l recognition of the
aeroplane's potentialities.

One of the first men actually to fly in England, Mr J. C. T.
Moore-Brabazon, was a famous figure in the days of exhibition flying,
and won his reputation mainly through being first to fly a circular
mile on a machine designed and built in Great Britain and piloted by a
British subject. Moore-Brabazon's earliest flights were made in France
on a Voisin biplane in 1908, and he brought this machine over to
England, to the Aero Club grounds at Shellness, but soon decided that he
would pilot a British machine instead. An order was placed for a Short
machine, and this, fitted with a 50-60 horse-power Green engine, was
used for the circular mile, which won a prize of L1,000 offered by the
Daily Mail, the feat being accomplished on October 30th, 1909. Five
days later, Moore-Brabazon achieved the longest flight up to that time
accomplished on a British-built machine, covering three and a half
miles. In connection with early flying in England, it is claimed that A.
V. Roe, flying 'Avro B,',' on June 8th, 1908, was actually the first man
to leave the ground, this being at Brooklands, but in point of fact Cody
antedated him.

No record of early British fliers could be made without the name of C.
S. Rolls, a son of Lord Llangattock, on June 2nd, 1910, he flew across
the English Channel to France, until he was duly observed over French
territory, when he returned to England without alighting. The trip was
made on a Wright biplane, and was the third Channel crossing by air,
Bleriot having made the first, and Jacques de Lesseps the second. Rolls
was first to make the return journey in one trip. He was eventually
killed through the breaking of the tail-plane of his machine in
descending at a flying meeting at Bournemouth. The machine was a Wright
biplane, but the design of the tail-plane--which, by the way, was
an addition to the machine, and was not even sanctioned by the
Wrights--appears to have been carelessly executed, and the plane itself
was faulty in construction. The breakage caused the machine to overturn,
killing Rolls, who was piloting it.

XIV. RHEIMS, AND AFTER

The foregoing brief--and necessarily incomplete--survey of the early
British group of fliers has taken us far beyond some of the great events
of the early days of successful flight, and it is necessary to go back
to certain landmarks in the history of aviation, first of which is the
great meeting at Rheims