PROGRESS IN AVIATION

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4641, 18 May 1938, Page 3

PROGRESS IN AVIATION

BLERIOT'S GREAT FEAT. FIRST CHANNEL FLIGHT. Few people realise just how much progress has been made in the science of aeronautics in the last thirty years, but it will be only the twenty-ninth anniversary of the first country to country flight on July 25 of this year. It was on July 25, 1909, that Louis Bleriot, a French aviator pioneer, flew to everlasting fame across the English Channel from a point near Calais to Dover in a spidery little monoplane. Bleriot is dead—he died in Paris nearly two years ago—but his name and his great achievement in being the first to fly the English

Channel, will be remembered as long as there are people left in the world who are interested in the progress of aviation. Bleriot .was born in Cambrai, July ], 1872. As a young men he opened a small factory in Paris for the manufacture of motor accessories. By merest chance one day he happened to 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 his other work and set about the task of constructing his 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 fly it. His second refused to leave the ground on its first test, and the disappointed inventor shoved it away into a storehouse. Later, however, he brought it out, and to his 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 back to earth again. Involuntarily he shut off the motor. The next instant the fragile plane fell. It was a complete wreck. But Bleriot continued with his experiments, and in 1906, aided by two friends, he founded the first airplane factory in France. In September, 1907, he actually flew about 200 yards in a plane built by his own hands. Then, less than two years later, came the great experience. Bleriot caused a sensation with his announcement that he intended to fly across the English Channel. He accomplished this feat early on a Sunday morning, July 25, 1909, spanning the twentythree and a half miles between the French coast and Dover in thirtyseven minutes in a monoplane almost as delicate as a dragon fly. The tiny ship was nothing more than a pair of fabric wings and a tailpiece, held together by open framework, and mounting a small 22 horse-power petrol engine. Two wheels afore and one in the rear constituted its landing gear. The French destroyer Escopette was assigned to steer the course for Bleriot's crossing of the channel. Ob-

viously the idea that the airplane might 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 of the craft below, Bleriot veered to the right. Little by little the plane drew away from the destroyer. A strong west wind blew it off its course, but it finally landed close to the walls of Dover Castle. Twenty years later Bleriot flew over the same route across the channel on the anniversary of his famous flight. In this second crossing, however, the famous inventor flew as a passenger in a giant bombing plane.-, of his own design.