2-378-104 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Adolphe Pégoud and Louis Bleriot, French aviators, Brooklands, Surrey, 1913. Adolphe Célestin Pégoud (1889-1915) was a test pilot for Bleriot (1872-1936), the French pilot and aircraft designer who was the first to fly across the Enlgish Channel. Pégoud famously looped the loop on 21 September 1913. It was publicised as the first successful completion of the manoeuvre but it later transpired that Pyotr Nesterov, a Russian army pilot, had achieved the feat 12 days earlier. Pégoud went on to become a successful flying instructor and the first fighter ace in World War I. He was shot down and killed on 31 August 1915, ironically by a German pilot he had taught before the war.