English Channel Dover and Boulogne but later also Ramsgate (Pegwell Bay) to Calais. The journey time Dover to Boulogne was roughly 35 minutes, with six trips per day at peak times. The fastest crossing of the English Channel by a commercial car-carrying hovercraft was 22 minutes, recorded by the "Princess Anne" MCH SR-N4 Mk3 on 14 September 1995, The first aircraft to cross the Channel was a balloon in 1785, piloted by Jean Pierre François Blanchard (France) and John Jeffries (US). Louis Blériot (France) piloted the first airplane to cross in 1909. The sport of Channel swimming traces its origins to the
History of ballooning Tytler on August 27, 1784. Tytler flew his balloon from Abbeyhill to Restalrig, then suburbs of Edinburgh. He flew for ten minutes at a height of 350 feet. The first manned balloon flight in England was by Signor Vincent Lunardi who ascended from Moorfields (London) on 15 September 1784. The first British woman to ascend was Letitia Ann Sage, who ascended in one of Lunardi's balloons in June 1785. Jean-Pierre Blanchard and Jeffries flew from Dover to Calais in 1785. In the same year, a Mr Arnold went up from St Georges Fields (London), but came down in the River