Kolibear
25th Feb 2005, 13:39
Last Saturday, another member of the group & I flew across to Le Touquet. Nothing unusual about that, I can hear you saying, people have been flying the Channel for the last 90+ years, but this was the first time either of us had flown the across the Channel & the first time the aircraft had landed at Le Touquet.
What, for me, was the big achievement is that I flew over to France even though I really do have a major dislike of flying small aircraft over water. When I was training out of Southend, any flights to the south involved crossing the Thames, the distance is only 4 miles or so but that was still about 3.5 miles too far! So I was very pleased with myself.
On Saturday, the wind was northerly and we fair whistled across to France in about 10-12 minutes. On the return leg, (and guess who flew that one) it took 20 long minutes.
During that 20 minutes I got to thinking about M. Bleriot and his first crossing and I came to realise that I actually knew very little about the event. I knew that he took off from, well, Calais I assume, flew to Dover and judging by the photos, made a rather poor downhill landing. I didn't even know the date, let alone the year.
So, from the relative comfort of my enclosed cockpit, 3,300' above the sea, White Cliffs of Dover in view and the luxury of radio, lifejackets, GPS, heater, co-pilot etc lets move back to 25th July 1909 and try & put Louis Bleriot's feat into perspective.
Bleriot was taking part in a competition to be the first to fly the Channel, a prize of £1,000 had been put up by the Daily Mail for the first person to succeed. His nearest rival was Hubert Latham, who had already ditched in the Channel 6 days previous after an engine failure in his Antoinette.
In the early hours of 25th July, the wind dropped and it was deemed feasible for Bleriot to try a crossing. He was hobbling around on crutches, having severely burnt his foot on the exhaust pipe when the asbestos cover came off, so when he got into his aircraft, he strapped his crutches to the framework of the aircraft.
While the engine was warming, a dog ran into the propeller and was instantly pulped, but no one bothered to check the prop or engine for any damage.
Bleriot had been concerned about a choice of landing site at Dover, but a colleague, Charles Fontaine, had gone on ahead to scout the terrain. He found a field, Northfall Meadow and sent Bleriot a postcard of Dover cliff with a suitable gap in the cliffs marked with an 'X'
A French destroyer set sail from Calais, with Mrs Bleriot on board and Bleriot took off at about 4:40 in the morning. The entire flight, and I find this amazing, was done at a height of about 200', he is reported as zooming up to 250' as he flew over the destroyer. But this low height meant that for 10 minutes, mid channel, he was out of sight of both France and England and at this point, the wind began to drift him north. There was a real risk that he could miss the English coast altogether and end up in the North Sea.
Soon after, he saw a line of ships heading west, presumably to Dover, so he altered course west to follow them.
Unfortunately, the cliffs at Dover rise up to 300', so he had to fly through a gap in the cliffs, the one that had been marked on the post card, to find the landing site, where Charles Fontaine was waving a tricolour. You can only imagine the turbulence that blows around those cliffs. According to the map, the gap he flew through is directly above today's ferry terminal.
37 minutes after leaving France, he made a fairly poor landing, damaging the prop and landing gear but securing a place in history. There is a monument at Northfall Meadow, just east of Dover Castle, commemorating the event.
For an insight as to just how difficult the Bleriot was to fly, have a read of:-
Bleriot (http://www.bleriot.org/docs/information.htm)
I'd always thought that he'd just got into his aircraft, taken off, seen the White Cliffs in the distance and headed towards them. He had an aircraft that was a handful to fly, underpowered, of dubious reliability and possibly damaged by canine collision, no survival equipment (apart from his crutches, which he was planning to wave at any passing ships) and his landing strip was at his ceiling.
His efforts make my first flight pale into insignificance. Anyone for a Pprune Fly-in at Le Touquet on Saturday 25th July 2009??
What, for me, was the big achievement is that I flew over to France even though I really do have a major dislike of flying small aircraft over water. When I was training out of Southend, any flights to the south involved crossing the Thames, the distance is only 4 miles or so but that was still about 3.5 miles too far! So I was very pleased with myself.
On Saturday, the wind was northerly and we fair whistled across to France in about 10-12 minutes. On the return leg, (and guess who flew that one) it took 20 long minutes.
During that 20 minutes I got to thinking about M. Bleriot and his first crossing and I came to realise that I actually knew very little about the event. I knew that he took off from, well, Calais I assume, flew to Dover and judging by the photos, made a rather poor downhill landing. I didn't even know the date, let alone the year.
So, from the relative comfort of my enclosed cockpit, 3,300' above the sea, White Cliffs of Dover in view and the luxury of radio, lifejackets, GPS, heater, co-pilot etc lets move back to 25th July 1909 and try & put Louis Bleriot's feat into perspective.
Bleriot was taking part in a competition to be the first to fly the Channel, a prize of £1,000 had been put up by the Daily Mail for the first person to succeed. His nearest rival was Hubert Latham, who had already ditched in the Channel 6 days previous after an engine failure in his Antoinette.
In the early hours of 25th July, the wind dropped and it was deemed feasible for Bleriot to try a crossing. He was hobbling around on crutches, having severely burnt his foot on the exhaust pipe when the asbestos cover came off, so when he got into his aircraft, he strapped his crutches to the framework of the aircraft.
While the engine was warming, a dog ran into the propeller and was instantly pulped, but no one bothered to check the prop or engine for any damage.
Bleriot had been concerned about a choice of landing site at Dover, but a colleague, Charles Fontaine, had gone on ahead to scout the terrain. He found a field, Northfall Meadow and sent Bleriot a postcard of Dover cliff with a suitable gap in the cliffs marked with an 'X'
A French destroyer set sail from Calais, with Mrs Bleriot on board and Bleriot took off at about 4:40 in the morning. The entire flight, and I find this amazing, was done at a height of about 200', he is reported as zooming up to 250' as he flew over the destroyer. But this low height meant that for 10 minutes, mid channel, he was out of sight of both France and England and at this point, the wind began to drift him north. There was a real risk that he could miss the English coast altogether and end up in the North Sea.
Soon after, he saw a line of ships heading west, presumably to Dover, so he altered course west to follow them.
Unfortunately, the cliffs at Dover rise up to 300', so he had to fly through a gap in the cliffs, the one that had been marked on the post card, to find the landing site, where Charles Fontaine was waving a tricolour. You can only imagine the turbulence that blows around those cliffs. According to the map, the gap he flew through is directly above today's ferry terminal.
37 minutes after leaving France, he made a fairly poor landing, damaging the prop and landing gear but securing a place in history. There is a monument at Northfall Meadow, just east of Dover Castle, commemorating the event.
For an insight as to just how difficult the Bleriot was to fly, have a read of:-
Bleriot (http://www.bleriot.org/docs/information.htm)
I'd always thought that he'd just got into his aircraft, taken off, seen the White Cliffs in the distance and headed towards them. He had an aircraft that was a handful to fly, underpowered, of dubious reliability and possibly damaged by canine collision, no survival equipment (apart from his crutches, which he was planning to wave at any passing ships) and his landing strip was at his ceiling.
His efforts make my first flight pale into insignificance. Anyone for a Pprune Fly-in at Le Touquet on Saturday 25th July 2009??