International flight 1785, when Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel in a hot air balloon. It took more than a century for the first heavier-than-air object to repeat this process: Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel on July 25, 1909, winning a "Daily Mail" prize of £1,000. Aviation technology developed during World War I, with aviation between the World Wars seeing the development of international commercial flights. There was a combination of aircraft types which included airships and airplanes. The first airline to operate international flights was Chalk's Ocean Airways, established 1917, which operated scheduled seaplane services from Florida
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