s Chavez set out to fly across the Alps on a Bleriot
monoplane. Prizes had been offered by the Milan Aviation Committee for
a flight from Brigue in Switzerland over the Simplon Pass to Milan,
a distance of 94 miles with a minimum height of 6,600 feet above sea
level. Chavez started at 1.30 p.m. On the 23rd, and 41 minutes later he
reached Domodossola, 25 miles distant. Here he descended, numbed with
the cold of the journey; it was said that the wings of his machine
collapsed when about 30 feet from the ground, but however this may
have been, he smashed the machine on landing, and broke both legs, in
addition to sustaining other serious injuries. He lay in hospital until
the 27th September, when he died, having given his life to the conquest
of the Alps. His death in the moment of success was as great a tragedy
as were those of Pilcher and Lilienthal.

The day after Chavez's death, Maurice Tabuteau flew across the Pyrenees,
landing in the square at Biarritz. On December 30th, Tabuteau made a
flight of 365 miles in 7 hours 48 minutes. Farman, on December 18th, had
flown for over 8 hours, but his total distance was only 282 miles. The
autumn of this year was also noteworthy for the fact that aeroplanes
were first successfully used in the French Military Manoeuvres. The
British War Office, by the end of the year, had bought two machines, a
military type Farman and a Paulhan, ignoring British experimenters and
aeroplane builders of proved reliability. These machines, added to an
old Bleriot two-seater, appear to have constituted the British aeroplane
fleet of the period.

There were by this time three main centres of aviation in England, apart
from Cody, alone on Laffan's Plain. These three were Brooklands, Hendon,
and the Isle of Sheppey, and of the three Brooklands was chief.
Here such men as Graham Gilmour, Rippen, Leake, Wickham, and Thomas
persistently experimented. Hendon had its own little group, and
Shellbeach, Isle of Sheppey, held such giants of those days as C. S.
Rolls and Moore Brabazon, together with Cecil Grace and Rawlinson. One
or other, and sometimes all of these were deserted on the occasion of
some meeting or other, but they were the points where the spade work was
done, Brooklands taking chief place. 'If you want the early history
of flying in England, it is there,' one of the early school remarked,
pointing over toward Brooklands course.

1911 inaugurated a new series of records of varying character.