PROGRESS IN AVIATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 112, 14 May 1938, Page 27

PROGRESS IN AVIATION

Fewpeople realise Just how muel progrfH. has been mada to the scienci of aeronautic* la the last thirty yews but it will be only the twenty-ninth an nivenrtury of the tost country to countrj flight OQ July 95 of this year. If was ©j July fe, 1909. that Louis Bleriot, i French aviation pioneer,, flew to ever lasting acroaithe EnflUh Chan nel from 4 point near Calais to Dovej in a spidery Httlr monoplane. Blerio la de*d-rbe died jQ Paris nearly twe years ag6—but and hisgreai achievement in~j>linf thO'i&rat tp flj the Erftish Channel wIU beremember ed aTwi as .tb?re are people lef in the warU who areinterested in* the program of- aviation. _ ■ _ , Blertot waa born in Cambrai, July 1, 1871. As a young man he opened a smallfactoiy in Paris for the manufacture Of motor ' 'aeeespories. ' By merest chance one day he happened tc pass through Issy-les-Moulines while Henri Farman was experimenting with one of his flying machines. So thoroughly interested did Bleriot become that he immediately abandoned hit other work and aet about the task 01 constructing hia own flying machine. He sold his only property besides his small factory, a small estate near Orleans, and invested - *all of the proceeds of the sale in his,new undertaking. His first airplane was smashed into pieces when he attempted to ny it. His second refused to leave the ground on its first test, and the disappointed inventor shoved }t away into a storehouse. Later, however, he brought it out, and to htt. amazement it left the ground when he gave it full power. In the air Bleriot was so confused that his only thought was as to how he would get earth again. Involuntarjly he shut off the motor. The

| next instant the fragiletfiane fell.lt I was a complete wreck, But Bleriot I continued 7 with hi* 'experiments, and 'in 1900. aided by-, two friends, he founded the tortoianft France. In Septgnber. 1001, he actually flew about WO yards in a plane built byWaownfaftds. . . . Then, lew than two year* later, came the great experience, Bleriot caused a sensation with his announcement that he intended to fly across the English Channel. ■* He this feat early on a Sunday morning, July 25, 1909, spanning the twentythree and a ball miles , between the French coast and T>over in thirty-seven , minute* in a monoplane almost as delicate as a dragon fly. 1 The tiny ship was nothing more than a pak of iabnc wings and a tailpiece, held together by onen framework, and mounting a small 22 horse-power petrol engine. Two wheels afore, and one in the Tear, constituted its landing gearThe French destroyer Escopette was assigned to steer the course for Bier, iot's crossing of the channeL Obviously the idea that the airplane rfight move faster than the destroyer never entered anyone's mind. 'The courageous flyer took off, moving above the Escopette. : Then, apparently bothered by the smoke from the funnels °f the craft below, Bleriot veered to the right. Little by little the plane drew away from the destroyer.. A strong .west wind blew it of! its course, but it finally landed close to the walls of Dover years later Bleriot flew over the same route across .the channel on. the anniversary of his famous In this second crossing,; however, the famoua inventor flew, m * passenger In a giant bombing plane Of his own design. ' /'■