For Fun & Frolic

Was it sport? Well, if it was not much like a Rugger match or punting on the Thames, Britons were having a mighty good time just the same. Half a century ago, London's Daily Mail put up a prize for the first airplane flight across the English Channel, paid French Aeronaut Louis Bleriot $5,000 for buzzing the 31 miles from Calais to Dover in his tiny (25 h.p.) monoplane in 37 minutes. Last week the Daily Mail could think of no better way to celebrate the anniversary than to have a cross-Channel race, this time between London's midtown Marble Arch and Paris' midtown Arc de Triomphe, and with $28,000 in prize money at stake. The result was one of the zaniest races of all time.

Hookers & Hoofers. To get things off on the right foot, the paper opened the lists to all comers, said they might start either from London or from Paris and use any form of locomotion. The only hooker was that contestants would have to respect local regulations, e.g., the London law forbidding helicopter ascents from the street in front of Marble Arch. Added the Daily Mail, tongue only a trifle in cheek: Who knows? Someone might even find a way to improve the current travel time between Arch and Arc, which now averages about three hours: 1 hr. 5 min. by airliners, 1hr. 55 min. in customs and traffic-crawling airport buses.

In all, 120 contestants participated in the fun and frolic. A few tried it in the 1909 way. Frenchman Jean Salis, 63, wobbled across the Channel in his 484-lb. replica of Bleriot's monoplane ("It was like sitting on a fluttering leaf"), eventually made it from Arc to Arch in 12 hr. 17 min. 22 sec. Clutching a pet tortoise named Fangio, Health Faddist Dr. Barbara Moore Pataleewa, 55, set out from Marble Arch on foot, switched to a motorcycle, hopped a plane from Croydon to Le Touquet, on the English Channel, then ran most of the 135 miles to Paris, sipping fruit juice and munching grass along the way. One competitor used souped-up power lawnmowers to and from his plane; another, wise to the ways of city traffic, tried roller skates, but did not do too well. Ace Racer Stirling Moss hopped into a Renault-Dauphine, roared out to the airport, put his car on a Silver City Airways "carferry," landed at Le Bourget and zipped into Paris in 2 hr. 45 min.

Glory, Not Gold. The time was fast, but the pros made it look slow. With a harrumph that "it's a good thing for recruiting--it's not really the money we're after," Britain's army and air force warmed up. The first man, Army Captain R. M. ("Red Rory") Walker, 29, rode a motorcycle from Marble Arch to a floating dock on the Thames, leaped into a helicopter, transferred to a jet trainer at Biggin Hill R.A.F. field for the flight to Villacoublay, eleven miles from the Arc, caught a helicopter to Paris' Issy heliport and finally hopped onto a second motorcycle for the last spurt to the Arc. His time, including 4 min. for the last 4½-mile motorcycle dash: 57 min. 47 sec. "Sissy stuff," roared an R.A.F. rival. "I think the time can be brought down to near enough 40 minutes." That it was. At the end, R.A.F. Squadron Leader Charles Maughan, 35, got the last bit of ground speed from the motorcycle-helicopter system, picked up precious minutes by flying a transonic Hawker Hunter jet on the long cross-Channel air leg. His winning time: 40 min. 44 sec.

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