[1] First flown for 85 minutes by the nineteen-year-old Willows from East Moors, Cardiff in Wales on 5 August 1905,[2] the No.

At the rear of the framework was a twin-cylinder 7-horsepower (5.2 kW) Peugeot motorcycle engine fitted with a two-bladed 10 ft (3 m) pusher propeller.

2 outside of Cardiff City Hall and then flew back to his shed at East Moors.

On 11 July 1910 it flew from Cheltenham to Cardiff and the following month on 6 August it returned to London.

2 was powered by a JAP 30-horsepower (22 kW) air-cooled V8 engine and had two swivelling propellers mounted either side of the suspended car.

Willows renamed his airship the City of Cardiff and on 4 November 1910 left from Wormwood Scrubs for France, thus becoming the first airship to cross the English Channel at night and the first from England to France.

With the help of local French aviator Louis Breguet, the airship was repaired and arrived at Paris on 28 December 1910.

The envelope had a keel on which was mounted a 35-horsepower (26 kW) Anzani engine driving two four-bladed steerable propellers.

By 1914 the original gondola was replaced with a three-seat version with dual controls but it only made one flight in this configuration.

4, Willows established a spherical gas balloon school at Welsh Harp, Hendon.