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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0594.PDF
366 PORTRAIT OF A PION rolled and smoked a cigarette. He was taken dry-shod from the cockpit of the Antoinette. The machine was salvaged as well, and an examination of the engine showed that a piece of wire had worked its way into it, causing the misfiring. But the Antoinette was too damaged to be used again, and that night saw Latham at Paris, demanding a new one from the works. He was back almost at once, reassembling his new machine at Sangatte, but meanwhile the redoubtable Bleriot had arrived on the scene, setting up his camp at Les Barraques, a spot nearer Calais. Bleriot, unlike Latham, was a constructor and experimen- ter as well as a pilot j for years he had been working on his mono- planes, and had survived many crashes and endured much ridicule. But at last he had a really practical aircraft, as he had shown only a week earlier, when he had flown 25 miles across country in it. He knew that only bad luck had prevented Latham from carrying off.the prize, and that, if he himself were to win it, he had no time to lose. For several days the winds were too high to allow an attempt, but at 2.30 a.m. on die morning of July 25th, Bleriot, who had badly burned one foot in a petrol explosion, found the wound too painful to allow him to sleep, and so went for a motor ride. When he returned, he noticed that the wind had slackened, and realized that here was an opportunity which might not come again. Quickly he sent a message to his escort, the destroyer Escopette, and by 4.40 a.m. he was in the air, and heading out across the Channel. At Latham's camp, M. Levavasseur had got up at two, and again at three, but had not considered that the conditions justified his waking Latham, who he knew to be very tired. Accordingly, Latham was not wakened until five, and then with the unpleasant news that his rival had already started. At once he ordered his own machine to be made ready, but before he could set out he received the news that Bleriot had landed on the cliffs near Dover. He was bitterly disappointed, but he sent a telegram to his rival, congratulating him, and saying that he hoped to join him shortly. Not to be outdone, Bleriot immediately replied, sport ingly offering to share his prize with Latham if he could get across that day. This Latham was only too anxious to do, but M. Levayasseur restrained him, for the wind had now risen again. Bleriot had seized the only interval of calm in several days of storm. Two days later the weather cleared, and late in the afternoon, Latham set out on his second attempt. The news of his departure was flashed to Dover, and forty thousand people gathered on the cliffs to see him land. When he was seen approaching, the ships blew their sirens while the great crowd cheered itself hoarse. But still luck was not with Latham. With success almost in his grasp, his engine failed him again, and his monoplane fell into the sea, almost at the foot of the Cliffs of Dover. So ended what has been called one of the magnificent failures of history. The Channel was not flown again until May, 1910, and again it was a Ble'riot mono- plane—-flown by Jacques de Lesseps—which did it. Latham was at that most famous of all flying meetings: Rheims, August, 1909. Through his attempts on the Channel, fruitless though they had been, he had become famous, and his coolness and recklessness served to make him the idol of the crowds. He carried off the altitude record with a modest 508 ft, though he claimed to have reached over 1,000 ft. He also made a flight of 96 miles, though here he was beaten by Farman, who flew 112 miles, and he set up a record for the 100-km closed circuit, which he covered at an average speed of 42 m.p.h. The success of this meeting inspired several others, and in October, 1909, two were held in England, at Doncaster and at Blackpool. Latham was at Blackpool. The time had been very ill-chosen, for the equinoctial gales were blowing, and for two days there was no flying at all. Eventually, as the crowd grew restive, Latham announced that he would take up his Antoinette. His fellow aviators endeavoured to dissuade him, for the wind was blowing at over 20 m.p.h. and gusting at up to more than forty. But Latham held to his plan, and with some difficulty got his machine into the air. Spectators and pilots alike watched him in horrified admiration, as his big monoplane circled the field, shivering in the cross-gusts, scarcely crawling against the wind, and sweeping down it at almost 100 m.p.h. Louis Paulham—who was later to win the prize for the London-Manchester flight—ran around wringing his hands, so great were his fears, and when Latham at last landed safely, there were tears in the eyes of his companions. It was a truly magnificent flight, and Latham was the hero of the meeting. Latham continued his attempts on the height record, and by the end of 1909 had raised the world figure to 1,485 ft. He was now, beyond all doubt, the pilot of the year. He had learned to fly only in February, but his two great attempts on the Channel crossing, his magnificent rough-weather flying at Blackpool, and his repeated raising of the height record made him the darling of the crowds who attended the flying meetings. End of a gallant endeavour: Latham's first Antoinette being salvaged from t/ie English Channel. The pilot has been taken aboard the destroyer. But 1909 was Latham's sole year, for after that he seems gradu- ally to fade out of the picture. In January, 1910, he achieved the "vertical kilometre," with 3,281 ft, but he held the record for less than a week, when America captured it. He won the altitude prizes at Nice and Rheims, at the latter place raising the European record to over 4,000 ft; but this record, too, was soon taken from him, and by one of his old rival's machines, a Bleriot monoplane, which went up to the then extraordinary height of over 10,000 ft. We find him competing in the Gordon Bennet race in New York, where he came in fourth, after having to make a protracted stop for repairs. Luck seemed.never to favour him. Again it was his old rival's product that beat him, for the first and second machines were both Bleriots, the first being flown by England's Graham White. Latham was killed in 1912, though not, as he might perhaps have wished, in an aircraft. He was big-game hunting in the French Congo and, on June 7th, he was out on the banks of the Bari river, with only one native bearer. A rhinoceros attacked them and, when Latham fired at it, his rifle burst. Quickly he snatched another from his bearer, and with it killed the rhino. But no sooner had he done so than a buffalo appeared from some bushes and charged him. He fired at it, but only succeeded in wounding it, and, before he could fire again, the beast had reached him. He was tossed three times, and died almost at once. His luck had once more deserted him at a critical moment. If you go along to the National Aeronautical Collection at South Kensington, you will see an Antoinette monoplane, the only com- plete one now in existence. That, and the lonely statue at Cap Blanc Nez, are almost the only links with Latham. Yet he came very near to achieving a real immortality. He had a fine aircraft, and almost perfect weather, but a little piece of wire brought him down into the sea. Bleriot snatched at an uneasy period of calm, and even then his little engine grew desperately overheated, and would have brought him the same fate but for a chance shower of rain, which cooled it down again. On such chances does fame depend, Bl&iot's name is still a household word, but I searched in London for three weeks before I found a person who had even heard of Latham. He did not succeed, and the world has no memory for anything short of success. PIONEERING OUT BACK % "Taming the North." By Hudson Fysh. Angus and Robertson Ltd., Sydney, Australia, and 48, Bloomsbury Street, London, W.C.i- Illustrated. Price 15s. THE 30th birthday of Qantas was greeted last year with a spateof historical articles in the world's aviation Press. Most of them mentioned that the first passenger on Qantas' first scheduled ser- vice was an 87-year-old Australian pioneer named Alexander Kennedy, who was flown from Longreach to Cloncurry by a young ex-Australian Flying Corps pilot named Hudson Fysh. The story of how Kennedy revelled in the adventure of that flight, covering in a few hours the wild country across which he had battled for weeks with a bullock-cart many years earlier, is the climax of this biography of the old pioneer, written appro- priately by his friend, Hudson Fysh. Preceding it is a record of courage and endurance which can rival in excitement any American "western". It tells how a handful of tough, determined men and women overcame the rigours of climate and terrain, and the enmity of the savage, primitive Kalkadoon aborigines, to found a rich agricultural state. They paid a high price in human lift for their daring. We tend to regard the settlement of Australia as a simple matter of building farmhouses and rearing thousands of sheep in natural sheep country. Taming the North gives the other side of the picture in a sincere way, with dashes of forthright Australian humour. It leaves no doubt of the extent to which Qantas, under the leadership of Hudson Fysh, and the famous Flying Doctor Service have been able to lighten the burden of the fanners 01 Queensland. J. W. R. T.
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