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Bleriot XI

In the early hours of July 25th 1909 Louis Bleriot, a French pilot, was the first person to fly an aeroplane across the English channel in a Bleriot XI. It quickly became the most successful aeroplane of the era and over the next five years his company built and sold over 800 examples.

Many were used by fledgling pilots of the time at air displays and one in particular Leon Delagrange flew his at one of the first properly organised air displays at Doncaster in October 1909.

In 2008 I was asked by the Aeroventure museum at Doncaster if I would be interested in building a static replica of the Bleriot XI as flown by Leon Delagrange for the 100th anniversary of that first air display. Of course I jumped at the chance as I have been interested in the Bleriot for many years and had copies of most of the drawings to hand.

The construction took about 12 months and I tried to follow the original construction as close as possible, with only a few alterations to keep things simple and costs down. The museum managed to find an incomplete Gnome rotary engine on loan from a museum in Ireland which was great, this was missing one cylinder unfortunately but I managed to get a replica machined up in Aluminium which when painted looked like the originals. They also managed to find a suitable original type propeller which had been donated to the museum.

For those who don’t know the rotary engine is pretty unique in design as the propeller is bolted to the crankcase and the engine turns with the propeller to help keep it cool. In the replica I managed to replicate this peculiarity and the engine does actually turn when the propeller is moved .

It was a rush at the end but the aeroplane was completed and assembled at the museum just a week before the official celebrations which was opened by the local mayor. The aeroplane is on display at the museum and I urge you to go and have a look if you can, as well as the Bleriot it’s a very interesting museum with many exhibits.

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