On this day in 1908, Wilbur Wright publicly demonstrated a Wright aircraft for the first time in Europe at the Hunaudières racecourse at Le Mans, southwest of Paris.

The airplane was an improved version of the brothers’ experimental designs flown in 1903-1905. Wilbur’s flights at Le Mans confirmed without doubt the Wrights’ claims to have developed a successful airplane and made them world celebrities overnight.

For more information, visit the National Air & Space Museum website:

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/day-wilbur-wright-flies-europe

The altimeter shown to the right is an extremely rare, very important and early, aluminium aviation altimeter by Negretti & Zambra, c1911, designed for the Central Flying School of the Royal Flying Corps.

This highly significant aneroid aviators altimeter was designed for the Central Flying School, Upavon, which was set up to train service pilots when the Royal Flying Corps was created in 1912. (Source: Imperial War Museum). The instrument is of identical pattern to one found in the Aeronautics collection of the Science Museum (object no: 1927-323) which is marked ‘Central Flying School No II” and dated c1914, and which carries a greater full-scale deflection to 7000ft. This information is extremely important since the altimeter offered here may be an example of the earliest collaboration between the British Government and any manufacturer to develop these instruments.

An image of this aircraft altimeter also featured in a Negretti & Zambra advertisement in Aeronautics magazine in June 1913, though the instrument shown there is scaled to 5000ft.

Click here for more information.