In August 1909 at the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne he set the world altitude record of 155 metres (509 ft) in his Antoinette IV.

[4][5] One of Latham's maternal grand-aunts was the mother of the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, (appointed in 1909), which made him a second cousin of the aviator.

[8][10] He then led an exploratory expedition with friends to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1906/07 during which he collected specimens for the Natural History Museum in Paris and performed survey work for the French Colonial Office.

[12] Latham returned from the Far East in time to take the opportunity of witnessing several of the performances by Wilbur Wright, who was in France trying to sell his aeroplane to the French Government, in his Flyer at Camp d'Auvours,[13] near Le Mans.

In 1907 the company decided to build its own aeroplanes, and after several unsuccessful attempts at designing an airworthy model, the first Antoinette monoplane was finally introduced in late 1908.

[19] In early 1909, the Antoinette company worked with the French Army at Camp Châlons near Mourmelon-le-Grand to establish the first military aircraft trials, a flight school and a workshop.

[27] Within the next four days, Comte Charles de Lambert, a Franco-Russian aviator, also notified the Daily Mail of his intention to compete for the prize and he established his camp at Wissant, several miles west of Sangatte, bringing two French-built Wright Flyers (Nos.

[31] In his 1958 book Flying Witness Graham Wallace recounts that, when surrounded by the crowd that greeted Latham on the Calais quayside on 19 July, Levavasseur was asked by the Daily Mail’s reporter Harry Harper if the failure had caused him to be discouraged.

The answer was: Because the salvage operation on Latham's first Antoinette resulted in severe damage to the aircraft, Levavasseur was forced to arrange for a second plane to be shipped from the factory in Puteaux, a Paris suburb, and it arrived on July 21.

It was their newest model, the Antoinette VII, and it had never been tested in flight, although Latham did get a chance to fly it once, briefly, while he waited for the foul weather to abate.

[33] At about 3 a.m. the morning of 25 July 1909 Blériot's team noticed a break in the weather, awakened him, prepared the aircraft, and waited for dawn to make the attempt if the favourable conditions still held.

By the time Latham's monoplane was in position atop the cliffs at Cap Blanc-Nez, a gusty wind had risen, accompanied by heavy rains, so that "any attempt at a take-off would have been nothing less than suicidal.

[39] At the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne on 22–29 August 1909 at Reims, France, (the first true international aviation competition that drew almost 100,000 spectators on opening day.

[40] Latham came in second for the speed competition 68.9 km/h (42.8 mph) and was first in the altitude contest, flying an Antoinette IV, setting a world record of 155 metres (509 ft).

[41] He also competed in the Grand Prix event, trying to fly the longest distance around the circuit in a single uninterrupted flight, making several attempts in two different aircraft over the three-days.

[42][43] Latham competed as a member of the French team in the first Coupe Internationale d'Aviation, popularly known as the Gordon Bennett Cup since its inauguration as a hot air balloon contest years earlier, which was also held during the first "Reims Week".

Piloting the Antoinette VII he placed third with Glenn Curtiss, the only American entrant at the competition, earning first prize and Louis Blériot coming in second.

[53][54] While attending the Baltimore Air Show[55] in the United States in November 1910, Latham took part in special demonstrations for spectators drawn from US government and army representatives to display the capabilities of aircraft for waging war on land and at sea.

[57] In Los Angeles in December 1910, while Latham was participating in an aviation meet, he was asked by one of the wealthier citizens of the city if he would consider coming to his estate to try to shoot wild duck in the air from his aeroplane.

The Los Angeles Times ran the following headline about the incident: Latham survived another crash in early 1911 when he gave a demonstration flight at the Brooklands automobile racing course in England.

But suddenly, amid the drifting dust clouds, a slight, dapper figure could be seen disengaging itself from the battered fuselage, and lowering itself deftly to an undamaged part of the roof.

[62] The Monobloc's failure and subsequent loss of a potentially lucrative government contract was the final blow to the Antoinette company which folded the next month.

A number of air-fields were being planned for the Sahara to the north of the Congo and there was speculation at the time that Latham may have been asked to undertake an assessment of conditions in the interior region for the French Colonial Office.

[66] Latham was originally buried in Fort Lamy (now N'Djamena, capital city of Chad), because French colonial law forbade the transport of any human remains to another country until a full year had lapsed since death.

Latham's own written account of his final weeks in the bush described his unease over the discipline of his team of bearers, and also his anxiety over the levels of discord and violence that ruled this military administered area.

"[70] A statue erected by the French to Latham's memory overlooks the English Channel near the Dover Patrol Monument,[71] on top of Cap Blanc-Nez between Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The Story of the Early Aviators : Proudly displayed at the Château de Maillebois is a handsome silver trophy awarded to Latham by a Berlin air club for the first overland flight in Germany, completed on September 27, 1909, between the embryonic flying fields of Tempelhof and Johannisthal.