Rolls-Royce Motor Cars PressClub · Article.
ROLLS-ROYCE REMEMBERS FOUNDER’S PIONEERING FLIGHT
Mon Jun 01 09:51:00 CEST 2020 Press Release
Rolls-Royce celebrates 110 year anniversary of Charles Stewart Rolls’ world’s first non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by aeroplane.
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Andrew Ball
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
- Rolls-Royce celebrates 110 year anniversary of Charles Stewart Rolls’ world’s first non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by aeroplane
- Aviation pioneer completed the round trip from Dover to Sangatte and back on 2 June 1910
- Rolls’ record-breaking return flight came less than a year after Louis Blériot made the first one-way Channel crossing
- Flight proved to be Rolls’ last great aeronautical achievement, coming only a month before his tragic death at the age of 32
At 6.30 pm on 2 June 1910, aviation pioneer Charles Stewart
Rolls took off alone in his flimsy biplane from Swingate aerodrome,
near Dover, to achieve the world’s first non-stop double crossing of
the English Channel by aeroplane.
He had been waiting in frustration for over a week, his
departure repeatedly frustrated by high winds, fog or mechanical
problems with the machine. But finally, conditions were perfectly calm
and clear. Among the spectators on the cliffs were Rolls’ parents,
Lord and Lady Llangattock, and his sister and brother-in-law, Sir John
and Lady Shelley.
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Rolls
reached an altitude of 900 feet and a speed of “quite forty miles an
hour” as he approached the coast of France. By 7.15 pm, he was flying
over the small French town of Sangatte, where the present-day Channel
Tunnel emerges. Leaning out of his aeroplane, he threw overboard three
weighted envelopes, each containing the message: ‘Greetings to the
Auto Club of France…Dropped from a Wright aeroplane crossing from
England to France. C. S. Rolls, June 1910. P.S. Vive l’Entente’’
He then turned northward and set a course for the English coast.
At 8.00 pm, he was back in Dover where, the Daily Telegraph
reported, “the sea front, cliffs and piers were thronged with
people, all in the most intense state of excitement.” Rolls rewarded
them in typically flamboyant style, by flying in circles around the
outer towers of the town’s medieval castle. “I decided that, as I had
plenty of petrol and my engines were working splendidly, I would
encircle the Castle, although it would lengthen my flight
considerably,” he told the Telegraph correspondent. The crowd
loved it. This was more than mere entertainment: they knew they were
present at a moment of history.
In an adventure lasting 95 minutes, Rolls had achieved two
immortal landmarks. He had become both the first Englishman to fly an
aeroplane across the English Channel, and the first aviator ever to
fly non-stop from England to France and back again.
The flight caused a sensation and made Rolls an instant national
celebrity. The recently-crowned King George V sent a personal telegram
– “The Queen and I heartily congratulate you on your splendid
Cross-Channel flight. George R.I.” The Aero Clubs of both England and
France presented him with special awards. London’s famous Madame
Tussauds even began making a waxwork of him. Flight
Magazine, meanwhile, lauded his Corinthian spirit, loftily
assuring its readers that Rolls had made the crossing not in the name
of “merely winning souvenirs” and “without the smallest monetary
inducement” – a claim that may have rankled somewhat with Rolls, who
had spent almost a third of a million pounds (at today’s prices) of
his own money on flying in the first half of 1910 alone. It was
perhaps with this in mind that he wryly remarked: “It is the only time
I have succeeded in taking ten gallons of fuel in and out of France
without paying duty.”
It is a sign of how quickly aviation and aeroplanes were
developing that Rolls’ record-breaking flight came less than a year
after Louis Blériot had stunned the world with the first powered
flight from France to England in July 1909. Rolls made his double
crossing in a Wright Flyer, designed by Wilbur and Orville Wright, who
had recorded the world’s very first flight in a heavier-than-air
machine just seven years earlier in 1903.
This timescale underlines the truly perilous nature of Rolls’
adventure. His aeroplane, built from wood and fabric braced with spars
and wires, had a wingspan of just 12 metres (40 feet) and weighed only
457kg (1008lb) including the engine – about the same weight as a grand
piano. The physical dangers of crossing the sea in so primitive a
machine are obvious; it seems Rolls himself decided to attempt the
return trip only when he was actually over Sangatte and reassured
himself everything was working well.
His sole concessions to safety were a lifejacket for himself,
and four large buoyancy bags filled with compressed air lashed to the
machine’s undercarriage. The Daily Telegraph noted
laconically: “Happily, there was no need to test their efficacy.”
But Rolls was as experienced as he was daring. His flying career
spanned what was then virtually the entire history of aviation. Born
in 1877, Rolls had been fascinated by engines since his schooldays –
he went on to earn a degree in Mechanical & Applied Science from
Trinity College, Cambridge – and was captivated by flying from its
inception. He was a founding member of the Royal Aero Club, initially
as a balloonist, making over 170 flights and winning the Gordon
Bennett Gold Medal in 1903 for the longest sustained time aloft. In
the spring of 1909, when the Wright brothers came to England from
America as guests of the Royal Aero Club, Rolls acted as their
official host. A year later, he became only the second person in
Britain to be awarded an aeroplane pilot’s licence.
After their historic first meeting in 1904, Rolls tried to
persuade Henry Royce to build an aeroplane. He failed – one can only
speculate as to what marvels might have resulted had he succeeded –
but undeterred, Rolls bought a Wright Flyer in which he made more than
200 flights.
Tragically, it was in such a machine that Rolls met his death
just a month after his cross-Channel feat. On 12 July 1910, during a
competition at Bournemouth, the tail-piece broke off and the aircraft
plunged to the ground from a height of 100 feet, crashing close to the
crowded grandstand in a tangle of spars and canvas. Rolls sustained a
fractured skull and was pronounced dead at the scene; he was only the
twelfth person in history to be killed in a flying accident, and the
first Briton to lose his life in a powered aircraft. He was just a few
weeks short of his 33rd birthday.
Although Rolls is vastly more famous today for his automotive
achievements, his contribution to aviation was immense and important.
In April 1912, a statue commemorating his double Channel crossing was
erected in Guilford Gardens on Dover’s seafront; it now stands in
Marine Parade Gardens, where it was rededicated on 2 June 1995 by the
then Chairman of the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust.
Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor
Cars, said, “Charles Rolls combined a fine technical mind with a bold,
adventurous spirit; it is no wonder that aviation and motoring held
such powerful, almost magical attractions for him. He was a true
pioneer in both fields, instrumental in the development of aeroplanes
and motor cars with his record-breaking feats.”
He added: “Rolls challenged the limits of what was believed
possible and, as his cross-Channel flight demonstrated, dared to
venture beyond them. In so doing, he took technology and human
ambition into wholly new territory. That he achieved so much in so
short a life is extraordinary and inspiring. His imagination and
courage are still very much alive in our company more than a century later.”
And he concludes, “It seems particularly appropriate to remember
his remarkable flight this year. Apart from the historical
significance of the 110th anniversary, it comes at a time
when we still face severe restrictions on our freedom to travel and
explore. It encourages us to keep looking outwards, over the horizon,
and dreaming of adventures we’ll take in the future – a reminder that
anything is possible.”