These are the cold statistics of the meeting; at this length of time it
is difficult to convey any idea of the enthusiasm of the crowds over
the achievements of the various competitors, while the incidents of
the week, comic and otherwise, are nearly forgotten now even by those
present in this making of history. Latham's great flight on the Thursday
was rendered a breathless episode by a downpour of rain when he had
covered all but a kilometre of the record distance previously achieved
by Paulhan, and there was wild enthusiasm when Latham flew on through
the rain until he had put up a new record and his petrol had run out.
Again, on the Friday afternoon, the Colonel Renard took the air together
with a little French dirigible, Zodiac III; Latham was already in the
air directly over Farman, who was also flying, and three crows which
turned out as rivals to the human aviators received as much cheering for
their appearance as had been accorded to the machines, which doubtless
they could not understand. Frightened by the cheering, the crows tried
to escape from the course, but as they came near the stands, the crowd
rose to cheer again and the crows wheeled away to make a second charge
towards safety, with the same result; the crowd rose and cheered at them
a third and fourth time; between ten and fifteen thousand people stood
on chairs and tables and waved hats and handkerchiefs at three ordinary,
everyday crows. One thoughtful spectator, having thoroughly enjoyed the
funny side of the incident, remarked that the ultimate mastery of the
air lies with the machine that comes nearest to natural flight. This
still remains for the future to settle.
Farman's world record, which won the Grand Prix de Champagne, was done
with a Gnome Rotary Motor which had only been run on the test bench
and was fitted to his machine four hours before he started on the great
flight. His propeller had never been tested, having only been completed
the night before. The closing laps of that flight, extending as they did
into the growing of the dusk, made a breathlessly eerie experience for
such of the spectators as stayed on to watch--and these were many. Night
came on steadily and Farman covered lap after lap just as steadily, a
buzzing, circling mechanism with something relentless in its isolated
persistency.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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