FIRST CHANNEL FLIGHT

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1929, Page 11

FIRST CHANNEL FLIGHT

PROGRESS OF TWENTY YEARS.

M. BLERIOT TO BE HONOURED.

(British Official Wireless.) Rugby, July 23.

Although 8009 aircraft flew across the Channel last year it is only 29 years ago (July 25, 1909) that M. Louis Bleriot made the first cross-Channcl flight. If he had not on that occasion encountered over the Channel a heavy rainstorm which cooled his engine at a critical moment he would never have reached Dover from Les Baragues. The flight took him 37miu. in a 25 h.p. Bleriot monoplane. On Thursday M. Bleriot will fly across the Channel again to Dover as the guest of British aviators and will be escorted to English soil by a squadron of the Royal Air Force. He will be received by the Mayor of Dover when he alights, after which ho will fly to Croydon, where Lord Thomson, Air Minister, and numerous prominent figures in British aviation will give him an official reception. Later he will be the guest of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors.