Hubert Latham
Encyclopedia
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.
Latham had two siblings, an older sister, Edmée, and a younger sister, Léonie. The three children were raised within the small but elite circle of Protestant high society. All three children spoke French, English
and German
fluently. His father, Lionel, died of pneumonia in 1885 and his mother never remarried.
Latham attended Balliol College at the University of Oxford for one academic year 1903/4 after which he fulfilled his reservist military service training obligation in Paris and then accompanied his cousin, the balloonist Jacques Faure, on a night crossing of the English Channel (from London to Paris) in a gas balloon on 11–12 February 1905. He also competed successfully in an Antoinette motor yacht in the power boat racing events at the Monaco Regatta, April 1905, in association with his cousin Jules Gastambide and Léon Levavasseur, the inventor of the Antoinette engine. He then led an exploratory expedition with friends to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1906/07 during which he collected specimens for the Natural History Museum in Paris and performed survey work for the French Colonial Office. In 1908, his travels continued on to the Far East, before returning to France later that year.
, who was in France trying to sell his aeroplane to the French Government, in his Flyer at Camp d'Auvours, near Le Mans
. Intrigued with the idea of flying, Latham searched for an aeroplane company that would train him as a pilot. He selected the Antoinette company headed by Jules Gastambide, a distant cousin, and Léon Levavasseur
, co-director, designer, and chief engineer, whom Latham knew from Monaco, since it was Levavasseur who designed the boats Latham raced as well as built their engines which became the precursors of his aeroplane motors. The Antoinette company (named after Gastambide's daughter) had been founded in 1906 to build and sell Levavasseur's engines. The favourable power-to-weight ratio
of the engines made them attractive to other early aeroplane builders, including Gabriel Voisin
, Louis Blériot
, Alberto Santos-Dumont
, and Henry Farman
, who used them for their own aeroplanes. In 1907 the company decided to build its own aeroplanes and after several unsuccessul attempts at designing an airworthy model the first Antoinette monoplane was finally introduced in late 1908.
Latham joined the firm in February 1909, and was taught to fly by the company's pilots, Eugène Welféringer and René Demanest. It took several weeks for Latham to master the complicated controls, but Levavasseur recognized his potential and did not dismiss him. Once Latham became proficient, for the next two years he competed at aviation meets throughout Europe and the United States, setting records and winning prizes. His performances earned him fame on both sides of the Atlantic. While many other pilots flew the Antoinette competitively, either for the company or privately, none mastered the aircraft as well as Latham.
at Camp Châlons near Mourmelon-le-Grand
to establish the first military aircraft trials, a flight school and a workshop. The school, run by Levavasseur's brother-in-law Charles Wachter, included the Antoinette Trainer - a rudimentary flight simulator that comprised a half-barrel mounted on a universal joint
, with flight controls, pulleys, and stub-wings (poles) to allow the pilot to maintain balance while instructors applied external forces.
Within months of both learning to fly and developing his flying technique, Latham became the school's principal instructor. His pupils in 1909 included Marie Marvingt
, who became the first woman to fly combat missions as a bomber pilot and established air ambulance
services throughout the world, and Infante Alfonso, Duke of Galliera
, cousin of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and the first Spanish military pilot.
.
On 9 July 1909, while encamped at Sangatte
, several miles west of Calais on the French coast of the English Channel, Latham officially informed the Daily Mail that he intended to cross the Channel by air and claim their prize. He was forced to renew his intention several times as his attempt was continually delayed by bad weather. Within the next four days, Comte Charles de Lambert
, a Franco-Russian aviator, also notified the Daily Mail of his intention to compete for the prize and he established his camp at Wissant
, several miles west of Sangatte, bringing two French-built Wright Flyers (Nos. 2 and 18) with him.
On 19 July Latham took off from Cap Blanc-Nez, very near Sangatte
, but after only 8 miles (12.9 km) his Antoinette IV
suffered engine failure and Latham had to ditch in the Channel, thereby performing the world's first landing of an aircraft on the sea. The undamaged fuselage remained afloat, so he lit a cigarette and awaited rescue by the French torpedo-destroyer Harpon that was following. After recovery of the aircraft, the engine was examined and a stray piece of wire was found inside the engine. Levavasseur stated that the misfire was caused by this wire.
In his 1958 book Flying Witness Graham Wallace recounts that, when surrounded by the crowd that greeted Latham on the Calais quayside on 19 July, Levavasseur was asked by the Daily Mail’s reporter Harry Harper if the failure had caused him to be discouraged. The answer was:
Because the salvage operation on Latham's first Antoinette resulted in severe damage to the aircraft, Levavasseur was forced to arrange for a second plane to be shipped from the factory in Puteaux
, a Paris suburb, and it arrived on July 21. It was their newest model, the Antoinette VII
, and it had never been tested in flight, although Latham did get a chance to fly it once, briefly, while he waited for the foul weather to abate.
A day later, Louis Blériot
set up camp just under 2 miles (3.2 km) away from Latham at Les Baraques and announced his intention to go for the prize in his Blériot XI
monoplane, and the two contestants had to wait for better weather. Meanwhile, de Lambert damaged one of his Flyers in a test flight shortly after Blériot's arrival and decided to withdraw from the competition.
At about 3 a.m. the morning of 25 July 1909 Blériot's team noticed a break in the weather, awakened him, prepared the aircraft, and waited for dawn to make the attempt if the favourable conditions still held. Levavasseur and the rest of Latham's team, however, slept the night through and failed to notice the opportunity, a lapse which was rigorously criticised by Latham’s supporters. Blériot took off precisely at dawn (4.41am) to make the first successful crossing of the English Channel by aeroplane.
Harry Harper, the Daily Mail reporter who was witness to the event, wrote that Levavasseur woke up just in time to see Blériot's aeroplane leaving the French coast and he rushed to wake Latham and his crew to see if it could be possible to catch Blériot or overtake him should the latter not succeed in crossing the Channel. By the time Latham's monoplane was in position atop the cliffs at Cap Blanc-Nez, a gusty wind had risen, accompanied by heavy rains, so that "any attempt at a take-off would have been nothing less than suicidal."
Two days later, on 27 July, Latham made a second attempt to cross the Channel. He was within minutes of arriving in the vicinity of Dover when engine failure again forced him into the sea. This time he could not control the angle of descent as well as he had in his first attempt and when he hit the water he seriously damaged the aircraft and suffered severe lacerations to his forehead. Although no definitive cause of engine failure for this second attempt was found, two possibilities were put forward. One is that the innovative fuel-injection
system became clogged due to unfiltered fuel. Aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin, who used Antoinette engines in his own planes, posited another possibility which he argued was also the cause of Latham's first failure: "The Antoinette V-8 [motor] furnished a significant fraction less of its power after running more than 15 minutes. It was this problem that provoked Latham's fall into the sea."
Latham wanted to make yet another attempt but as British pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White
wrote:
Latham participated in twelve other competitions throughout Europe and, in late 1910 and early 1911, four in the United States: New York, site of the second Gordon Bennett
International Gold Cup race, where Latham was a member of the French team (it was the first flight in a competition of the Antoinette VII equipped with a V-16 100 hp motor.); Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
At the Grande Semaine de l'Aviation de la Champagne on 22–29 August 1909 at Reims, France, (the first true international aviation competition that drew almost 100,000 spectators on opening day. Latham came in second for the speed competition 68.9 km/h (42.8 mph) and was first in the altitude contest, flying an Antoinette IV, setting a world record of 155 metres (509 ft). He also competed in the Grand Prix event, trying to fly the longest distance around the circuit in a single uninterrupted flight, making several attempts in two different aircraft over the three-days. He won prizes for second place in one aircraft (Antoinette IV) and fifth in the other (Antoinette VII ).
Latham competed as a member of the French team in the first Coupe Internationale d'Aviation, popularly known as the Gordon Bennett Cup
since its inauguration as a hot air balloon contest years earlier, which was also held during the first "Reims Week". Piloting the Antoinette VII he placed third with Glenn Curtiss
, the only American entrant at the competition, earning first prize and Louis Blériot coming in second.
One of Latham's more spectacular exhibition flights took place in Blackpool
, England, on 22 October 1909, where he flew in a gale. The signal was given that the wind was over the limit of 15 mph, but Latham took off and covered 8 miles (12.9 km) in 11 minutes in winds ranging between 23 mph and 40 mph.
When he flew downwind he later estimated that his airspeed reached 100 mph during the flight. When he flew directly into the wind, however, one of the stronger gusts he encountered drove him backwards. This was reported as the first time people ever saw an aeroplane fly in reverse. According to one local historian, the incident came about to fulfill his promise to fly given to the Tsar’s cousin and his wife with whom he had dined the previous night. Newspaper reporters dubbed him ‘King of the Air’, in a similar way that the soubriquet ‘The Storm King’, had been created by the press after his encounters with stiff winds at Reims.
On 7 January 1910, in Mourmelon-le-Grand
, France, Latham climbed to an altitude of 1100 m (3,608.9 ft), more than 610 m (2,001.3 ft) higher than his previous world record and beyond previous claims of unofficial records. Later the same year, in July during the second Semaine de l'Aviation de la Champagne at Reims, Latham again set a world altitude record of 1384 m (4,540.7 ft).
In Los Angeles in December 1910, while Latham was participating in an aviation meet, he was asked by one of the wealthier citizens of the city if he would consider coming to his estate to try and shoot wild duck in the air from his aeroplane. Latham agreed and shot two with a borrowed shotgun and thus became the first person to hunt wild fowl from an aeroplane. Again, Levavasseur had reason to be pleased over yet another demonstration of his aircraft's stability. Latham had one of the ducks stuffed and it is still displayed at the Château de Maillebois.
In Los Angeles, Latham had a serious crash attributed to wind gusts. He misjudged the strength of the wind while trying to land, which resulted in his being driven into a hillside. The Los Angeles Times ran the following headline about the incident:
Latham survived another crash in early 1911 when he gave a demonstration flight at the Brooklands
automobile racing course in England. Harry Harper described the incident:
By the autumn of 1911, Levavasseur had completed building an aeroplane known as the Monobloc or Antoinette blindé (Fr. 'armoured') that was engineered and designed in accordance with the French Ministry of War's requirements. It was entered in the military trials staged at Reims in October 1911 to compete with 10 other entries from as many companies. Levavasseur insisted that Latham would be the pilot. Unfortunately, in the rush to have his aeroplane built in time to enter the trials, Levavasseur never had the chance to test it. The result was that the aeroplane failed to get airborne despite two attempts by Latham because Levavasseur did not have a powerful enough motor that could cope with the significant weight of the aircraft. The Monobloc's failure and subsequent loss of a potentially lucrative government contract was the final blow to the Antoinette company which folded the next month.
Although an experienced and expert hunter of wild game, his death is officially reported to have been caused by being mauled by a wounded buffalo. However, in one anonymous contemporary newspaper article which appeared in 1914, it was claimed that the adjutant-commandant of a French Colonial Army fort located just outside Fort Archambault, who retrieved his body after his death, had found that Latham had sustained a single head wound and saw no marks on or around Latham's body consistent with a rampaging buffalo. The writer claimed that the commandant believed, based on the physical evidence and on the conflicting reports of the porters under questioning, that it was possible Latham had been murdered by one of more of his porters, perhaps in order to steal his rifles, but was unable to prove it. Latham was originally buried in Fort Lamy (now N'djamena
, capital city of Chad), because French colonial law forbade the transport of any human remains to another country until a full year had lapsed since death. In January 1914 Latham's mother arranged to have her son's corpse disinterred and shipped to Le Havre where he was re-interred in the family plot. He had never married and thus left no direct descendants.
Latham's own written account of his final weeks in the bush described his unease over the discipline of his team of bearers, and also his anxiety over the levels of discord and violence that ruled this military administered area. The official investigation into Latham's death took no cognisance of his concerns and recorded the incident as a tragic hunting accident.
Aviation reporter and author Harry Harper, who had witnessed Latham's career from his cross-Channel attempts to the failure of the Monobloc at the French military trials two years later, wrote the following about Hubert Latham in his final book, published in 1956:
near Sangatte
, between Calais
and Boulogne-sur-Mer
. 50.93044°N 1.7211°E
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'.(48.633°N 1.1472°E)
Aviation
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
pioneer. He was the first person to attempt to cross the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
in an aeroplane
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
. 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.
Early life and exploits
Latham was born in Paris into a wealthy Protestant family. His French mother's family were the bankers, Mallet Frères et Cie, and his father, Lionel Latham, was the son of an English merchant adventurer and trader of indigo and other commodities, Charles Latham, who had settled in Le Havre in 1829. Hubert Latham’s English grand-uncles were mercantile traders, merchant bankers and lawyers in the City of London and Liverpool and his home was the centuries old Château de Maillebois, near Chartres, which his father purchased from Vicomte de Maleyssie in 1882. One of Latham's maternal grand-aunts was the mother of the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, (appointed in 1909), which made him a second cousin of the aviator.Latham had two siblings, an older sister, Edmée, and a younger sister, Léonie. The three children were raised within the small but elite circle of Protestant high society. All three children spoke French, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
fluently. His father, Lionel, died of pneumonia in 1885 and his mother never remarried.
Latham attended Balliol College at the University of Oxford for one academic year 1903/4 after which he fulfilled his reservist military service training obligation in Paris and then accompanied his cousin, the balloonist Jacques Faure, on a night crossing of the English Channel (from London to Paris) in a gas balloon on 11–12 February 1905. He also competed successfully in an Antoinette motor yacht in the power boat racing events at the Monaco Regatta, April 1905, in association with his cousin Jules Gastambide and Léon Levavasseur, the inventor of the Antoinette engine. He then led an exploratory expedition with friends to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1906/07 during which he collected specimens for the Natural History Museum in Paris and performed survey work for the French Colonial Office. In 1908, his travels continued on to the Far East, before returning to France later that year.
Association with Antoinette aircraft
Latham returned from the Far East in time to take the opportunity of witnessing several of the performances by Wilbur WrightWright brothers
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...
, who was in France trying to sell his aeroplane to the French Government, in his Flyer at Camp d'Auvours, near Le Mans
Le Mans
Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...
. Intrigued with the idea of flying, Latham searched for an aeroplane company that would train him as a pilot. He selected the Antoinette company headed by Jules Gastambide, a distant cousin, and Léon Levavasseur
Léon Levavasseur
Léon Levavasseur was a powerplant engineer, aircraft designer and inventor. His innovations included the V8 engine, direct fuel injection, and evaporative engine cooling...
, co-director, designer, and chief engineer, whom Latham knew from Monaco, since it was Levavasseur who designed the boats Latham raced as well as built their engines which became the precursors of his aeroplane motors. The Antoinette company (named after Gastambide's daughter) had been founded in 1906 to build and sell Levavasseur's engines. The favourable power-to-weight ratio
Power-to-weight ratio
Power-to-weight ratio is a calculation commonly applied to engines and mobile power sources to enable the comparison of one unit or design to another. Power-to-weight ratio is a measurement of actual performance of any engine or power sources...
of the engines made them attractive to other early aeroplane builders, including Gabriel Voisin
Gabriel Voisin
Gabriel Voisin was an aviation pioneer and the creator of Europe's first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained , circular, controlled flight, including take-off and landing. It was flown by Henry Farman on January 13, 1908 near Paris, France...
, Louis Blériot
Louis Blériot
Louis Charles Joseph Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel. For this achievement, he received a prize of £1,000...
, Alberto Santos-Dumont
Alberto Santos-Dumont
Alberto Santos-Dumont , was a Brazilian early pioneer of aviation. The heir of a wealthy family of coffee producers, Santos Dumont dedicated himself to science studies in Paris, France, where he spent most of his adult life....
, and Henry Farman
Henry Farman
Henri Farman Henri Farman Henri Farman (26 May 1874 – 17 July 1958 was a French pilot, aviator and aircraft designer and manufacturer with his brother Maurice Farman. His family was British and he took French nationality in 1937.-Biography:...
, who used them for their own aeroplanes. In 1907 the company decided to build its own aeroplanes and after several unsuccessul attempts at designing an airworthy model the first Antoinette monoplane was finally introduced in late 1908.
Latham joined the firm in February 1909, and was taught to fly by the company's pilots, Eugène Welféringer and René Demanest. It took several weeks for Latham to master the complicated controls, but Levavasseur recognized his potential and did not dismiss him. Once Latham became proficient, for the next two years he competed at aviation meets throughout Europe and the United States, setting records and winning prizes. His performances earned him fame on both sides of the Atlantic. While many other pilots flew the Antoinette competitively, either for the company or privately, none mastered the aircraft as well as Latham.
Flying school
In early 1909, the Antoinette company worked with the French ArmyFrench Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
at Camp Châlons near Mourmelon-le-Grand
Mourmelon-le-Grand
Mourmelon-le-Grand is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France.-Camp Châlons:'Camp Châlons' is a military camp of circa 10,000 hectares nearby Mourmelon-le-Grand...
to establish the first military aircraft trials, a flight school and a workshop. The school, run by Levavasseur's brother-in-law Charles Wachter, included the Antoinette Trainer - a rudimentary flight simulator that comprised a half-barrel mounted on a universal joint
Universal joint
A universal joint, universal coupling, U joint, Cardan joint, Hardy-Spicer joint, or Hooke's joint is a joint or coupling in a rigid rod that allows the rod to 'bend' in any direction, and is commonly used in shafts that transmit rotary motion...
, with flight controls, pulleys, and stub-wings (poles) to allow the pilot to maintain balance while instructors applied external forces.
Within months of both learning to fly and developing his flying technique, Latham became the school's principal instructor. His pupils in 1909 included Marie Marvingt
Marie Marvingt
Marie Marvingt was a French athlete, mountaineer, and aviator, and the most decorated woman in the history of France. She won numerous prizes for her sporting achievements and was the first woman to climb many of the peaks in the French and Swiss Alps...
, who became the first woman to fly combat missions as a bomber pilot and established air ambulance
Air ambulance
An air ambulance is an aircraft used for emergency medical assistance in situations where either a traditional ambulance cannot reach the scene easily or quickly enough, or the patient needs to be transported over a distance or terrain that makes air transportation the most practical transport....
services throughout the world, and Infante Alfonso, Duke of Galliera
Infante Alfonso, Duke of Galliera
Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Infante of Spain, Duke of Galliera was a Spanish military aviator.-Early life:...
, cousin of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and the first Spanish military pilot.
Attempts to win Daily Mail Channel-crossing prize
In May 1909, three months after Latham joined the company, he at last realized his potential and flew for 37.5 minutes at a speed of 45 mph at a height of just over 30 m (98.4 ft). A week later he set the European non-stop flight record at 1 hour and 7 minutes which seriously challenged the Wrights' world record. During this flight he took his hands off the steering wheel, took a cigarette out of his silver case and smoked it in his ivory holder, thus creating a new record. This delighted Levavasseur because it showcased the airplane's stability when being flown with hands off the controls. Then on June 6, 1909, Latham won the Prix Ambroise Goupy for flying a straight-line course of six kilometers in 4 minutes, 13 seconds. These flights convinced Levavasseur that Latham was clearly his best pilot and he was named the company's premier pilot. Furthermore, based on the length of the flights Latham was conducting, Levavasseur was satisfied that his Antoinette IV monoplane was sufficiently reliable for a 45 minute-to-1 hour continuous flight and therefore Latham could attempt to fly across the English Channel to win a £1,000 (US$5,000 1910) prize offered by the Daily MailDaily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
.
On 9 July 1909, while encamped at Sangatte
Sangatte
Sangatte is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department on the northern coast of France on the English Channel.Like many place names in French Flanders, the name is of Flemish origin and means "gap in the sand".-Engineering:...
, several miles west of Calais on the French coast of the English Channel, Latham officially informed the Daily Mail that he intended to cross the Channel by air and claim their prize. He was forced to renew his intention several times as his attempt was continually delayed by bad weather. Within the next four days, Comte Charles de Lambert
Charles de Lambert (aviator)
Charles, Count de Lambert, was an early European aviator.De Lambert was the first person in France to be taught to fly by Wilbur Wright. The first lesson took place at Le Mans on 28 October 1908...
, a Franco-Russian aviator, also notified the Daily Mail of his intention to compete for the prize and he established his camp at Wissant
Wissant
Wissant is a seaside commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:...
, several miles west of Sangatte, bringing two French-built Wright Flyers (Nos. 2 and 18) with him.
On 19 July Latham took off from Cap Blanc-Nez, very near Sangatte
Sangatte
Sangatte is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department on the northern coast of France on the English Channel.Like many place names in French Flanders, the name is of Flemish origin and means "gap in the sand".-Engineering:...
, but after only 8 miles (12.9 km) his Antoinette IV
Antoinette IV
|-See also:* Antoinette III* Antoinette V* Antoinette VI* Antoinette VII* Antoinette military monoplane-References:* World Aircraft Information Files. Brightstar Publishing: London. File 889 Sheet 63.* *...
suffered engine failure and Latham had to ditch in the Channel, thereby performing the world's first landing of an aircraft on the sea. The undamaged fuselage remained afloat, so he lit a cigarette and awaited rescue by the French torpedo-destroyer Harpon that was following. After recovery of the aircraft, the engine was examined and a stray piece of wire was found inside the engine. Levavasseur stated that the misfire was caused by this wire.
- “Not in the very least. We have proved that the Channel can be flown. A little accident to a motor, what is that? Accidents happen to bicycles, to horses, even to bath-chairs…We have a machine that can go on land, in the air, and in the water. It runs, it flies, it swims. C'est un triomphe!”".
Because the salvage operation on Latham's first Antoinette resulted in severe damage to the aircraft, Levavasseur was forced to arrange for a second plane to be shipped from the factory in Puteaux
Puteaux
Puteaux is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department from the center of Paris....
, a Paris suburb, and it arrived on July 21. It was their newest model, the Antoinette VII
Antoinette VII
|-See also:* Antoinette III* Antoinette IV* Antoinette V* Antoinette VI* Antoinette military monoplane-References:* World Aircraft Information Files. Brightstar Publishing: London. File 889 Sheet 63....
, and it had never been tested in flight, although Latham did get a chance to fly it once, briefly, while he waited for the foul weather to abate.
A day later, Louis Blériot
Louis Blériot
Louis Charles Joseph Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel. For this achievement, he received a prize of £1,000...
set up camp just under 2 miles (3.2 km) away from Latham at Les Baraques and announced his intention to go for the prize in his Blériot XI
Blériot XI
The Blériot XI is the aircraft in which, on 25 July 1909, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel made in a heavier-than-air aircraft . This achievement is one of the most famous accomplishments of the early years of aviation, and not only won Blériot a lasting place in...
monoplane, and the two contestants had to wait for better weather. Meanwhile, de Lambert damaged one of his Flyers in a test flight shortly after Blériot's arrival and decided to withdraw from the competition.
At about 3 a.m. the morning of 25 July 1909 Blériot's team noticed a break in the weather, awakened him, prepared the aircraft, and waited for dawn to make the attempt if the favourable conditions still held. Levavasseur and the rest of Latham's team, however, slept the night through and failed to notice the opportunity, a lapse which was rigorously criticised by Latham’s supporters. Blériot took off precisely at dawn (4.41am) to make the first successful crossing of the English Channel by aeroplane.
Harry Harper, the Daily Mail reporter who was witness to the event, wrote that Levavasseur woke up just in time to see Blériot's aeroplane leaving the French coast and he rushed to wake Latham and his crew to see if it could be possible to catch Blériot or overtake him should the latter not succeed in crossing the Channel. By the time Latham's monoplane was in position atop the cliffs at Cap Blanc-Nez, a gusty wind had risen, accompanied by heavy rains, so that "any attempt at a take-off would have been nothing less than suicidal."
Two days later, on 27 July, Latham made a second attempt to cross the Channel. He was within minutes of arriving in the vicinity of Dover when engine failure again forced him into the sea. This time he could not control the angle of descent as well as he had in his first attempt and when he hit the water he seriously damaged the aircraft and suffered severe lacerations to his forehead. Although no definitive cause of engine failure for this second attempt was found, two possibilities were put forward. One is that the innovative fuel-injection
Fuel injection
Fuel injection is a system for admitting fuel into an internal combustion engine. It has become the primary fuel delivery system used in automotive petrol engines, having almost completely replaced carburetors in the late 1980s....
system became clogged due to unfiltered fuel. Aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin, who used Antoinette engines in his own planes, posited another possibility which he argued was also the cause of Latham's first failure: "The Antoinette V-8 [motor] furnished a significant fraction less of its power after running more than 15 minutes. It was this problem that provoked Latham's fall into the sea."
Latham wanted to make yet another attempt but as British pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White
Claude Grahame White
Claude Grahame White 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.-Early life:...
wrote:
- "It is a tribute to Latham's courage that, immediately he was well enough to fly again, he should want to make a third attempt to cross the Channel. But the directors of the Antoinette Company, having already spent a large sum of money upon the project, and having lost two machines, were not inclined to take the risk of a third venture, particularly as the great Reims flying meeting was now imminent and they desired to send all their available machines there."
Further aviation career
Gordon Bennett
-People:*Gordon Bennett , Australian artist*Gordon Bennett , US Roman Catholic priest*Gordon Bennett , UK football coach*Gordon Bennett , Australian soldier...
International Gold Cup race, where Latham was a member of the French team (it was the first flight in a competition of the Antoinette VII equipped with a V-16 100 hp motor.); Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
At the Grande Semaine de l'Aviation de la Champagne on 22–29 August 1909 at Reims, France, (the first true international aviation competition that drew almost 100,000 spectators on opening day. Latham came in second for the speed competition 68.9 km/h (42.8 mph) and was first in the altitude contest, flying an Antoinette IV, setting a world record of 155 metres (509 ft). He also competed in the Grand Prix event, trying to fly the longest distance around the circuit in a single uninterrupted flight, making several attempts in two different aircraft over the three-days. He won prizes for second place in one aircraft (Antoinette IV) and fifth in the other (Antoinette VII ).
Latham competed as a member of the French team in the first Coupe Internationale d'Aviation, popularly known as the Gordon Bennett Cup
Gordon Bennett Cup
There were three Gordon Bennett Cups, all established by James Gordon Bennett, Jr.*Gordon Bennett Cup in auto racing*Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning — for a time, a separate cup was also awarded for powered air racing...
since its inauguration as a hot air balloon contest years earlier, which was also held during the first "Reims Week". Piloting the Antoinette VII he placed third with Glenn Curtiss
Glenn Curtiss
Glenn Hammond Curtiss was an American aviation pioneer and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle then motorcycle builder and racer, later also manufacturing engines for airships as early as 1906...
, the only American entrant at the competition, earning first prize and Louis Blériot coming in second.
One of Latham's more spectacular exhibition flights took place in Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...
, England, on 22 October 1909, where he flew in a gale. The signal was given that the wind was over the limit of 15 mph, but Latham took off and covered 8 miles (12.9 km) in 11 minutes in winds ranging between 23 mph and 40 mph.
When he flew downwind he later estimated that his airspeed reached 100 mph during the flight. When he flew directly into the wind, however, one of the stronger gusts he encountered drove him backwards. This was reported as the first time people ever saw an aeroplane fly in reverse. According to one local historian, the incident came about to fulfill his promise to fly given to the Tsar’s cousin and his wife with whom he had dined the previous night. Newspaper reporters dubbed him ‘King of the Air’, in a similar way that the soubriquet ‘The Storm King’, had been created by the press after his encounters with stiff winds at Reims.
On 7 January 1910, in Mourmelon-le-Grand
Mourmelon-le-Grand
Mourmelon-le-Grand is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France.-Camp Châlons:'Camp Châlons' is a military camp of circa 10,000 hectares nearby Mourmelon-le-Grand...
, France, Latham climbed to an altitude of 1100 m (3,608.9 ft), more than 610 m (2,001.3 ft) higher than his previous world record and beyond previous claims of unofficial records. Later the same year, in July during the second Semaine de l'Aviation de la Champagne at Reims, Latham again set a world altitude record of 1384 m (4,540.7 ft).
In Los Angeles in December 1910, while Latham was participating in an aviation meet, he was asked by one of the wealthier citizens of the city if he would consider coming to his estate to try and shoot wild duck in the air from his aeroplane. Latham agreed and shot two with a borrowed shotgun and thus became the first person to hunt wild fowl from an aeroplane. Again, Levavasseur had reason to be pleased over yet another demonstration of his aircraft's stability. Latham had one of the ducks stuffed and it is still displayed at the Château de Maillebois.
In Los Angeles, Latham had a serious crash attributed to wind gusts. He misjudged the strength of the wind while trying to land, which resulted in his being driven into a hillside. The Los Angeles Times ran the following headline about the incident:
- "Fights a Hurricane With Man-Made Bird. Aviator Latham Takes Desperate Chances, While Great Throng Holds Its Breath, and After Terrible Struggle Against the Wind His Machine is Crushed Upon Hillside - He's Uninjured."
Latham survived another crash in early 1911 when he gave a demonstration flight at the Brooklands
Brooklands
Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England. It opened in 1907, and was the world's first purpose-built motorsport venue, as well as one of Britain's first airfields...
automobile racing course in England. Harry Harper described the incident:
By the autumn of 1911, Levavasseur had completed building an aeroplane known as the Monobloc or Antoinette blindé (Fr. 'armoured') that was engineered and designed in accordance with the French Ministry of War's requirements. It was entered in the military trials staged at Reims in October 1911 to compete with 10 other entries from as many companies. Levavasseur insisted that Latham would be the pilot. Unfortunately, in the rush to have his aeroplane built in time to enter the trials, Levavasseur never had the chance to test it. The result was that the aeroplane failed to get airborne despite two attempts by Latham because Levavasseur did not have a powerful enough motor that could cope with the significant weight of the aircraft. The Monobloc's failure and subsequent loss of a potentially lucrative government contract was the final blow to the Antoinette company which folded the next month.
Death
At the end of December 1911, Latham left France to undertake an expedition to the French Congo. Following recent wars to retain their control over this part of Africa, this region continued to be a virtual war zone administered by the French Colonial military authorities. A number of air-fields were being planned for the Sahara to the north of the Congo and there was speculation at the time that Latham may have been asked to undertake an assessment of conditions in the interior region for the French Colonial Office. One aviation journalist suggested that he was to be ‘acting on their behalf in a matter that is not disclosed’. Latham did not ship an aircraft but instead brought an out-board engine for a canoe.Although an experienced and expert hunter of wild game, his death is officially reported to have been caused by being mauled by a wounded buffalo. However, in one anonymous contemporary newspaper article which appeared in 1914, it was claimed that the adjutant-commandant of a French Colonial Army fort located just outside Fort Archambault, who retrieved his body after his death, had found that Latham had sustained a single head wound and saw no marks on or around Latham's body consistent with a rampaging buffalo. The writer claimed that the commandant believed, based on the physical evidence and on the conflicting reports of the porters under questioning, that it was possible Latham had been murdered by one of more of his porters, perhaps in order to steal his rifles, but was unable to prove it. Latham was originally buried in Fort Lamy (now N'djamena
N'Djamena
N'Djamena is the capital and largest city of Chad. A port on the Chari River, near the confluence with the Logone River, it directly faces the Cameroonian town of Kousséri, to which the city is connected by a bridge. It is also a special statute region, divided in 10 arrondissements. It is a...
, capital city of Chad), because French colonial law forbade the transport of any human remains to another country until a full year had lapsed since death. In January 1914 Latham's mother arranged to have her son's corpse disinterred and shipped to Le Havre where he was re-interred in the family plot. He had never married and thus left no direct descendants.
Latham's own written account of his final weeks in the bush described his unease over the discipline of his team of bearers, and also his anxiety over the levels of discord and violence that ruled this military administered area. The official investigation into Latham's death took no cognisance of his concerns and recorded the incident as a tragic hunting accident.
Aviation reporter and author Harry Harper, who had witnessed Latham's career from his cross-Channel attempts to the failure of the Monobloc at the French military trials two years later, wrote the following about Hubert Latham in his final book, published in 1956:
Legacy
A statue erected by the French to Latham's memory overlooks the English ChannelEnglish Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
near Sangatte
Sangatte
Sangatte is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department on the northern coast of France on the English Channel.Like many place names in French Flanders, the name is of Flemish origin and means "gap in the sand".-Engineering:...
, between Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
and Boulogne-sur-Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....
. 50.93044°N 1.7211°E
According to Henry Villard in his 2002 book - Contact! The Story of the Early Aviators :
As the D939 route passes through Maillebois
Maillebois
Maillebois is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-Population:-References:*...
it is named 'rue Hubert Latham'.(48.633°N 1.1472°E)