Aviation History – July 24, 1911. On this Monday, July 24, 1911, the second stage of the Tour of England begins, an aeronautical competition in which no less than ten pilots take part. This event organized by the Daily Mail, a British newspaper, began on July 22, 1911, it is a race of 1,600 kilometers in several stages which sees airmen of different nationalities compete against each other, including French representatives.
On the program for the day for the airmen, a stage of 548 kilometers to be covered as quickly as possible between the cities of Hendon and Edinburgh. An exercise that the French Jules Védrines will carry out with brio: indeed, in seven hours, he will come to the end of the journey, piloting on this occasion a motorized Morane monoplane with a Gnome block.
Installed at the controls of a Gnome-powered Blériot monoplane, his counterpart André Beaumont came in second place in the day’s event, having taken seven hours and eighteen minutes to complete the course. At the end of the competition, it was André Beaumont who won, winning the Tour of England on July 26, 1911.
