The Blériot XI

If you wanted to study the aerodynamics, just a plane soon to be designed to look like the Blériot XI. There are high-bypass ratio turbofan lounge or upper deck, or Global Positioning System. Instead, the plane is a pure expression of design solutions must pass the four forces of flight: lift, weight, thrust and drag. One of these "studies" can run at Cole Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Rhinebeck, New York will be taken.

L 'The highlight of the last ten configurations built of Louis Bleriot, who have accumulated 60 000 French francs during a joint production of light cars, an airplane would be technologically successful re-invested to develop in competition with names like the Wright brothers, Henri Farman , Santos Dumont and Glenn Curtiss, Bleriot XI was the first bridge become practical in the world.

The Bleriot VII, establishing their first had appeared with a partially enclosed body of his housea single pilot, wings attached to a tubular structure above the cockpit Cabane, a four-page, Antoinette 50 hp engine, a big lift twin rudders, a small rudder, and turning, wheel independent springs. Although at 18 December 1907 fell, had provided the basis for a future, final draft.

by The Bleriot VIII, fast, low-wing configuration was maintained, but had submitted a broken aileron tip and tricycle landing gear, eachmade up of individual wheels.

Although the Bleriot IX was a larger version of the Bleriot VIII and X had launched a slide-helix agreement with triple canard rudder had these intermediate steps offered little to the final design and was therefore quickly rejected. The final draft was modeled as a Bleriot XI.

His long trunk, thin, longitudinal ash, fir poles and beams held together by wire trusses wereLight, yet strong, and that the common starting point for the aerodynamic surfaces and engine. Only half of the material covered, it seemed primitive and crude, but functional.

rib fabric wing shaped with rounded tips, which is described with a wingspan of 28.2 meters and 151 square meters and are joint-connected to the fuselage with a dihedral angle and provide a substantial. Its upper surface and down sharply lowered peak were themselves expressions of aerodynamics. Eng-runfrom their upper surfaces, reduction and air flow on its trailing edge, the pressure to higher, increasing the speed of the airflow, and what to "react" to sail in the principle of lift. Neither the high-lift devices such as slats and flaps, ailerons and were not included, either. Instead of checking the method designed by the Wright brothers 'wing side', a pylon under the fuselage upside down, the attached wire actuators have been installed are warping.differential rotation of the entire wing, turned it into an enormous wings, increasing the angle of incidence and cause flight Bank.

A stabilizer rectangular 16-meter square, mounted below the cone-shaped structure at the end, provided that the deviation for the control of the pitch axis, while a 4.5 square meters, all the helms in motion, provided seemingly small, the 'aircraft, the yaw control at the end of the fuselage.

A three-cylinder, air-cooled, inverted Y, 35-hp AnzaniEngine replaces the original design, 30-hp engine and a striker REP, ash, mahogany drove a propeller-shaped scitmar diameter 6.87 m at 1350 rpm. Due to insufficient capacity of the engines then in existence, the Blériot XI was, as all of the first projects, forced ranking with power to weight ratio, their designers, counteractively use strong, but the structures of light wood and woven aerodynamic surfaces.

The smooth, finely ground, consumingshaped propeller itself was a combination of work-of-art have been carving and aerodynamic term. Basically a little wings, turning perpendicular to the trajectory developed, is pushing the same way a wing creates lift, the wind hits him with his plan of rotation. For was set at an angle of attack, and because he had a fall-shaped profile, has developed lift presented here as "push", the propellers of the "twist" that has kept for the newsame angle of attack along the beam with its high angle of attack near its hub, but with a low near its edge.

L ', ashes before had the same attachment point for two of the three aircraft to make sure that the wheels beautiful races, studs, wheels, tires, the package of the regular strip of adhesion between tire and rim. The chassis is unique, pan-capacity, its roots, the Bleriot VII, more appropriately, the plane is at work on the ground in crosswind conditionssmall space because the rudder is not enough to combat these significant and had offered the meeting was structurally too weak to resist lateral forces. As a result we had to take a position above the earth in a corner.

The cockpit, which consists of a wooden frame and fabric features rubber on the sides, the Bleriot designed control where attached a small, round, non-rotating wheel on a vertical pole, which had a turn, the metal is based,Half-dome "yoke" or "bell" in French, in which the two came back and the rudder control, two wing-warping wires attached. The surfaces have been moved from the launch of the stick forward, backward, or on both sides. a compass and a fuel quantity indicator: Cockpit "sophistication" was completed with a butterfly on the right side of the engine and two instruments.

A small tank barrel as it was installed horizontally between the engine and passenger compartment.

The BleriotXI, 35 hp engine driven Anzani, had a total weight of 661-ppund presented and could reach a speed of 47 mph.

First flight 15th March 1909, with the former Motor REP, had missed only a distance of 8,200 meters, but the beginning does not seem unhappy that a draft power and success, for only four months later, on July 25, had a record , 25 miles, the first flight across the English Channel from Calais, France, Dover, England, winning theDaily Mail, the company in 1000 sterling for the price. The historical event, generating worldwide attention, triggered an influx of orders for the type.

The Blériot XI-design, low power and minimal surfaces dictate its effective functioning. The brake without aircraft, for example, can be controlled only intended for its rowing on the ground. Take off because of the high angle of attack of the wing is best with a full choke or stick up, has reached theraises the tail of a parallel-to-ground and all the places the weight of the airplane on the wheels Central, while the wind-induced angle tracking or distractions can sometimes completely undermined by the helm, according to the degree, and its central frame adds this further. Thus, as outlined in the plan leads to a shallow slope. The wing is falling and the environment, together with ground effect is a temporary aid, but is still owned by a sudden stop.

L 'Profile Step-up is not dictated by the air traffic control restrictions, but their speed increases lift requirements in each "peak".

Despite maintaining the full power and maximum must flow through the engine to its "air cooled" for justice is slow, delicate design susceptible to wind gusts, and the banks should be flat and smooth. The power is not sufficiently available, which turns 30 degrees and up-to counter the wing loading and exponentialinevitably articles. wing-warping lateral control is minimal and slow.

Full-Power cuts throttle descended nose-down perfect just before the wheels touch the ground arrested. power reductions are due to the inadequacy of the previous engine power, and before landing unarrestable overflaring force the cell to its tail.

The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome Bleriot XI, which was built in cell # 56 is the oldest still flying in the U.S., only through the shadowShuttleworth Collection Bleriot, building # 14 bears.

Having crashed during a meeting in 1910 in air Sauguss, Massachusetts, who had then Rhinebeck example of Prof. HH BOC Edwards, who on a daily basis, while cycling to work and had saved him, where before they had acquired Bill Champlin of Laconia, New Hampshire. Onwardly Cole Palen won in 1952 had not had its engine and aerodynamic surfaces, but its anterior and posteriorwas otherwise complete. The newly built wing, stabilizer and rudder was provided to Stormville Airport two years later, in October.

Because of the fragility of aircraft, he hops "is limited to" step from the old material Rhinebeck grass on the Sabbath "History of Flight" air show, with just a few meters can reach a maximum height of 60 However, these two steps a simple and elegant expression of aerodynamics to find traces of their origin, and hencerepresents, then the "Long Distance" on the English Channel, the original Bleriot XI, a century ago as the world's first practical bridge and predecessors to all modern aircraft, which had been regularly made links with the world.