INVASION OF AEROPLANES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 52, 23 August 1911, Page 2

INVASION OF AEROPLANES.

CALAIS TO DOVER. London, July 7. Like a flight of great sea birds, a whole fleet of aeroplanes came over the Channel from Calais on Monday, and landed safely at Dover. It was the most striking spectacle that the great £20,000 air race organised by the Stan<ferd ana Le Journal, of Paris, has provided. Eleven of the competitors in the European Aviation Circuit, as the race is called, flew across to England, one of them (Renaux) carrying a passenger. With the exception of Valentine, all the airmen were Frenchmen. In spite of the early hour—4.3o a.m.—some thousands of people had made their way to the aerodrome on the Dover eliffs, Across the Channel there was a line of four French destroyers and throe Dover tugs, and owing to the clearness of the atmosphere it was possible to see as far as mid-Channel. Just after half-past 4 Vedrines came into sight, flying at a height of about (500 ft, and eight minutes later he had landed on the aviation ground. He received a warm welcome from the public, and his wife, who had been awaiting him, rushed forward and kissed him aa he left his pilot's seat. Then in rapid succession came Vidart, Gilbert, "Beaumont," Kimmerling and Garros, flying steadily over the water, and as each of them made a graceful descent into tho aerodrome the spectators cheered heartily.

Then came the most striking spectacle of the contest up to this time. There had never been more than two airnjeii in view at once, but from a bank of cloud some seven or eight miles out to sea there suddenly emerged five aeroplanesthree biplanes and two monoplanes—racing towards the column of smoke which had been lighted on the cliffs by the Boy Scouts as a guide to the airmen. A monoplane was astern of the biplanes when the machines first came into view like a flight of great sea birds, but it forged ahead and was first over the land. Valentine was the first of them to land, and his reception was naturally hearty. Train followed on his monoplane, and Tabuteau, on the only British machine in the competition, a Bristol biplane, was the next arrival. When at a height of about 600 ft he shut off his motor, and made a fine vol plane into the aerodrome amidst great cheering. The outburst of applause was even greater when, three minutes later, Reneaux, with his passenger, Senouques, arrived on a Farman biplane. The last arrival was another biplane piloted by Garra. Later in the morning the airmen set out for Hendon aerodrome in North London, and 10 out of the 11 arrived safely. Train, the eleventh, lost his way, and damaged his machine in descending near Newhaven. On Wednesday morning the fleet of aeroplanes flew to Dover and thence across the Channel again, after having given England a striking object-lesson in the possibilities ef invasion by aeroplane.