Aeroplane Aviation Archive — Issue 33 The World’s Fastest Aircraft

(^8) FRANCE

A

viation came of age when Louis

Bleriot flew across the English

Channel on 25 July 1909. For the first

time, the potential of ‘the aircraft’ had been

demonstrated and set the template for all

that was to follow. As well as setting new

standards in design, the pioneering aircraft

also set new speed records.

The Blériot Type XI was the most famous and

successful of several classic aircraft that

emerged during the summer of 1909, when

all Europe seemed to be taking to the sky.

Louis Blériot, a French engineer, first became

interested in aeronautics in 1901. Over the next

eight years he moved through a series of

distinct aircraft designs, only one of which was

Bleriot XI

capable of a flight of more than ten minutes.

This all changed with Blériot’s next effort, the

Type XI. Although it was designed primarily by

engineer Raymond Saulnier, it was a natural

evolution from earlier Blériot aircraft and one

to which Blériot himself made substantial

contributions. It was first flown at Issy-les-

Moulineaux, on 23 January 1909. By the end

of May, the Type XI was fitted with a 25hp,

three-cylinder Anzani engine, which had a

reputation for reliability, which was critical to

Blériot’s next challenge.

Blériot achieved immortality in the Type XI

on 25 July 1909, when he made the first aircraft

crossing of the English Channel, covering the

25 miles (40km) between Calais and Dover in

36min 30sec. For the effort, Blériot captured

the ‘London Daily Mail’ prize of $2,500 that had

been put up by the newspaper the year before

for any successful cross-Channel flight. The

event also caused a major reappraisal of the

importance of aviation; the ‘Daily Express’ led its

story of the flight with the headline: ‘Britain is

no longer an Island’. As well as creating aviation

history, the flight assured the future of Blériot’s

aircraft manufacturing business. Following the

achievement, Blériot received the first of many

orders for copies of his Type XI monoplane.

Variants of the original 1909 machine were

produced by the Blériot firm, foreign licensees,

and enthusiastic amateur builders in Europe

and America into World War 1.