He was prominent in the early history of aviation in Britain, and in particular that of Hendon airfield, where Claude Graham-White was energetically developing and promoting flying.

[4] On May 6th, he won a race from Brooklands to Brighton against three other competitors, Howard Pixton Graham Gilmour and Lt. Richard Talbot Snowden-Smith, covering the distance in 57 minutes in a Bleriot monoplane.

Later that month he competed in the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain race, reaching Thornhill, north of Dumfries, before retiring after a forced landing due to engine problems in which he was slightly injured.

[7] An item in the magazine Flight, of 26 August 1911, covered Hamel's unsuccessful attempt to convey newspapers from Hendon to Southend the previous Saturday.

On Saturday 9 September 1911 Hamel flew a Blériot XI the 19 miles between Hendon and Windsor in 18 minutes to deliver the first official airmail carried in Great Britain.

[1] Hamel made the first cross-channel flight with a woman as passenger on 2 April 1912, when he flew Eleanor Trehawke Davies from Hendon to Paris, with intermediate stops at Ambleteuse and Hardelot.

[8] Later in the month he assisted Harriet Quimby to become the first woman pilot to cross the channel by testing her newly delivered Blériot monoplane before her flight.

In April 1913 Hamel made the first cross-channel return flight carrying a passenger, the Evening Standard journalist Frank Dupree.

Both aviators then flew anti-clockwise around the circuit, landing at Redditch recreation ground, Coventry, Nuneaton, Tamworth and Walsall and finishing at Edgbaston.

[15] In May Hamel announced that he intended to attempt to win the £10,000 prize awarded by the Daily Mail for a flight across the Atlantic ocean, flying a specially built Martin-Handasyde monoplane.

[20] On 22nd May 1914, Hamel travelled to France to collect a new aircraft, a Morane-Saulnier racing monoplane fitted with a 160 hp Gnome Monosoupape engine.

[21] After Hamal failed to arrive, a large-scale search was begun that evening by the Royal Navy using the cruiser HMS Pathfinder and the destroyers Mallard, Bat, Star and Osprey.

[24] On 1st July, the crew of a French fishing vessel, the St. Hélène, found a body in the English Channel around 10 miles off Cap d'Alprech near Boulogne.

[26] Hamal was declared dead in September 1914,[27] after a court heard evidence from Joseph Le Pretre, the skipper of the fishing vessel, and Alexis Longueet, a mechanic who met Hamel at Neufchâtel-Hardelot.

[25] At this time of high international tension, there was speculation that Hamel might have been the victim of sabotage, but no trace of the aircraft was ever found and the story faded with his memory.

[29] Alongside aviator Claude Grahame-White, Hamal appeared in the 1914 film Across the Atlantic (also titled Secret of the Air) that was directed by Herbert Brenon and starred King Baggot.