Blériot Monoplane
The master of the monoplane has been Louis Blériot. Starting in 1907 with short flights in a Langley type of machine, he made his celebrated cross-country run, and the first circling flights ever achieved in a monoplane, the following year. On July 25, 1909, he crossed the British Channel, thirty-two miles, in thirty-seven minutes.
Latham’s Fall into the Channel
The Channel crossing has become a favorite feat. Mr. Latham, only two days after Blériot, all but completed it in his Antoinette monoplane. De Lesseps, in a Blériot machine, was more fortunate. Sopwith, last year, won the de Forest prize of $20,000 by a flight of 174 miles from England into Belgium. The ill-fated Rolls made the round trip between England and France. Grace, contesting for the same prize, reached Belgium, was driven back to Calais, started on the return voyage, and vanished—all save some few doubtful relics lately found. Moisant reached London from Paris—the first trip on record between these cities without change of conveyance: and one which has just been duplicated by Pierre Prier, who, on April 12, made the London to Paris journey, 290 miles, in 236 minutes, without a stop. This does not, however, make the record for a continuous flight: which was attained by Tabuteau, who at Buc, on Dec. 30, 1910, flew around the aerodrome for 465 minutes at the speed of 48-1/2 miles per hour.
Other famous crossings include those of the Irish Sea, 52 miles, by Loraine; Long Island Sound, 25 miles, by Harmon; and Lake Geneva, 40 miles, by Defaux.
It was just about a century ago that Cayley first described a soaring machine, heavier than air, of a form remarkably similar to that of the modern aeroplane. Aside from Henson’s unsuccessful attempt to build such a machine, in 1842, and Wenham’s first gliding experiments with a triplane in 1857, soaring flight made no real progress until Langley’s experiments. That investigator, with Maxim and others, ascertained those laws of aerial sustention the application of which led to success in 1903.
(Photo by Levick, N.Y.)