HUBERT LATHAM.
Hubert Latham, the famous Antoinette pilot, is a graduate of Oxford. His father was a naturalized Frenchman.
His first aeronautical experience was as companion to his cousin, Jacques Faure, the balloonist, on his famous trip from London to Paris in 6½ hours, the fastest time ever made between the two places until the Clement-Bayard dirigible surpassed it by a few minutes on October 16, 1910.
The Antoinette monoplane with which M. Latham has identified himself began with the ingenious engine of Levavasseur, which was speedily made use of for aeroplanes by Santos-Dumont, Bleriot, and Farman. Levavasseur also had ideas about aeroplanes, and persuaded some capitalists to back him in the enterprise. When it was done, no one could be found to fly it. Here M. Latham, a lieutenant of miners and sappers in the French army, stepped into the breach, and has made a name for himself and for the Antoinette machine in the forefront of the progress of aviation.
After winning several contests he set out, on July 19, 1909, to cross the British Channel. After flying about half the distance he fell into the sea. Six days later Bleriot made the crossing successfully, and Latham made a second attempt on July 27th, and this time got within a mile of the Dover coast before he again came down in the water.
He has shown unsurpassed daring and skill in flying in gales blowing at 40 miles per hour, a record which few other aviators have cared to rival.