Uiver Collection Mollison was a pioneering Scottish pilot who had flown commercially for Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm's ill-fated Australian National Airways. His wife Amy was Amy Johnson, who in May 1930 had become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia, flying a de Havilland DH 60 Gipsy Moth "Jason". English aviators Flight Lieutenant Charles Scott and Kenyan coffee plantation manager Captain Tom Campbell Black flew another Comet, a red aircraft, dubbed "Grosvenor House" by the historic hotel's owner. A third de Havilland DH 88 Comet was flown by Cathcart Jones and K. F. Waller, and was the
Claims to the first powered flight for $50,000 and an additional $20,000 from the Smithsonian, to attempt development of a piloted version. The 1901 Drachenflieger of Wilhelm Kress did not even achieve a hop. A floatplane, it is notable as the first heavier-than-air craft to be powered by an internal combustion engine rather than steam. It demonstrated good control when taxiing, but was too underpowered to take off. Few of the claims to powered flight were widely accepted, or even made, at the time the events took place. Both the Wrights and Whitehead suffered in their early years from a lack of general recognition, while neither