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Bleriot XI

The Bleriot XI is the oldest aircraft I have seen flown at an air show. It Is most famous for completing the first flight across the English Channel on 25 July 1909. The Bleriot flown at the show was built In 1918 and rebuilt in the early 1990s.

Steering is through an interesting arrangement involving warping the wings (similar to the Wright Brothers' system) and the speed of the engine is controlled by flicking a switch which briefly stops the engine (it runs at one speed only).

The engine is a Gnome Rotary producing 50 hp which gives a top speed of 42 knots - I guess it must be one of the slowest and least powerful aircraft I have seen as well, an interesting comparison flying after the A4 which flies 10 to 20 times faster!

Use the controller above to watch the Bleriot "drift" past (this requires Quicktime, and is a moderately large movie). I apologise for the poor quality of this movie but it was originally encoded in the "early days" of internet video!

For many the Bleriot was the highlight of the show. This old machine seemed to have more character than anything else displayed. Its a historically significant aircraft because Louis Bleriot was the first to fly one across the English Channel from France to England on 25 July 1909. The journey of 24 miles took 36 minutes. This doesn't sound like much but in such a fragile machine, no instruments, and a primitive engine which was so badly built it constantly smeared the pilot with oil, it was really quite courageous! After this performance Bleriot received many orders for the machine which in some ways was considered very advanced for the time.

Here's the specs. Wing span: 28 ft 6 in, length: 25 ft 3 in, height: 8 ft 4 in. Weight: 700 lbs loaded. Engine: Anzani three-cylinder of 20 hp. Maximum speed: 45 mph. Note that the machine used in the Channel flight was a different version than the one shown.