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Bleriot, flying alone in this big monoplane, started in a speed flight for the Gordon-Bennett; but he was only a quarter of the way round the course, on his second lap, when the machine was seen to break suddenly into flames and crash to the ground from a height of 100 feet.
Henry Farman won the Grand Prix de Champagne on this day, covering 112 miles in 3 hours, 4 minutes, 56 seconds, Latham being second with his 96.5 miles flight, and Paulhan third. On the Saturday, Glenn Curtiss came to his own, winning the Gordon-Bennett Cup by covering 20 kilometres in 15 minutes 50.6 seconds.
In the pre-war years, once the Wright Brothers had accomplished their task, America's chief accomplishment consisted in the development of the 'Flying Boat, alternatively named with characteristic American clumsiness, 'The Hydro-Aeroplane. In February of 1911, Glenn Curtiss attached a float to a machine similar to that with which he won the first Gordon-Bennett Air Contest and made his first flying boat experiment.
A particularly fine example of stream-lining was to be found in the Deperdussin monoplane on which Vedrines won back the Gordon-Bennett Aviation Cup from America at a speed of 105.5 m.p.h. a considerable improvement on the 78 m.p.h. of the preceding year, which was by no means accounted for by the mere increase in engine power from 100 horse-power to 140 horse-power.
On one of these machines C. T. Weyman won the Gordon-Bennett Cup for America in 1911 and another put up a fine performance in the same race with only a 30 horse-power engine.
Where this performance is mainly interesting is in contrast to the machines of 1920, which with an even higher speed capacity would yet be able to land at not more than 40 or 50 miles per hour, and would be thoroughly efficient flying machines. The Rheims Aviation Meeting, at which the Gordon-Bennett race was flown, also saw the first appearance of the Morane 'Parasol' monoplane.
The craft was, as a matter of fact, an experiment, being built almost purely for speed; hence its powerful motor. M. Bleriot's idea, in constructing it, was to have a machine with which he might win the Gordon-Bennett international speed race at Rheims. But this hope he did not realise; nor did I obtain delivery of the craft I desired.
She doesn't visit anywhere very extensively, and, of course, she's awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred at one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she accidentally hit the shins of a Serene Somebody or other with a croquet mallet and that he swore at her in German. As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing on the Gordon-Bennett affair in French.
The Gordon-Bennett race of September, 1913, was again won by a Deperdussin machine, somewhat similar to that of the previous year, but with exceedingly small wings, only 107 square feet in area. The shape of these wings was instructive as showing how what, from the general utility point of view, may be disadvantageous can, for a special purpose, be turned to account.
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