July 25, 1909 – The First Airplane Flight Across the English Channel

On this day in engineering history, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine, a one-seat monoplane named the Blériot XI. The 22-mile trip from Les Barraques, France to Dover, England took only 36.5 minutes, but earned the French engineer a thousand-pound prize from the London Daily Mail. "The most beautiful dream that has haunted the heart of man since Icarus", Blériot is reported to have exclaimed, "today has become reality." Icarus, the character in Greek mythology two whom Blériot referred, had fallen to a watery death when he flew too close to the sun.

Louis Blériot's cross-channel flight ended England's aerial isolation and vindicated the French inventor's airplane designs. Although Blériot had enjoyed previous successes, he had also crashed several biplanes and narrowly escaped an Icarus-like demise. The wooden aircraft that Blériot flew on July 25, 1909 looked fragile, but was in fact structurally sound. Made of sturdy oak and poplar, the Blériot XI was powered by a 3-cylinder, 25-hp Anzani engine which could move the 529-lb. monoplane at speeds approaching 65 mph. The Blériot XI also featured castering landing gear that could pivot, allowing the plane to turn into the wind while still rolling in the direction of the runway. Wing warping, a system of cables and pulleys which twisted the trailing edges of the wings in opposite directions, was used to control the plane's roll.

When morning dawned on July 25, 1909, Louis Blériot longed to see the sun. For the third day in a row, fog and foul weather cloaked the English Channel. Shortly after 4 AM, the French aviator left Les Barraques while Hubert Latham, his chief rival for the thousand-pound prize, was still asleep. As Louis Blériot piloted his wooden monoplane above the channel's choppy waters, rain showers cooled the aircraft's temperamental engine. Soon, Louis Blériot saw the outlines of the English coast. As he approached Dover, the pilot spotted a French reporter waving the tricolour. A rough landing damaged the Bleriot XI's landing gear, but Louis Blériot – unlike Icarus – walked away unscathed.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bl%C3%A9riot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_XI

http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2003-09/heroes.html

http://www.aviation.technomuses.ca/collections/artifacts/aircraft/BleriotXI.shtml

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/

tech/engineering/AHistoryofAeronautics/chap15.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bleriot/tour-nf.html