Aaron Manby was a successful engineer building bridges, ships and engines. As a child Charles attended a Roman Catholic"
"25 July 1909, he made the first flight across the English Channel. Shortly afterward the W3 configuration was changed to a 120°-angle, three-cylinder radial engine configuration as the original W3 engine's replacement. The 1917 Napier Lion aircraft engine was an early W12 engine. Lorraine built the 12Ed and 18Ka aero-engines of and in the early 1920s, while Isotta Fraschini built the 18-cylinder Asso 750 and Asso 1000 of and in the late 1920s. At the same time the Farman 12We was used by many aircraft; Farman also built a W18. A three-bank W12 design was also pursued by Audi, which"
"on 5 August 1905, the flight lasting 85 minutes. This was soon followed by an improved ""Willows No. 2"", in which he landed outside Cardiff City Hall on 4 June 1910. No. 2 was re-built as No. 3 which he named the ""City of Cardiff"" before he flew it from London to Paris in 1910. This was the first airship crossing of the English Channel at night and the first from England to France. The journey was not without incident, including dropping the maps over the side during the night, and problems with the envelope caused the airship to land"