e complete history of aviation comes to be written, there will
be three epoch-making events which will doubtless be duly appreciated
by the historian, and which may well be described as landmarks in the
history of flight. These are the three great contests organized by the
proprietors of the Daily Mail, respectively known as the "London to
Manchester" flight, the "Round Britain flight in an aeroplane", and the
"Water-plane flight round Great Britain."

In any account of aviation which deals with the real achievements
of pioneers who have helped to make the science of flight what it
is to-day, it would be unfair not to mention the generosity of
Lord Northcliffe and his co-directors of the Daily Mail towards the
development of aviation in this country. Up to the time of writing, the
sum of L24,750 has been paid by the Daily Mail in the encouragement
of flying, and prizes to the amount of L15,000 are still on offer. In
addition to these prizes this journal has maintained pilots who may be
described as "Missionaries of Aviation". Perhaps the foremost of them
is M. Salmet, who has made hundreds of flights in various parts of the
country, and has aroused the greatest enthusiasm wherever he has flown.

The progress of aviation undoubtedly owes a great deal to the Press,
for the newspaper has succeeded in bringing home to most people the fact
that the possession of air-craft is a matter of national importance. It
was of little use for airmen to make thrilling flights up and down an
aerodrome, with the object of interesting the general public, if the
newspapers did not record such flights, and though in the very early
days of aviation some newspapers adopted an unfriendly attitude towards
the possibilities of practical aviation, nearly all the Press has since
come to recognize the aeroplane as a valuable means of national defence.
Right from the start the Daily Mail foresaw the importance of
promoting the new science of flight by the award of prizes, and its
public-spirited enterprise has done much to break up the prevailing
apathy towards aviation among the British nation.

If these three great events had been mere spectacles and nothing
else--such as, for instance, that great horse-race known as "The
Derby"--this chapter would never have been written. But they are
most worthy of record because all three have marked clearly-defined
stepping-stones in the progress of flight; they have proved conclusively
that aviation is pract