"a century. The exceptional strategic importance of the Channel as a tool for blockade was recognised by the First Sea Lord Admiral Fisher in the years before World War I. ""Five keys lock up the world! Singapore, the Cape, Alexandria, Gibraltar, Dover."" However, on 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot made the first Channel crossing from Calais to Dover in an aeroplane. Blériot's crossing signalled the end of the Channel as a barrier-moat for England against foreign enemies. Because the ""Kaiserliche Marine"" surface fleet could not match the British Grand Fleet, the Germans developed submarine warfare, which was to become a"
"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"
"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"
"performance of the craft during the exercise was commended by the services. On 25 July 1959, the 50th anniversary of Louis Blériot's cross-channel flight, the SR.N1 serial G-12-4 crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover in just over two hours; the crew during this crossing consisted of Captain Peter Lamb (pilot), John Chaplin (navigator) and Cockerell himself. Testing had revealed several interesting tendencies of hovercraft, such as that there was an inevitable delay between the heading of the craft changing and the direction that it was travelling in would change to match. In addition, travelling overland posed more difficulty"
"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"
"France. It successfully crossed the English Channel between Calais and Dover on 25 July 1959, 50 years to the day after the historic crossing by Bleriot. In January 1959, the NRDC formed a subsidiary called Hovercraft Development Ltd. Cockerell was the Technical Director and the company controlled the patents which it used to license several private sector firms to manufacture craft under the registered trademark of Hovercraft. Cockerell received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1971. In later life, Cockerell developed many other improvements to the hovercraft, and invented various other applications for the air cushion principle, such as"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"the first pilots to cross the English Channel in a two-seat glider. They launched from Lasham in Hampshire, flew to Dover, then across the Channel to Calais, over Brussels and landed at Leuven in Belgium, a distance of , a British record for a two-seat glider. He was among British glider pilots who explored mountain lee waves to reach heights up to and higher. By 1962 he had achieved the Gold Badge with two diamonds. Irving was Chairman of the technical committee of the British Gliding Association for 25 years. He was also active in the Organisation Scientifique et Technique"
"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"
"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"
"flight to be made in an all-British machine from the United Kingdom to a destination in mainland Europe before the end of 1910. Grace made his attempt on 22 December 1910, starting from Dover. He succeeded in crossing the English Channel, but landed near Calais due to poor visibility. Later that day he took advantage of an improvement in weather conditions to attempt to fly back to Dover, but after take-off encountered severe fog, and misjudged his course. He was sighted by the North Goodwin lightship, and a coastguard at Ramsgate reported hearing the sound of an aircraft engine some"
"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"
"1883. They moved to England and raised four children, including Rhodes-Moorhouse who went to Harrow School and (briefly) Trinity Hall, Cambridge which he left in 1909. Rhodes-Moorhouse took private flying lessons and gained his pilot's certificate in that year. Besides designing aircraft he competed in aviation races and was the first to cross the English Channel, from Douai to Ashford, Kent, with two passengers, his wife and a London ""Evening News"" journalist, in a biplane. He changed his surname to Rhodes-Moorhouse in 1912, shortly before he married, as required by the will of his grandfather. His wife, Linda Beatrice Morrit,"
"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,"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"where he manufactured the first French airplanes. On 25 July 1909, he became the first man to fly across the English Channel. Blériot moved his company to Buc, near Versailles, where he established a private airport and a flying school. In 1910, he built the ""Aérobus"", one of the first passenger aircraft, which could carry seven persons, the most of any aircraft of the time. The Lumière Brothers had given the first projected showing of a motion picture ""La Sortie de l'usine Lumière"", at the ""Salon Indien du Grand Café"" of the ""Hôtel Scribe"", ""boulevard des Capucines"", on 28 December"
"crossed the English Channel aboard the ""Élise"", ex the Scottish p.s. ""Margery"" in March 1816, one of the earliest seagoing voyages by steam ship. The paddle steamer ""Defiance"", Captain William Wager, was the first steamer to cross the Channel to Holland, arriving there on 9 May 1816. On 10 June 1821, English-built paddle steamer ""Rob Roy"" was the first passenger ferry to cross channel. The steamer was purchased subsequently by the French postal administration and renamed ""Henri IV"" and put into regular passenger service a year later. It was able to make the journey across the Straits of Dover in"
"crew were fortunate to be picked unhurt by a passing steamer. In December 1910, eleven pilots were preparing attempts on the £4,000 Baron de Forest prize for the longest single stage flight, including a crossing of the English channel, by an Englishman in an all-British aircraft before the end of 1910. Nine of them were using E.N.V. engines. The prize was won by a newcomer to the British aviation scene, T.O.M. Sopwith, in an E.N.V. type F powered Howard Wright pusher biplane. He flew from Eastbourne on the southern coast of England to Beaumont, south of Charleroi in Belgium, a"
"XII, but resumed flying the Type XI on 18 July. By then, the small cabane fin had been removed and the wingspan increased by . On 26 June, he managed a flight lasting 36 minutes 55 seconds, and on 13 July, Blériot won the Aero Club de France's first ""Prix du Voyage"" with a flight between Etampes and Orléans. The Blériot XI gained lasting fame on 25 July 1909, when Blériot crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover, winning a £1,000 (equivalent to £115,000 in 2018) prize awarded by the ""Daily Mail"". For several days, high winds had grounded"
"graced many of the advertising pieces of the day. On April 16, 1912, Quimby took off from Dover, England, en route to Calais, France, and made the flight in 59 minutes, landing about from Calais on a beach in Équihen-Plage, Pas-de-Calais. She became the first woman to pilot an aircraft across the English Channel. Her accomplishment received little media attention, however, as the sinking of the RMS ""Titanic"" the day before consumed the interest of the public and filled newspapers. On July 1, 1912, she flew in the ""Third Annual Boston Aviation Meet"" at Squantum, Massachusetts. Although she had obtained"
"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"
"first to fly the English Channel into France at the start of the First World War.H.D. Harvey-Kelly being the first pilot to land. Starting a role which continues to this day, the squadron spent the war on reconnaissance duties in France flying, amongst other aircraft, the B.E.2. Although its principal role was not air-to-air combat, it still had one flying ace among its ranks in Arthur William Hammond. It also numbered the first aviation Victoria Cross winners in its ranks, in Second Lieutenant Rhodes-Moorhouse and Lieutenant Alan Arnett McLeod. The squadron gained the 'AC' in its title in the inter-war"