Triumphant Failure At Sangatte: Challenging the English Channel in a Monoplane

By Stephen H. King | Aviation History  | one comment  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Thanks to its splendid power-to-weight ratio, the Antoinette engine (named after Gastambide’s daughter) soon became sought after as an aircraft power plant. In fact, its creation proved to be the turning point for the company. Many of the early French aviation giants—Henry Farman, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Louis Blériot, Gabriel Voisin, Alberto Santos-Dumont and several others—used the motor to power their aircraft. For all intents and purposes, up to early 1909 the Antoinette V-8 was the workhorse of French aviation.

Levavasseur eventually convinced the Société’s board of directors to authorize him to design and build his own aircraft. The board members were initially reluctant, believing they already had a gold mine in their engine, and unwilling to risk investing in the manufacture of an airplane. Like Blériot, Levavasseur was convinced that the only aircraft worth building was a monoplane (Blériot himself had served part-time as an officer and engineer with the Société, but when the company decided to build monoplanes, he quit in a pique and returned full-time to his own company). Thus in 1908, after many prototype models had ended in failure, was born the Antoinette monoplane, arguably the finest aircraft of its day, and certainly the most beautiful and elegant plane then extant.

Levavasseur’s design incorporated France’s first fuel injection system and a novel evaporative cooling system in the new plane’s engine. It was this cooling system that enabled the motor to weigh so little, yet still develop 50 hp. But was the plane controllable? Was it stable? Would it be competitive?

Test flights by company pilots Eugéne Welféringer and René Demanest were not encouraging. While the Antoinette flew reasonably well, it was the very devil to keep under control, given its complicated system of four separate control wheels and two foot pedals. Moreover, landing was always a suspense-filled event. Before long the Antoinette developed a reputation as a pilot killer, even though no pilot had as yet been killed or even seriously injured in it.

Levavasseur had enormous faith in his design and decided that he only needed the right pilot to tame the beast. In early 1909 he settled on Latham, a cousin of Gastambide’s who had driven a few of the company’s boats to victory five years earlier.

Arthur Louis Hubert Latham had witnessed Wilbur Wright’s demonstrations at Le Mans and, in search of new adventure, decided on the spot that flying was for him. The fact that the aristocratic Latham offered to invest some of his family money in the Société no doubt greased the wheels. Now all that remained was to determine whether he could learn to fly. He told Levavasseur: “I’ll fly your machine, Léon, and if I break it, you repair it. And I’ll keep on breaking it until it flies, or it gets me.”

At first “breaking the machine” is just what Latham did, many times over, invariably on landing. But within two months he had mastered its complex control system and demonstrated that he was a talented pilot. Levavasseur had at last found his ace.

In early June 1909, Latham broke the world record for monoplane flight time by remaining in the air for an astonishing 67 minutes. A week later he won the Prix Goupy by flying a six-kilometer straight course in the fastest time. He then made a demonstration flight in a stiff breeze, showcasing the Antoinette’s inherent stability.

Those successes convinced Levavasseur that Latham should try for the Daily Mail prize. Gastambide agreed, and their only remaining Antoinette IV (sales had by then depleted their stock) was dismantled and shipped by train from their factory, just outside Paris, to Calais, and thence by horse and cart to Sangatte, arriving on July 11.

The man who would pilot the Antoinette IV in its historic Channel-crossing attempt was a peculiar person. In the words of Harry Harper, a Daily Mail aviation writer, Latham “was a very difficult man to truly like—moody one day, gay the next.” He had a quick temper and sulked when he didn’t get his way. Although Latham became one of the most skilled pilots of his era, he was also very cautious. He took chances—what flier didn’t in those days?—but he was no daredevil. He inspected every inch of his mount before taking off, making sure each screw, fastener and wire was tight and there was no damage to the fuselage, propeller or wings. Once he took to the air in the beautiful Antoinette, however, Latham’s gallant demeanor and trademark checked hat and cigarette ensured that he became one of the most popular men in France. A German newspaper proclaimed him one of the three most eligible bachelors in Europe.

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Tags: Aviation History, Flight Technology, Historical Figures

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