There were many other records broken at the other meets held in 1909, but none of them stood long after the 1910 season had got well under way. Altitude, endurance, distance and speed records all were shattered by the ever-increasing army of aviators and the constantly improving machines.
Undoubtedly the most spectacular and daring feat of 1910 was the flight across the Alps by George Chavez, who was born in Paris of Peruvian parents only twenty-three years before his tragic death. In September of that year he set out to win the prize of 70,000 francs offered by the Italian Aviation Society to the first aviator who would fly the 75 miles from Brig to Milan, across the towering peaks and yawning chasms of the Alps. Of the five who entered the contest Chavez was the only one to make a real start. After waiting for several days, during which wind, rain and fog kept him chained to the ground, he finally rose in the air.
In a few minutes he was 7,000 feet above sea level, crossing the famous Simplon Pass, braving the fierce eddies of wind that swirled around the cruel, jagged crags and precipices. Finally he crossed the mountains and glided down the Italian slope to Domodossola. Thousands had gathered to greet his arrival, but as he was sinking gradually to the earth, only thirty feet above the ground, a gust of wind caught the machine, the wings collapsed and the brave young man fell to earth underneath the machinery. He received injuries from which he died four days later. The committee granted him one third of the prize on the basis that he had completed the difficult part of the journey.
No less dangerous was Glenn Curtiss's trip from Albany to New York in his biplane, by which he won the $10,000 prize offered by the New York World. Most of his route lay over wooded hills, the waters of the Hudson River, or the cliffs along its banks, which territory, as any one who has travelled from New York to Albany knows, offers few landing places. Starting with a letter from the Mayor of Albany to the Mayor of New York and followed by a special train on the New York Central he made Camelot, 41 miles from Albany, in about an hour. The next jump was clear to Spuyten Duyvil, the northern boundary of Manhattan, which completed the required 128 miles in a total elapsed time of 2 hours and 32 minutes. His average speed was 50-1/2 miles an hour.
This stage of the journey nearly brought serious disaster to the aviator, for, while passing the famous old mountain Storm King, he was caught by a terrific gust of wind and his machine was twisted sideways so that it dropped suddenly toward the river. By skilful manipulation he righted his biplane and continued.
After a brief pause at Spuyten Duyvil he sailed down the Hudson River and the upper New York Bay to Governor's Island. Every whistle in the harbour, a few million people and the reporters representing the newspaper readers of the whole civilized world, proclaimed his victory over the wind gusts eddying around the palisades and the New York skyscrapers.
In the United States there were many aviators besides Curtiss who were making an effort to win long distance prizes. The New York Times and the Philadelphia Ledger had offered a large purse, supposed to be $10,000, for the first flight from New York to Philadelphia, and on June 13th, a few days after Glenn Curtiss's flight from Albany to New York, Charles K. Hamilton, another young man new to aviation, sailed in his Curtiss biplane the 86 miles from Governor's Island to Philadelphia in 1 hour and 43 minutes, and returned the same day. His average speed was 50-1/2 miles an hour, the same maintained by Curtiss in his Albany-New York trip. These two flights added tremendously to the fame of the Curtiss machines.
The great International Aviation Tournament of 1910, held at Belmont Park in October, was the climax of the season in this country. Of course interest centred around the race for the James Gordon Bennett Cup and prize of $5,000, which had been won the year before at Rheims by Curtiss. The total prizes amounted to $60,000 and practically every standard make of aeroplane was represented. The American aviators came into prominence at this meet, as will be remembered by the feats of Walter Brookins, Arch. Hoxsey, Ralph Johnstone, J. A. Drexel and a dozen others. The English contingent was led by Claude Grahame-White, who had been making himself famous at the Harvard-Boston meet. Of the Frenchmen, Alfred LeBlanc, Hubert Latham, Emiel Aubrun and Count de Lesseps were among the leaders.
Nearly every one nowadays is familiar with the story of how Grahame-White brought out his 100-horsepower Blériot monoplane for its first trial and made 100 kilometres at an average speed of 61 miles an hour. Soon after that LeBlanc came out with another 100-horsepower Blériot, acknowledged to be one of the swiftest machines ever made at that time, and started on a race around the course at a speed such as the world had never seen before. In the last lap his gasoline gave out, the aeroplane shot downward and was smashed against a telephone pole. LeBlanc was more angry than injured, because he had lost the race, although his speed had been 67 miles an hour, or six miles better than Grahame-White's. Brookins, with the Wright biplane racing machine, started out with high speed, but the engine soon began to miss fire and he too came to earth. Consequently Grahame-White carried off the prize.
The next day the aviators were out to contest for the $10,000 offered by Thomas F. Ryan for the quickest flight from the aviation field to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour, 16 miles away, and return. Never before was there such a dramatic race. Together Count de Lesseps and Claude Grahame-White, both in Blériot machines, started for the Statue. John Moisant, the American aviator, who only that summer had made the first flight from Paris to London, suddenly determined to win the prize. It took him about five minutes to buy LeBlanc's 50-horsepower Blériot monoplane for $10,000, and just as Grahame-White and de Lesseps were returning from their flight Moisant started out. Instead of taking the safer roundabout course, where there were many landing places, this dauntless birdman sailed directly over the church steeples of Brooklyn, cutting through the treacherous air currents at terrific speed, circling the Statue at great altitude and returning by the same route. His time was 43 seconds better than that of Grahame-White, who flew a machine of double the power. The Americans were wild with delight, thinking Moisant had won the prize, but the committee finally gave the award to Count de Lesseps, who made the slowest time, because Grahame-White had fouled the starting post, or pylon, as it is called by aviators, and because Moisant in his desperation to get started had failed to qualify.