louis bleriot 1909

1909 was a time where the aircraft was still in diapers. Have spent a few years shy but momentous flight originating in the global aviation, led by the American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright on December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk beach, and enthusiasts of the conquest of the sky with airplanes propelled by motors struggle to go back ever further away.
Existing aircraft then have nothing to do with their successors.

Machines are usually produced by its own pilots, just light frames, coated fabric, fitted with engines of very low power, low speed and limited range. They also lack the most basic tools for navigation.

But after 1909 and the Daily Mail newspaper has offered £ 1,000 over who first natural barrier that separates centuries in France United Kingdom: the English Channel.

Struggling to achieve a brilliant pupil of Wilbur Wright, the aristocratic Russian ancestry French Charles de Lambert, and Hubert Latham favorite.

Less obvious, but with much determination as his rivals for the challenge, competition entering Louis Blériot, a former manufacturer of automotive lanterns become builder of aircraft.

Since 1900, Gallo has built and tested prototypes of their own design. The first success is achieved in October 1906 when flying between two locations in a French Blériot VIII, 40 horsepower.

The offer of the British newspaper led him to design a single-engine Anzani 25 horsepower. He made a voyage to test a cross, which lasts almost 37 minutes and gives the hope of winning.

The Blériot XI is ready for its creator to be the first attempt to cross the English Channel.

But rivals are trying to exploit and awarded the first prize.

Favorite Latham fails in his attempt when you turn off the engine of his plane and Antionette IV falls into the sea. The aristocratic Lambert crashes during a test.

Comes July 25, 1909.

Louis Blériot walk with the aid of crutches due to burns suffered in a walk in one of its flight tests.

Despite this disadvantage, the prevailing weather and the pleas of his wife Alice because desist, feels like its time and it invades the irrepressible desire to go back on the canal

The Blériot XI off to glory at 4:35 near the port of Calais. The low wind speed confirms that the pilot is expected and the opportunity to direct his monoplane the British coast.

Soon the boat leaves behind Escopette, which tries to escort Alice, foreseeing that his reckless husband might suffer an accident.

Without any navigation instrument, flying at 64 kilometers per hour and 76 meters on the choppy sea, Louis determined to overcome the moving barrier is unknown. In the ten minutes was in the middle of nowhere, alone and lost “he said later.

The engine is overheating of the monoplane, but the rain helps keep providential in an acceptable temperature and not fail.

Spend the time and the pilot currency summits near Dover, in a mixture of excitement and concern. We know close to achieving its purpose, but far from the planned landing site.

In this vital moment, the front is intended to prevent strong winds fame. Blériot flies against him and find a clear place in the countryside where he puts his airplane, but still the air battle over and over again impossible.

With determination, Louis gives rest to the 25 horsepower Anzani’s plane touches the ground and having witnessed the feat as two of his countrymen, as well as several British soldiers and a policeman.

Just 36 minutes were enough to Blériot became one of the most famous pioneers of aviation.

The trip on the English Channel, that July 25, 1909, marked indelibly on the future of the emerging global aviation. Contributed to multiply the efforts of designers, manufacturers and pilots to fly ever faster, higher and farther, as well as government and convince the public of the promising benefits of aviation.

Is that the legacy for the posterity of Louis Blériot. That the world pays worthy tribute to the centenary of his flight across the English Channel.

First man cross channel in jet

Yves Rossy, known as Fusionman, will jump from a plane more than 8,200ft (2,500m) above ground, then fire up jets on his homemade wing and soar across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
The 49 year old is hoping to make the flight from Calais to Dover  just after 1pm BST after suffering a setback earlier this week when poor weather conditions postponed his attempt by a day.

Rossy, a former military pilot, aims to trace the route of French aviation pioneer Louis Bleriot, who became the first person to fly across the Channel in a plane 100 years ago.

Flying at speeds approaching 125mph, it is expected that the 22-mile televised flight across the Channel should take Rossy around 12 minutes to complete.

To achieve the feat, Rossy must overcome significant challenges, not least the container ships that will be passing through the sea.

In an interview earlier this week, he said: “If I calculate everything right, I will land in Dover. But if I get it wrong, I take a bath.”

Rossy – a pilot with Swiss International Air Lines -will review safety measures before take-off in Calais, especially important as his jet-propelled wing needs to be ignited while still inside the plane.

He has never flown for longer than 10 minutes. And his wing weight and measurements must be incredibly precise, with even the addition of a tiny camera possibly affecting how long he can stay in the air.

Over the past few months, he has been fine-tuning the wing’s design and performance and carried out several test flights in wind tunnels and the Swiss Alps.
His wing weighs about 55kg with fuel and includes four simple, kerosene-burning jet turbines to keep him airborne.

Created from a lightweight carbon composite, the wing has no steering devices, meaning Rossy will have to use his head and back to control the wing’s movement.

He will be outfitted with a special suit, helmet and parachute as part of the precautions to protect him from the jet turbines mounted just centimetres from him on the wing.

If the weather conditions turn out to be poor, another attempt at the crossing will take place tomorrow.

National Geographic Channel will broadcast the flight live around the world except France, Canada and Switzerland and will stream it live online at http://www.natgeotv.com/jetman

Over the years it has served me in much the same reliable way as our versatile present-day aircraft, although I am sure it is responsible for giving me more gray hairs than all the business planes in the alphabet, from Alpha to Zebra.

Louis Bleriot was in many ways as interesting as the airplane. The son of a successful fabric manufacturer, he became a wealthy man in his own right and financed his experiments in aviation by the invention of a successful automobile headlight. Before the advanced design (for its day) that carried Bleriot across the Channel, there were some eight other largely unsuccessful experimental craft, ranging from cellular winged gliders to canard aircraft, most of which crashed, burned, or scattered themselves over the landscape. Until the advent of the 1909 model, Louis Bleriot’s major claim to frame seemed to be his ability to survive any and all accidents.

Bleriot was not only the originator of the monoplane design that is basic to every business aircraft manufacturer today, but he also originated streamlining of the fuselage; the engine placed forward, with the single tractor propeller; the rudder, elevator, and stabilizer placed on the aft part of the fuselage; and even a partially swiveling landing gear with a capability for crosswinds.

Bleriot XI

The basic Bleriot design was light and simple to maintain, as well as to easy to take apart or set up for flight. From the standpoint of the early exhibition pilots these were important factors, for the Bleriot could be made ready for flight in thirty minutes, as against six to eight hours for a Curtiss or Wright. Another factor was the advent of the 50-hp Gnome Rotary, which gave the Bleriot a tremendous edge because of its general reliability and low weight per horsepower.

The 1909 Bleriot, along with the rear-elevator Curtiss, were undoubtedly the two most widely copied aircraft prior to 1914. Literally hundreds of airplanes were built on farms and in backyards with nothing more to go on than photographs, the materials often being banana oil, mothers’ bed sheets, and slats form the fence. Because of the popularity of the Bleriot design and its very remarkable impact on the world (for it received as much publicity in its days as Linbergh’s flight twenty years later), many wealthy sportsmen bought them to use for business and pleasure. Adventurous barnstomers flew them all over known world, even as far as China and Tibet!

The Bleriot is a wire airplane, and without each wire being properly attached and safe-tied, it has about the strength of a fifteen cent grocery store kite. I carefully checked the flying cables, both at the bedsted (front fuselage frame) and at the wing, as well as the warp cables through the bottom walking beam and the wing, as well as the warp cables through the bottom walking beam and the wing, and above on the A frame. Then I checked the fuselage alignment by eye, including the landing gear sulky wheels and tires, tail surfaces, and control cables. With the aircraft ready for take-off, the engine idling nicely, and its lone instrument -the oil pressure gauge-showing fifty pounds, I grasped the spade-type grip and shoved the throttle forward. The tail was up in about 7 m ; the wind was steady twelve knots; temperature, 79 degrees; field elevation, 54 feet. I was airborne in about 55 m.

As I broke ground, a particularly nasty gust of wind dropped a wing, and for several seconds, full opposite stick rudder, and elevator were necessary to pick it up. I had forgotten what a job it was to always maintain the wings in a level attitude and the necessity of making only very flat skidding turns, mostly with rudder. In spite of a slow actual ground speed (about 44 to 48 mph), their is still no experience in my years of flying to equal the sick feeling you have when a wing goes down in gusty air and you head for the ground unable to pick up the wing in spite of full opposite control. A good deal of forward pressure is also required on the stick, for the Bleriots I have flown are all tail-heavy, and if one flies for more than ten minutes at a time, he has to keep shifting tired arms.

Flying with the camera ship required some prethought, for if the slipstream ever hit the Bleriot, it could go over on its back-which it did once with me. At the time I could only think of Adolph Pegoud, the Frenchman who made the world’s first loop in a Bleriot, and wonder why he didn’t suffer a coronary, for I am sure my heart missed a sizable number of beats.

After we finished taking the aerial photographs, I checked the Bleriot on stalls, which are deceptive, since it pays off with absolutely no warning, dropping a wing and forcing one to turn into the dropped wing to pick it up, the stall appears to be at about 25 to 27 mph. Beyond gentle turns, one is quite content to just fly along at about 40-odd mph and enjoy the air conditioned ride. There is no windshield for protection from the direct prop blast.

Landing can be either power on or power off. My choice is power off, with an extremely steep approach of about 30 percent nose down. One has only a very short flare-out, because there is no float with the inborn drag of a Bleriot. It lands smoothly and rolls to a stop on grass in about fifty feet. One must be very careful to land directly into the wind and pray for no sudden gusty crosswinds; the latter happened to me once; and one of the very weak main wheels collapsed under the side load. As the Bleriot ground to a stop, the windward wing rose into the air. I jumped out of the cockpit and grabbed the flying wires and promptly rose into the air with the wing. Only the additional weight of a startled airport attendant hanging on my feet brought both the Bleriot and me back to the ground again.

Louis Bleriot, with a typical French statement, once said before his famous Channel flight, “If I cannot walk, I’ll show the world I can fly.” But this pilot is not sure if he had to fly a Louis Bleriot very often, he might prefer to walk!