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Our 1909 BLERIOT is a frail spindly looking monoplane, which has led a most adventurous life. The Bleriot in my life has flown the English Channel in both directions; the Catalina Channel; over the San Francisco-Oakland, Transbay Bridge; in England, Canada, France, and about half of the states in the United States.

Over the years it has served me in much the same reliable way as our versatile present-day aircraft, although I am sure it is responsible for giving me more gray hairs than all the business planes in the alphabet, from Alpha to Zebra.

Louis Bleriot was in many ways as interesting as the airplane. The son of a successful fabric manufacturer, he became a wealthy man in his own right and financed his experiments in aviation by the invention of a successful automobile headlight. Before the advanced design (for its day) that carried Bleriot across the Channel, there were some eight other largely unsuccessful experimental craft, ranging from cellular winged gliders to canard aircraft, most of which crashed, burned, or scattered themselves over the landscape. Until the advent of the 1909 model, Louis Bleriot's major claim to frame seemed to be his ability to survive any and all accidents.

Bleriot was not only the originator of the monoplane design that is basic to every business aircraft manufacturer today, but he also originated streamlining of the fuselage; the engine placed forward, with the single tractor propeller; the rudder, elevator, and stabilizer placed on the aft part of the fuselage; and even a partially swiveling landing gear with a capability for crosswinds.

The 1909 Bleriot, along with the rear-elevator Curtiss, were undoubtedly the two most widely copied aircraft prior to 1914. Literally hundreds of airplanes were built on farms and in backyards with nothing more to go on than photographs, the materials often being banana oil, mothers' bed sheets, and slats form the fence. Because of the popularity of the Bleriot design and its very remarkable impact on the world (for it received as much publicity in its days as Linbergh's flight twenty years later), many wealthy sportsmen bought them to use for business and pleasure. Adventurous barnstomers flew them all over known world, even as far as China and Tibet!

The basic Bleriot design was light and simple to maintain, as well as to easy to take apart or set up for flight. From the standpoint of the early exhibition pilots these were important factors, for the Bleriot could be made ready for flight in thirty minutes, as against six to eight hours for a Curtiss or Wright. Another factor was the advent of the 50-hp Gnome Rotary, which gave the Bleriot a tremendous edge because of its general reliability and low weight per horsepower.

The Bleriot is a wire airplane, and without each wire being properly attached and safe-tied, it has about the strength of a fifteen cent grocery store kite. I carefully checked the flying cables, both at the bedsted (front fuselage frame) and at the wing, as well as the warp cables through the bottom walking beam and the wing, as well as the warp cables through the bottom walking beam and the wing, and above on the A frame. Then I checked the fuselage alignment by eye, including the landing gear sulky wheels and tires, tail surfaces, and control cables. With the aircraft ready for take-off, the engine idling nicely, and its lone instrument -the oil pressure gauge-showing fifty pounds, I grasped the spade-type grip and shoved the throttle forward. The tail was up in about 20 feet; the wind was steady twelve knots; temperature, 79 degrees; field elevation, 54 feet. I was airborne in about 170 feet.

The graceful, mahogany scimitar-shaped prop, and just above the "A" frames and wing wires.

As I broke ground, a particularly nasty gust of wind dropped a wing, and for several seconds, full opposite stick rudder, and elevator were necessary to pick it up. I had forgotten what a job it was to always maintain the wings in a level attitude and the necessity of making only very flat skidding turns, mostly with rudder. In spite of a slow actual ground speed (about 44 to 48 mph), their is still no experience in my years of flying to equal the sick feeling you have when a wing goes down in gusty air and you head for the ground unable to pick up the wing in spite of full opposite control. A good deal of forward pressure is also required on the stick, for the Bleriots I have flown are all tail-heavy, and if one flies for more than ten minutes at a time, he has to keep shifting tired arms.

Flying with the camera ship required some prethought, for if the slipstream ever hit the Bleriot, it could go over on its back-which it did once with me. At the time I could only think of Adolph Pegoud, the Frenchman who made the world's first loop in a Bleriot, and wonder why he didn't suffer a coronary, for I am sure my heart missed a sizable number of beats.

After we finished taking the aerial photographs, I checked the Bleriot on stalls, which are deceptive, since it pays off with absolutely no warning, dropping a wing and forcing one to turn into the dropped wing to pick it up, the stall appears to be at about 25 to 27 mph. Beyond gentle turns, one is quite content to just fly along at about 40-odd mph and enjoy the air conditioned ride. There is no windshield for protection from the direct prop blast.

Landing can be either power on or power off. My choice is power off, with an extremely steep approach of about 30 percent nose down. One has only a very short flare-out, because there is no float with the inborn drag of a Bleriot. It lands smoothly and rolls to a stop on grass in about fifty feet. One must be very careful to land directly into the wind and pray for no sudden gusty crosswinds; the latter happened to me once; and one of the very weak main wheels collapsed under the side load. As the Bleriot ground to a stop, the windward wing rose into the air. I jumped out of the cockpit and grabbed the flying wires and promptly rose into the air with the wing. Only the additional weight of a startled airport attendant hanging on my feet brought both the Bleriot and me back to the ground again.

Louis Bleriot, with a typical French statement, once said before his famous Channel flight, "If I cannot walk, I'll show the world I can fly." But this pilot is not sure if he had to fly a Bleriot very often, he might prefer to walk!

Flying The Bleriot by: Roger Freeman

"It is hard to put into words readily explainable to the modern day pilot how perfectly awful it really is to fly the Bleriot and what a great admiration I have for the pilots whose raw courage often outstripped their piloting skills and knowledge."

Frank Tallman

     When I first read this description of flying the Bleriot in Frank Tallman's book "Flying the Old Planes" I was sure that Frank was flexing his great showmanship. No way would my Bleriot be anything like that. It was built very carefully and exactly to the plans; it had a more powerful engine so that should make it better, I thought. What a surprise I was in for!
     In my dream of starting a museum of early aviation, it had always been under- stood that we would need to have certain air planes that represented that wonder era of the real pioneers. I determined therefore that I would need, at the very least, a Curtiss Pusher, and of course a Bleriot. We have all read about the great feats of "Those magnificent men and their flying machines" and marveled at their flashy showmanship and poise. Surely they were no better pilots than I? I have thousands of hours of flight time, and a lot of good train- ing. This can't be that bad! Can it?
     In 1995 1 decided it was time to begin putting my dreams into action. I had been running Vintage Aviation Services for some time and had completed a few good replicas, but I wanted to get my collection growing; to start gathering the aircraft needed for my dream museum. As I was pretty well swamped with the work that I already had in the shop, I made a deal with my good friend and fellow builder Julius Junge to start on a Bleriot project for us. We researched until we found a good set of plans on this type and discussed what modifications we might need to make on the machine. I located a suitable power plant and started lining up material. We were on the way to having our first true pioneer aeroplane.
     Julius, working in his shop at Cannon Field, diligently started making all of the pieces. We decided to go with the 1909 channel-crossing configuration except for the elevator. Frank Tallman had once told me that the later style was much better. The rest of the aircraft would be as close as possible to the original. Slowly, the wood shavings started piling up as Julius crafted all the parts and pieces, and an aeroplane began to appear from a stack of lumber. In all, Julius spent about a year building the Bleriot, and on July 28, 1997 1 picked up the completed airframe minus the engine and covering.
     Fortunately (or unfortunately) a new project moved into my business shop and slowed down the progress on the Bleriot. It was a replica of the 1910 Farman Boxkite, which I thought was a fitting hangar mate to the Bleriot. Since we were under such a time constraint on the Farman, the Bleriot had to take a back seat. It was so interesting having two examples of pioneer aeroplanes in the shop at one time. I often wondered how the two designers took such a different approach at accomplishing the same goal. I could not help but wonder what it was going to be like to fly each of them. I would soon find out!
     The Farman rolled out of the shop on Aug. 6 1997 ready to make its first test hops. Contrary to popular belief, you do not just jump into one of these old crates and head off into the wild blue yonder on the first attempt. You start by taxi test. First slow and then a little faster. How is it going to handle on the ground? This is very important to know before you fly it. Next comes the first hop. How is It going to feel flying, and landing? After a long series of short runs you finally work up to the big one, when you take it around the field. Once you leave the safety of the runway you are truly on your own. One way or another you have got to land hopefully in one piece.
The Farman was quite a surprise to me. After a few minor scares I realized that this really wasn't too bad. After a number of flights I was getting my nerve up to the point of giving flying demonstrations. About this time I was beginning to believe that I really was right, and there wasn't much to these old birds.
     With the Farman finally delivered to its new home in Hong Kong, it was time to get back to the Bleriot. I was able to make all of the mounts for the Continental GPU engine, and have a beautiful prop carved by my friend Ted Hendrickson. We finally completed the cover job, and we were rapidly running out of excuses not to fly. Once again we began the taxi phase and it did not take long to see that this was not going to be as easy as the Farman. It took a lot of power to get the Bleriot start- ed, and once moving, it accelerated much faster. The rudder, which is very small, did not take effect until the speed rose, so ground con- trol was going to be tricky. I started slow and began speeding up a little at a time. Suddenly, just as I was completing what I thought was a very successful high-speed taxi, things started going awry. As I pulled the power off to decelerate, I began to turn. The rudder did not have any effect since it did not have the blast of the propeller. I was now caught in the midst of a fullfledged ground loop, and I was just a passenger! Before we finally came to a full stop, the right wing began to rise, then I was drag- ging the left. On the Bleriot this seems pretty drastic since the wing tips are quite a way off of the ground. There I was, at complete stop with the left wing on the ground and the right sticking way up in the air. The engine was still ticking along, and gradually the plane fell back onto its gear. (This was not supposed to happen.)
     After much head scratching, I decided that the tailskid was to blame since it did not necessary
always go back to center after banging on the ground. A few more taxi tests revealed that although my repair did seem to help, it did not solve the problem. Getting started was not the problem; it was slowing down that ate my lunch! Next I went after the landing gear. The Bleriot has a very ingenious trailing link landing gear that also swivels with any side load. On one of the next high speed taxi tests, I was slowing down and wham I was back into the ground loop mode. It started an uncontrollable turn to the right and the wing was dragging again. Suddenly there was a load crunch, and I was stopped. This time it did not right itself. The left wheel has sustained such a side load that it neatly tucked itself under and collapsed. It was back to the draw ing board without ever having been so much as an inch off the ground!
     With the landing gear all rebuilt, I was ready to continue. We greatly limited the travel of the swiveling gear, and this seemed to tame the ground loop part. Now we were working up to the high speed taxis, and I wanted to lift it off of the ground. I would get the tail up and accelerate as fast as I thought it should need, (I had no airspeed indicator) and carefully eased the control stick back. Nothing! All it did was slow down. It had no indications that it wanted to fly at all.
Now what? Several attempts ended with the same results. I had a ground hog on my hands and I did not know why.
     It was at this time that I needed to consult the experts. I placed a call to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in upstate New York. I first talked to John Barker, a walking encyclopedia of old aeroplane information who had been Cole Palen's right hand man. He referred me to their "chief" Bleriot pilot Mr. Carl Ericson who was able to brief me on some of the finer points in flying the Bleriot. First he said that you needed to get the tail way up on take off, much higher than you feel you should. Next when you think it is going as fast as it will you give the stick a pull and force it into the air. The rest was elementary. Hang on for dear life and fly it back onto the ground. Sure enough he was right. Never underestimate the value of experience!
     Heeding Eric's advice I managed to coax the Bleriot into the air. It really did not
want to be there, and at this point, neither did I! I made several runs up and down the run- way sometimes getting up'to about 20 feet in altitude. It seemed so strange I would come back thinking I had set some altitude record only to find that I was merely 10 to 15 feet high. One such run I was cruising along fat, dumb and happy (sheer terror) when I noticed that the end of the runway was coming up, and I did not want to go around yet. So I merely pulled back on the power and felt the bottom beginning to fall out from beneath me. I was dropping so fast I was trying to break the decent with the elevator. Next, the right wing began to drop so I tried to correct with left stick. Crash, I was on the ground and I bet the airplane did not move ten feet from impact.
       Not a good day at all. Close examination revealed several broken wires in the fuselage, a smashed tailskid and collapsed landing gear (again!).
      After discussing the episode again with Eric I learned the errors in my ways, The Bleriot wing design had been a direct attempt to emulate the shape and function of a bird's wing minus the flapping. The airfoil, with its distinct undercamber and hooked nose, is very reminiscent our feathered friends. Lateral control is also based on the way a bird flies, and utilizes what is known as "wing warping instead of ailerons. Somehow the birds seem to do just fine with all of this, but man is just not exactly up to the task. First we find that the strange airfoil causes very high drag. I needed to raise the tail as high as possible to flatten out the wing. With this done the aircraft could accelerate just enough to overcome the drag. Wing warping, I had already noticed, was at best not very effective. It would raise a wino, if you had time to wait. I also noticed that I had the stick buried in the upper left-hand corner of the cockpit while in flight. Now people ask why you do not notice these things when you are flying? When you are flying something that is just barely holding on anyway, you tend to move things wherever they seem to do you the most good. Often you have no idea where the stick is relative to center while your mind is occupied with other things, What'. I did on this last flight was first to reduce power on a high drag machine, which was barely flying anyway. Next, as the wing began to drop, I corrected with the stick. What I did not realize was that when I moved the stick to the left, it was in fact increasing the angle of attack on the right wing. Angle of attack is the angle in which the wind hits the airfoil. I was already next to a stall and now I increased the angle and completed the stall on the right wing. Say good night, I was going down!
     By now I was beginning to look at Frank's words a little differently. Maybe there was something to this. I had been fulled by the Farman into thinking that this old stuff was a piece of cake. The Bleriot is a whole different ball game!
     We rebuilt the wreck in time for the next flying lesson. I continued to make a num- ber of runs down the runway. A few little rigging adjustments brought the stick back to center in flight. I now had to move on to the next big hurdle. I needed to take the ship around the field and really see what it was like in the air. I finally got up the nerve to take it around. I cannot explain the thought process as you make the decision that this will be it. You're up ... everything seems to be going well ... the machine is climbing ... so let's do it!
As soon as you make that first turn things begin to look a lot different I am now committed. I can either go around or put down in the farmer's field. Full power seems just a bit on the weak side; I keep pushing on the throttle just to make sure. Be careful on the bank since this is your weakest control. Skid around the turn. It does not look grace ful, but the wings stay where you want them. I make a full circuit of the field, and things seem sort of under control, The engine is running fine. Rated RPM and good oil temp. I think I will go around again. As I level off on the second downwind leg, I decide that maybe I should check the power and see if it will fly on reduced power. I carefully ease the throttle back just a bit and feel like I am hanging onto a sponge. Full power and I am back where I was before approximately 200 feet which is much too high to fall and much too low to recover. I think things are just fine at full power. As I skid around onto my final approach I start a descent, still under power. I feel the wind in my face picking up so now I reduce power just a bit, not too much. As I approach the ground, 1 only slightly pull back on the stick just to break the descent, and suddenly I feel the wheels rolling on the ground. Amazing! I pull the power and I gently come to a stop. I have to remember to turn off the engine. My body finally starts to relax and I can feel my sphincter muscles releasing their death grip on the seat.
     And there I am a real Bleriot pilot!
     Nothing to it! Since then I have made many other flights In the Bleriot. To date all successful and without further damage. I have tried to think of the proper way to explain my feelings while flying the Bleriot, and I guess the best way is to say it is almost like being lifted off of the ground while flying a kite. You immediately realize that you depend on both the kite and the string. If either decides to let you down the results will be the same.
     Now that you are undoubtedly questioning my sanity for even flying such a crazy machine, I will tell you why I think it is important that that we keep these old crates flying. I honestly believe that with careful attention these aircraft can be safely flown within a controlled environment. I also believe that it is tremendously important for future generations to have the opportunity of witnessing this primitive technology in action so that they can t'nfly appreciate how far that technology has brought us.