At 3.50 he was over Nuneaton and making good progress; between
Atherstone and Lichfield the wind caught him and the engine failed more
and more, until at 4.13 in the morning he was forced to come to earth,
having covered 6 miles less distance than in his first attempt. It was
purely a case of engine failure, for, with full power, he would have
passed over Paulhan just as the latter was preparing for the restart.
Taking into consideration the two machines, there is little doubt that
Grahame White showed the greater flying skill, although he lost the
prize. After landing and hearing of Paulhan's victory, on which he wired
congratulations, he made up his mind to fly to Manchester within the
24 hours. He started at 5 o'clock in the afternoon from Polesworth, his
landing place, but was forced to land at 5.30 at Whittington, where
he had landed on the previous Saturday. The wind, which had forced his
descent, fell again and permitted of starting once more; on this third
stage he reached Lichfield, only to make his final landing at 7.15 p.m.,
near the Trent Valley station. The defective running of the Gnome engine
prevented his completing the course, and his Farman machine had to be
brought back to London by rail.
The presentation of the prize to Paulhan was made the occasion for the
announcement of a further competition, consisting of a 1,000 mile flight
round a part of Great Britain. In this, nineteen competitors started,
and only four finished; the end of the race was a great fight between
Beaumont and Vedrines, both of whom scorned weather conditions in their
determination to win. Beaumont made the distance in a flying time of
22 hours 28 minutes 19 seconds, and Vedrines covered the journey in
a little over 23 1/2 hours. Valentine came third on a Deperdussin
monoplane and S. F. Cody on his Cathedral biplane was fourth. This was
in 1911, and by that time heavier-than-air flight had so far advanced
that some pilots had had war experience in the Italian campaign in
Tripoli, while long cross-country flights were an everyday event, and
bad weather no longer counted.
XVII. A SUMMARY, TO 1911
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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