Sunday, October 30, 2011

Pioneers of Aviation


Major invention of the twentieth century, aviation is also a great human adventure. The French Post has issued a series of stamps dedicated to the six aviation pioneers (Farman, Delagrange, the Wright brothers, Latham, Vedrines, Deroche).
Maurice Alain Farman was a French Grand Prix motor racing champion, an aviator, and an aircraft manufacturer and designer.
Leon Delagrange was a French aviator who established a record flight in an airplane in 1908 and made a sensational flight in a storm in England in 1909.
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were two Americans who were credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903.
Arthur Charles Hubert Latham was a French aviation pioneer. He was the first person to attempt to cross the English Channel in an airplane. Due to engine failure during his first of two attempts to cross the Channel, he became the first person to land an airplane on a body of water.
The first airplane to visit the Holy Land was a Bleriot XI, flown by the French aviator Jules Vedrines, who participated in a competition to fly from Paris to Cairo. He landed near Jaffa, on the Mediterranean coast, on December 27th, 1913.
Elise Raymonde Deroche was the first qualified woman pilot in France and in the world.

No comments:

Post a Comment