First English Channel flightIn 1909, French aviator Louis Blériot flew across the English Channel in a monoplane, traveling from Calais, France, to Dover, England, in 37 minutes. This was the world's first international overseas airplane flight. Blériot made the historic crossing after Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail, offered £1,000 to the first successful pilot. On 25 Jul 1999, a Swedish pilot re-enacted the first cross-Channel flight 90 years after Louis Blériot's historic journey. Mikael Carlson, 39, landed the original Blériot XI plane on the cliffs at Dover 33 minutes after taking off from France - seven minutes faster than Bleriot's time. He said: "This was the first big heroic flight when the century was young, and I wanted to celebrate the end of this century in the same way it started." |
