Climbing out of the cockpit, he said, “I would not do that again for ten times £10,000.” Grahame-White didn’t get lost, but he was probably one of the first aviators to use the term “temporarily disoriented.”Įarly pilots depended on contact flying - the use of lighthouses, roads, and other landmarks as navigational aids (navaids). By the time he landed, at 5:30 in the morning, he was cold and visibly shaken. In those days, there were few lights on the ground and only darkness in the cockpit. Grahame-White managed somehow to maintain altitude throughout the night and navigate to Manchester. Groping in the silent darkness, he found the switch, turned it on, and the engine sprang back to life. In his excitement, he caught his sleeve on the ignition switch, flipping it off.
A cloud passed in front of the moon, and Grahame-White found himself in total darkness. As soon as he was off the ground, he was in serious trouble. He had to do something, so he decided to try flying at night - something that had never been done before! He was hoping the moon would provide enough light to navigate by.Ĭars with lights ablaze lined up to form a runway, an encouraging sight for Grahame-White. For Grahame-White it was particularly disturbing he was fifty-seven miles behind the Frenchman. Since the race started late, night closed in all too quickly, forcing both pilots to land rather than face one of the greatest terrors of aviation in those days: darkness. Now, in this race, there was a chance that the Frenchman, Louis Paulham, would win. He had tried the flight before and failed, landing because of engine trouble sixty-eight miles short of Manchester. The newspapers had made this flying daredevil a local hero. A London newspaper, The Daily Mail, was offering £10,000 to the one who could do it in less than twenty-four hours.įor the Englishman, Claude Grahame-White, the challenge was great. Now the world would see who would be the first person to fly the 185 miles between London and Manchester. There were heralded flights to Paris and other world-class cities. It would be another in a lengthening line of aviation firsts in the seven short years since Kitty Hawk. It would be a race of fabric-covered, open-cockpit biplanes, with undertones of national pride: the British vs. It was late in the day to be starting a race - but there was going to be one.
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