Blériot Aéronautique

Louis Blériot, photographed in London after his cross-channel flight

Blériot Aéronautique was a French aircraft manufacturer founded by Louis Blériot. It also made a few cyclecars between 1921 and 1922.

Background

Louis Blériot was an engineer who had developed the first practical headlamp for cars and had established a successful business marketing them. In 1901 he had built a small unmanned ornithopter, but his serious involvement with aviation began in April 1905 when he witnessed Gabriel Voisin's first experiments with a floatplane glider towed behind a motorboat on the river Seine. A brief partnership with Voisin followed, but after the failure of the Blériot III and its modified version, the Blériot IV, the partnership was dissolved and Blériot set up his own company, "Recherches Aéronautique Louis Blériot" (Louis Blériot Aeronautical Research).

Blériot's early experiments

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  Blériot III

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  Blériot V

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  Blériot VI

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  Blériot VII

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  Blériot VIII

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  Blériot XI as first built

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  Gnome engined production Blériot XI

Unlike the business started by Gabriel Voisin, which was a straightforward design and manufacturing concern with Voisin acting as aircraft designer, Bleriot's establishment was, as its name suggests, essentially a privately-funded research establishment, employing various engineers and designers.. Owing to this it is difficult to establish the extent of Blériot's involvement in the actual design of the aircraft which bear his name. Over the next few years a series of aircraft of varying configurations were produced, each one marginally more successful than its predecessor, and culminating in the Type XI with which he became famous for being the first to fly across the English Channel in 1909.

Commercial success

Aircraft design and manufacturing

The publicity gained by this achievement brought the company orders for large numbers of the Type XI, and several hundred were eventually made. This commercial success enabled the research side of the business to expand considerably, and in the years before the First World War a startlingly heterogeneous collection of aircraft were produced, although none came close to being as successful as the Type XI.

Flight schools

In late 1909 Blériot established a training school for pilots at Pau, and early the next year a second school was opened at Etampes near Rouen.

Between 1910 and 1914 these schools trained around 1000 pilots, and nearly half of the pilots holding an Aero Club de France brevet at the outbreak of the First World War had been trained by the Blériot schools.

In September 1910 another flight school was opened at the newly established Hendon aerodrome near London.

SPAD

In 1913 Blériot acquired the assets of the Deperdussin company, following the arrest on fraud charges of its founder Armand Deperdussin. The name of the company was changed from Société de Production des Aéroplanes Deperdussin to Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés, generelly referred to by its acronym SPAD. This company became extremely successful during World War I, and a British factory was established in Addlestone. The British factory made both Blériot and SPAD fighter aircraft during the war.

The French factory in Suresnes made cyclecars after the war with 2-cylinder 2-stroke engines and shaft drive.

Aircraft

Blériot aircraft before the First World War

• Blériot I (1901) Unmanned ornithopter powered by a carbonic acid engine.
• Blériot II (1905) Biplane floatplane glider built for Blériot by Gabriel Voisin Crashed on first attempt at flight and abandoned.
• Blériot III (1906) Tandem-wing biplane powered by 24  (18 kW) Antoinette engine. Not successful.
• Blériot IV (1906) Modification of Type III, powered by two Antoinette engines. Not successful.
• Blériot V (1907) Single-seat, single-engine monoplane of canard configuration.
• Blériot VI (1907) Single-seat, single-engine aircraft of tandem wing configuration.
• Blériot VII (1907)
• Blériot VIII (1908)
• Blériot IX (1908) Tractor configuration monoplane. Never flown. Preserved in the collection of the Musée de l'Air in Paris.
• Blériot X (1908) canard configuration biplane, never flown.
• Blériot XI (1909) Single-seat, single-engine tractor configuration monoplane. The type in which the first flightacross the English Channel was made.
• Blériot XII (1909) Single-seat, single-engine high-wing monoplane.
• Blériot XIII (1910) Five-seat pusher configuration biplane.
• Blériot XIV (1910) Two-seat Tractor configuration monoplane.
• Blériot XX
• Blériot XXI
• Blériot XXIII
• Blériot XXIV (1911) The Bleriot Limousine, similar to the Type XIII but with an enclosed passenger cabin.
• Blériot XXV (1911) Single-seater pusher canard monoplane.
• Blériot XXVI (1911) Single-seater pusher canard triplane

Blériot aircraft after the First World War

• Blériot 75 (1919) Four-engined airliner.
• Blériot 110 (1930) Single-seat, single-engine high-wing long-distance monoplane.
• Blériot 115 (1923) Four-engined transport aircraft.
• Blériot 123
• Blériot 125
• Blériot 127
• Blériot 135
• Blériot 155
• Blériot 165
• Blériot 5190 (1933) Four-engine parasol-wing monoplane flying boat, intended as a transatlantic mail carrier.

Sources

• Elliot, Brian A. Blériot: Herald of an Age' Stroud: Tempus, 2000 ISBN 0 7524 1739 8
• Georgano, Nick (Ed.) (2000). The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. ISBN 1-57958-293-1
• Opdycke, Leonard E. French Aeroplanes Before the Great War Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1999. ISBN 0 7643 0752 5