In 1908 Lord Northcliffe ordered a prize of ₤1,000 to the first man who would fly across the English Channel. Over a year passed, Hubert Latham attempted to fly across the
Channel in his plane the ‘Antoinette IV’. Because there was trouble with the engine, he had travelled only seven miles across the Channel and was forced to land on the sea. He was then rescued by a ship. Two days later, a match was held near Calais, where
Louis Bleriot competed against Hubert Latham to reach the English coast. Because Louis Bleriot had been making planes since 1905 and had completed a successful
overland flight before he tried to fly across the Channel, he became the first man who
completed the great flight across the Channel with a plane called ‘No. XI’. It took him
thirty-seven minutes to land near Dover. And the first person to greet him was a local
policeman. Hubert Latham was so unlucky that he could not finish flight across the
Channel because of a broken-down aero-engine.
