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
1989 Alice Springs hot air balloon crash lookout for a period of 30 seconds (during which the other balloon was hidden from view) and that the failure seriously endangered the lives of those below". During his 13-week trial, the court was told that Sanby had outlaid about $1 million of borrowed money to get into the new commercial hot-air ballooning industry, and that business at Toddy's Safari Ballooning was booming. Sanby's conviction was subsequently overturned on appeal. Sanby was imprisoned for five years for fraud connected to a separate business endeavour, in the District Court of Gympie, Queensland, in August 2014. 1989 Alice Springs hot air balloon