Explore the entire history of manned flight with Aviation History Magazine, which offers readers in-depth articles on the history of world aviation from its earliest beginnings to the advent of the Jet Age. This magazine contains profiles of planes, personalities, aerial oddities, heritage, events and aviation artwork, as well as feature stories and columns about the development of commercial, military, high-performance and experimental aviation.
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  Hubert Latham: Pioneer of Ditching, October 04, 2007
Reviewer: Phil Olsen
The excellent article, TRIUMPHANT FAILURE AT SANGATTE, by Stephen H. King in the November 2007 issue of AVIATION HISTORY, included a number of details about Hubert Latham's early exploits in designer Leon Levavasseur's Antoinette IV monoplane that I learned of for the first time.
The principal claim to pilot Latham's fame,however, was unremarked by author King. Latham performed the first recorded successful ditching, as well as the second ditching in his unsuccessful attempts to win the L1,000 London DAILY MAIL prize for the first flight across the English Channel.
As a flight instructor and safety advisor at a flight school in Hawaii, I have lectured for many years on the ways to avoid ditching and how to ditch successfully if avoidance becomes impossible. I have shown copies of the famous photo of Hubert Latham nonchalantly smoking a French cigarette as his crate bobs on the surface of the English Channel.
Latham's aerial exploits were sensational but his pioneering ditching display --not once, but twice-- provides a striking example of how to ditch an aircraft without loss of life or serious injury.
Hats off to Hubert Latham, whose dozens of aircraft crashes never seriously harmed him. He died in an African hunting accident, killed by a wild buffalo.
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