e
was drawn under water. When boats reached the spot, Le Blon was found
lying back in the driving seat floating just below the surface. He had
done good flying at Doncaster, and at Heliopolis had broken the world's
speed records for 5 and 10 kilometres. The accident was attributed to
fracture of one of the wing stay wires when running into a gust of wind.

The next notable event was Paulhan's London-Manchester flight, of which
full details have already been given. In May Captain Bertram Dickson,
flying at the Tours meeting, beat all the Continental fliers whom he
encountered, including Chavez, the Peruvian, who later made the
first crossing of the Alps. Dickson was the first British winner of
international aviation prizes.

C. S. Rolls, of whom full details have already been given, was killed at
Bournemouth on July 12th, being the first British aviator of note to be
killed in an aeroplane accident. His return trip across the Channel had
taken place on June 2nd. Chavez, who was rapidly leaping into fame, as
a pilot, raised the British height record to 5,750 feet while flying at
Blackpool on August 3rd. On the 11th of that month, Armstrong Drexel,
flying a Bleriot, made a world's height record of 6,745 feet.

It was in 1910 that the British War office first began fully to realise
that there might be military possibilities in heavier-than-air flying.
C. S. Rolls had placed a Wright biplane at the disposal of the military
authorities, and Cody, as already recorded, had been experimenting with
a biplane type of his own for some long period. Such development as was
achieved was mainly due to the enterprise and energy of Colonel J. E.
Capper, C.B., appointed to the superintendency of the Balloon Factory
and Balloon School at Farnborough in 1906. Colonel Capper's retirement
in 1910 brought (then) Mr Mervyn O'Gorman to command, and by that time
the series of successes of the Cody biplane, together with the proved
efficiency of the aeroplane in various civilian meetings, had convinced
the British military authorities that the mastery of the air did not lie
altogether with dirigible airships, and it may be said that in 1910 the
British War office first began seriously to consider the possibilities
of the aeroplane, though two years more were to elapse before the
formation of the Royal Flying Corps marked full realisation of its
value.

A triumph and a tragedy were combined in September of 1910. On the 23rd
of the month, George