Cross-Channel Aviation Pioneers

Blanchard and Bleriot, Vikings and Viscounts

Bruce Hales-Dutton

• Editorial: Air World
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526775603
• Categoría: Technology & Engineering
• Categoría: Aviation

The stories of the daredevils who attempted to fly over the English Channel—a history filled with triumphs, tragedies, and colorful characters. On July 25, 1909, a dapper, mustachioed Frenchman flying a flimsy, diaphanous airplane changed the status of a great nation. "England is no longer an island, " declared the Daily Mail. Lord Northcliffe, the newspaper's proprietor, had put up the £1, 000 prize for the first flight of the English Channel by the pilot of an airplane. In securing the prize for one of aviation's most celebrated firsts, Louis Blériot had beaten his Anglo-French rival Hubert Latham. Six days earlier, Latham had become the first airman to make a forced landing on water when the engine of his elegant Antoinette monoplane failed while he attempted the crossing. This book explores the triumphs, tragedies, and many milestones in cross-channel flight, beginning back in July 1785 when John-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries made the first crossing, by balloon. Other flyers quickly followed Blériot so that Pierre Prier made the first non-stop London-Paris flight in April 1911 and Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly the Channel a year later—though her historic accomplishment was overshadowed by the Titanic catastrophe. The book also charts other events in cross-Channel aviation such as the midair collision between the UK and France that led to a rudimentary system of air traffic control; the first cat to make the flight; the popular car ferry services of the 1950s and 1960s; and the coming of the jets—providing a colorful history of the era before the debut of the famed Channel Tunnel.

Chapter One

The Beautiful Voyage

How many ways are there to cross the English Channel by air? The answer, as history has shown, is that nobody really knows. The fact is that, even 100 years after the first powered aerial crossing, there are probably many ways of crossing the Straits of Dover which separates England and France that have yet to be invented.

On Sunday 4 August 2019 a 40-year-old jet-ski champion and engineer from Marseilles added his name to the roll of cross-Channel aviation pioneers. In doing so, Franky Zapata joined a list of flyers stretching back 234 years to January 1785 when Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries made the first aerial crossing. They went by balloon; Zapata chose a ‘hover board’, a jet-powered platform just big enough to accommodate its pilot standing up to control his machine at speeds exceeding 100 mph.

Zapata’s extraordinary device looked as though it had just left the pages of a sci-fi comic. But then no doubt Louis Blériot’s spindly, wire-braced monoplane with its bicycle wheels probably looked just as alien to onlookers when the Frenchman arrived in Dover in July 1909. Indeed, Zapata invoked the spirit of his countryman when he spoke of opening a new era in aviation.

Since the days of Blanchard and Jeffries the Channel has provided a yardstick for judging aviation achievement. Jonathan Trappe, who flew the Channel suspended from a cluster of helium balloons, put it this way:

the English Channel continues to call to us. I don’t know if it is a siren’s song, or if crossing that ribbon of water will be like breaking the ribbon at the finish line. With good luck, I will find out today.

At its narrowest point, the Dover Strait, the Channel is just twenty-two miles wide. Yet the prestige attached to crossing this strip of water is out of proportion to the distance involved. There has always been something symbolic about making the trip, especially if it’s done in a new way.

Yet, despite its significance in separating the British Isles from the European land mass, the English Channel or La Manche looks like any other stretch of water no matter which side you view it from.

But had it not been for a geological accident eight millennia ago it would have been very different: we could have walked across.

No doubt there have been many nervous travellers who wished it was still possible to do so. Others probably gazed wistfully at the gulls soaring effortlessly over the often choppy stretch of sea. But the world had to wait until 1784 for the first aerial crossing of the English Channel by humans.

Many centuries before, hot air balloons were reputedly in use in places as far apart as China and South America. There has been talk of man-carrying smoke balloons during the Yin dynasty of the twelfth century BC and it’s been suggested that in China during the fourth century BC fire balloons were used for signalling in warfare. Legend also has it that balloons were used by priests of pre-Inca civilisations. Peruvian funereal rites involved sending corpses out over the Pacific by hot air balloon.

Whether or not the human-carrying balloon was invented in the ancient world, it was unquestionably two French brothers who first demonstrated its potential to a mass audience in the revolutionary age of the late eighteenth century. And it wasn’t long before the possibilities it offered for a new form of transport were soon evident.

The first public demonstration of a hot air balloon by Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier in June 1783 was followed five months later by the first manned ascent and then, after a year and a half, by the first aerial crossing of the English Channel in early 1785.

The Montgolfiers relied on hot air generated by an on-board fire but it wasn’t long before a safer and more efficient lifting agent became available. This was hydrogen, although the British scientist Henry Cavendish called it ‘phlogiston’ or ‘inflammable air’ when he discovered it in 1766. But it was not until 1783 that it was first used as a lifting agent for balloons. That put it in direct competition with hot air.

The Montgolfier family was an old-established one able to trace its roots back to mediaeval times. They began paper manufacture in the fourteenth century and their business prospered so that it received royal patronage in the eighteenth century. By that time Pierre Montgolfier was in charge of the firm and his two sons, Joseph, born in 1740, and Étienne five years his junior, began to consider the possibilities of flight.

There is a certain amount of speculation surrounding the events that led to their experiments with hot air balloons and, inevitably, legend plays its part. One story has it that the behaviour of garments drying in front of the fire suggested the possibility of levitation by hot air. It’s also thought that Joseph’s urge to experiment was inspired by Joseph Priestley’s paper Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air which appeared in France in 1776.

Although Joseph Montgolfier learned how to produce hydrogen he soon discovered its limitations with the paper vessels he was using initially. He turned to hot air, although he appears not to have realised that air expands when heated and that its weight drops as its volume increases. He assumed that the process of combustion produced a special type of gas and that the most effective way to produce it was by burning a mixture of damp straw and wool.

Following a series of successful small-scale experiments with paper bags, Joseph’s ambitions soared. He suggested to the governments of France and Spain that his invention offered a means of prising Gibraltar out of the clutches of the stubborn British defenders by means of an airborne assault using balloons.

By this time Étienne had become an enthusiastic and active partner in Joseph’s experiments with successively larger vessels offering greater lifting power. This work led to a 22,000-cubic-foot envelope made of cloth lined with paper and comprising numerous sections. According to Étienne, these sections were fastened like garments ‘with buttons and buttonholes’.

On 5 June 1783 a big crowd gathered in the square at Annonay near Lyons in southern France to witness the balloon’s ascent. On Joseph’s signal, the eight men holding down the vessel released their grip and the balloon soared rapidly upwards. It came down a mile and half away ten minutes later. But for the loss of gas through the buttonholes and ‘other imperfections’ it could have flown further, Étienne later claimed.

When the news reached Paris 500 miles away the scientific community greeted it with some scepticism. The Paris Academy assumed the Montgolfiers had used hydrogen and immediately commissioned Jacques Charles and the brothers Aine and Cadet Robert to produce a better balloon. The resulting craft had an envelope made of silk coated with a solution of rubber which they hoped would make it less permeable.

The initial method of providing the gas was complex and cumbersome requiring iron filings to be mixed with sulphuric acid. Many problems had to be overcome – not least the leakage of gas from the envelope – before the tethered balloon was allowed to rise in a public demonstration on 27 August 1783. Watched by a huge crowd, the balloon, named The Globe, ascended from the Champ de Mars, where the Eiffel Tower now stands, to a height of 3,000 feet where it disappeared into a rain cloud. It appeared a few minutes later before it was finally lost to sight over the Paris skyline.

The Globe came down forty-five minutes later near the village of Gonesse fifteen miles from the centre of Paris, which, 217 years later, was the site of the Air France Concorde supersonic airliner crash. There the terrified villagers attacked the limp balloon envelope with muskets and pitchforks, tearing it to pieces.

Étienne Montgolfier was in Paris to watch The Globe’s ascent and, later, he and his brother moved their operations to the capital. There they resolved to construct the biggest balloon yet. It would have an envelope of linen in a paper sandwich that, when expanded, would be 74-feet tall and 43-feet in diameter.

The balloon was scheduled to be demonstrated to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette at Versailles on 19 September. They only just made it. A week before they’d agreed on a preview to members of the Academy. The Montgolfiers burned 50lb of straw and several pounds of wool to inflate their envelope; the speed of inflation compared to Charles’ hydrogen balloon amazed the watchers.

But a sudden storm arose and the high wind destroyed the balloon. But, aided by a team of helpers, the Montgolfiers built a replacement in time for the Royal demonstration. This time a spherical envelope 57-feet tall and 41-feet in diameter and made of stronger cloth with paper backing on the inside was specified. The outside was elaborately decorated in blue and gold and displaying the royal insignia.

It was completed in just four days leaving just enough time for a trial ascent the day before the Versailles spectacular. Pre-launch rumour suggested the balloon would be carrying a man but the king himself vetoed the idea as too dangerous. As a compromise a wicker cage carrying a sheep, a cockerel and a duck was suspended from the balloon. After a sumptuous banquet the king and queen made a pre-launch inspection of the craft but the smell of the fuel, to which the brothers had added some old shoes and decomposing meat, quickly drove them to a more remote vantage point.

Meanwhile, the balloon was straining to be free. A huge crowd was watching as three cannon shots signalled that it was time for the craft to be the released. Immediately, it soared majestically into the sky, rising to a height estimated at 1,700 feet before drifting away in the breeze. Eight minutes later it made a gentle landing in the forest of Vaugesson just two miles from Versailles.

Joseph Montgolfier was disappointed. He’d expected it to reach 12,000 feet and stay aloft for twenty minutes. Everybody else, though, including the Royal Family, was highly impressed. The three passengers were probably happy too. They’d arrived in one piece, although the cockerel was said to have been kicked by the sheep before launch.

Fresh from this triumph, the Montgolfiers announced their intention of building a man-carrying balloon. The king remained dubious and decreed that, if the brothers were resolved on such a risky venture, the craft should carry aloft two criminals who, should they survive, would be pardoned.

This notion outraged a young Parisian doctor and scientist called Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier. Described as a headstrong man of action and the Don Juan of the Paris salons, de Rozier had closely followed the activities of the Montgolfiers and had worked with them. He believed that the honour of making the first flight should most emphatically not be given to criminals. He found an influential ally in the Marquis d’Arlandes, a somewhat hot-tempered and arrogant major in the Garde Royale who had good connections at Court. He offered to try to change the king’s mind on condition that he could accompany de Rozier in his great venture.

Eventually the king agreed to the flight and de Rozier was free to make history. He joined forces with the Montgolfiers to work on a new and stronger balloon. The envelope was 75-feet-6-inches tall and 49-feet in diameter, around which was constructed a cloth-covered wickerwork balustrade. The wrought-iron fire basket was suspended from the envelope by chains.

On 15 October 1783 de Rozier made the first ascent, albeit tethered to the ground by ropes. Watched by the now customary large crowd, he ascended to 84 feet, the limit of the rope. By continually feeding the fire with straw he was able to remain aloft for over four minutes. Longer and higher ascents were made over the next few days. On one occasion, de Rozier was accompanied by d’Arlandes.

The historic first free flight was scheduled for 21 November but in a further captive ascent the envelope was damaged by strong winds. It was hastily repaired by a team of voluntary seamstresses. By the time the repairs had been completed the weather had improved. De Rozier and d’Arlandes stepped into opposite sides of the gallery to maintain balance and at 1:54 pm the great blue-and-gold craft rose impressively from its launching stage. Estimates of the height reached vary with some reports suggesting it reached 3,000 feet.

‘I was surprised at the uneasy silence which our departure caused,’ d’Arlandes wrote later. ‘I therefore took out my handkerchief and waved it.’ This earned him a rebuke from de Rozier who instructed him to put more fuel on the fire instead of doing nothing.

The craft’s survival was continually threatened by the fire which sustained it in the air. The aeronauts had provided themselves with sponges to stifle any fires in the envelope or the ropes that might be set off by sparks from the fire. But this couldn’t prevent small holes being burned in the envelope nor the breakage of ropes. It was time to descend. D’Arlandes wrote later

I felt the balloon pressing softly against my head. I pushed it back and leapt down to the ground. Looking round and expecting to see the balloon still distended, I was astonished to find it quite empty and flattened. On looking for Rozier I saw him in his shirt sleeves creeping out from under the mass of canvas that had fallen over him.

Man’s first flight had lasted twenty-five minutes and covered just over six miles, terminating at Butte-aux-Cailles where the aeronauts were mobbed. In the ensuing confusion, de Rozier’s coat was ripped off and divided up by the souvenir-hunting crowd. It seems d’Arlandes was the first of the duo to recover and he rushed off to the Paris Academy to tell his story of the historic flight.

This success galvanised the champions of the hydrogen balloon into action. Charles, together with the brothers Aine and Cadet Robert, launched a public subscription to fund the construction of a man-carrying craft. The results represented a huge advance on the Montgolfiers’ hot air vessel and set the standard for balloon design for years to come.

The envelope comprised sections of rubberised silk sewn together to form a perfect sphere 27-feet-6-inches in diameter. These sections were alternately coloured red and yellow. Crucially, the envelope incorporated a valve at the top which would be opened to release gas to enable the aeronaut to descend at will. At the bottom was an open neck to facilitate inflation and to allow for expansion.

Cord netting attached to a wooden ring encircling the envelope at the centre was in turn attached to ropes from which the wickerwork car was suspended. The car itself was an elaborate device that resembled a chariot from the ancient world but which carried Charles and Aîné Robert aloft. The first manned ascent by a hydrogen balloon took place on 1 December 1783 from the gardens of the Tuileries. It was estimated that 400,000 people, half the population of Paris, turned out to watch.

Among them was Joseph Montgolfier who was given the honour of releasing a small balloon to gauge the wind strength. At 1:45 pm the brightly coloured main balloon and its baroque and gilded car rose swiftly upwards to a height of 1,800 feet.

The crowd, which hitherto had been silent, broke into a roar of approval. Charles said later: ‘Nothing will ever equal that moment of joyous excitement which filled my whole being when I felt myself flying away from the earth. It was not mere pleasure; it was perfect bliss.’

Two hours later the balloon made a soft landing in open ground after a flight of twenty-seven miles. But that wasn’t enough for the exhilarated Charles. He was determined to make another ascent but this time solo. Robert disembarked and Charles flew for another thirty-five minutes and three miles.

A craze for ballooning now broke out among the Paris intelligentsia. The Montgolfiers, however, resolved to go one better with an even bigger hot air balloon. When fully inflated it would be 131-feet tall, have a diameter of 104 feet and a capacity of 700,000 cubic feet.

Its launch was repeatedly delayed by damage caused by bad weather but, on 19 January 1784, the craft finally staggered into the air weighed down with a load of seven men. Further damage to the envelope cut the voyage short and the balloon was forced to descend after just fifteen minutes in the air.

The techniques of ballooning developed rapidly during 1784 culminating in a 150-mile flight by Cadet Robert and M. Collin-Hullin. The year also saw the first ascent by a man who would soon win undying fame. In August French aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard decided to leave France and go to England where the competition was less intense.

Indeed, the initial reaction on the other side of the Channel to the aeronautical activities in France had been one of scepticism. Even the president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, failed to get it. At first he saw ballooning more as a way of easing the burden of conventional earthbound transport. Attached to coaches or carts, balloons would make them lighter and easier to move.

Erasmus Darwin, the eighteenth-century physician, natural philosopher and grandfather of the better-know...