Louis Blériot of 1909. Like some of the other prizes offered by the paper, it was widely seen as nothing more than a way to gain cheap publicity: the Paris newspaper "Le Matin" commenting that there was no chance of the prize being won. The English Channel had been crossed by an unmanned hydrogen balloon in 1784 and a manned crossing by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries followed in 1785. Blériot, who intended to fly across the Channel in his Type XI monoplane, had three rivals for the prize, the most serious being Hubert Latham, a French national of English extraction flying
Free Life (balloon) balloon in Europe. The "Free Life" attempt was the first use of a Roziere style balloon for an Atlantic attempt, built by Mark Semich, using a combination of helium and hot air. Below the spherical helium gas cell is a conical sleeve where air can be heated by burners in the same way as a normal hot air balloon. By varying the hot air temperature, altitude can be maintained without having to release helium or to drop ballast. The burners are principally used to compensate for the lack of solar heating at night. After four years of planning and postponements,