First Flight Over the Channel by Hubert Latham

Lucis Die takes us back into history with the story of the first channel flight by Hubert Latham in 1909.

Hubert Latham was breaking record upon record, flying higher, faster and farther than anybody else. He was fast becoming the favourite to win the £1,000 prize money put up by Lord Northcliffe for the first aeroplane flight over the Channel. Lord Northcliffe was proprietor of the Daily Mail and the Times, and he was convinced that flying machines would open up England to an invasion by the Germans. To prove this, he set out the prize to show that it was possible to cross the Channel. This happened before the Great War, and long before the Daily Mail became a Nazi supporting newspaper during the 1930s. The prize was part and parcel of a PR stunt spearheaded at the government and parliament to open their eyes to the German threat. Read more about the channel flight of Hubert Latham