First crossing in airplane of the English Channel

1909. First crossing in airplane of the English Channel.

Motivated by it rewards of 1000 pounds sterling offered by the lodinense newspaper: Daily Mail, to whom it would manage to cross the first English Channel, flying in an apparatus heavier than the air, the constructor, aviator and French pioneer Loui Bleriot, decided to try passage in one of the airplanes by the constructed ones, the 25 of June of 1909. It did it in Bleriot XI, an airplane of eight meters in length, that owned a wood structure, done with horizontal and vertical crosspieces, reinforced with metallic braces. The wing that had a spread of 7,8 meters was had with fabric, in the same way that the front part of the apparatus. The undercarriage constituted a frame with two horizontal crossbeams, two vertical posts and two legs reinforced constructed in wood last and maintained by steel cables., also owned two steel cable pillars, that had wharf shock absorbers. These were united to the adjustable brackets of the wheels that were of bicycle and which they had a diameter of 24 centimeters.

It had a Anzani motor of three cylinders that was cooled by air and reached 1400 RPM, driving a Chauviere helix of two meters of dimensions. Its speed reached the 58 kilometers per hour; totally loaded the airplane 300 kg weighed.

Blériot initiated its historical flight, around the 4:30 hours of the dawn of day 25 of June of 1909.

Starting off from the port of Calais, and it landed in Dover England to the 5:17 hours of the same day, of somewhat abrupt way since when doing it in a field, it broke the helix and the undercarriage. It could not follow a direct route through the English Channel, because it was pushed by the wind made the north, and possibly found a destiny place, following the same direction of the boats beached in the coast.

As a result of this success, Bleriot, that as much in England as in France, was acclaimed like a hero, managed to sell more than 100 of these apparatuses that were used like military airplanes in several countries.

First landing and takeoff of an airplane from a boat

1911. First landing and takeoff of an airplane from of the bridge of a boat, EE: U:

At the request of a civilian and with the collaboration of the Navy of the EE.UU., it was realised the 4 of November of 1910, a flight from the bridge preparation on the tower of artillery of the cruise military Birmingham.

The 18 of January of 1911, piloting a biplane, Curtis Eugene Ely managed to realise the first landing in the history of aviation in a boat, for such effect, had modified the zone of stern of the armored cruise Pennsylvania, that was anchored in the Bay of San Francisco. To the boat a wood cover had been constructed to him, similar to which later will take the aircraft carrier.

Ely managed to settle in the platform of the battleship, and 50 minutes later, dequeued from the same, before the row of the crew. Minutes later the airplane landed in the military air base of Selfridge, in Michigan. The triumph had been full, and with this historical fact they were born the aircraft carrier.