Читать книгу The Times Great Events - Группа авторов - Страница 42

LOUIS BLÉRIOT FLIES THE CHANNEL

26 July 1909

M. Bleriot, still forced to use crutches, limped slowly behind his tiny bird-like craft until it was well out in the open, when he took his seat, and at 4.10 a.m. gave instructions for the engine to be started. The propeller in front of the aviator revolved with a deep moaning sound, the firing seemed to be excellent, and at 4.15 the order was given to let go the chassis and rear plane, by which five men were holding the machine down to the ground. After running perhaps 150 yards the two front wheels of the chassis left the earth, followed in a moment by the rear wheel, and then a trial began which convinced all who witnessed it of the aviator’s skill, the crowd of villagers who had assembled by the hundred rushing to and fro, shouting excitedly and clapping their hands.

M. Bleriot flew first towards Sangatte in a westerly direction parallel to the coast. He then circled inland, and passing near the old Castle completed a circuit of about 1½ miles. Continuing, he made a larger sweep the second time, which must have been nearly 2 miles in length, and on the completion of this he brought the machine gently to the ground, without the slightest shock or bump, approximately 250 yards from the spot where he had started. The duration of this flight was exactly six minutes, and I judged his average height to be 40 feet above the ground. He then declared his intention of starting in a few moments in a westerly direction as before, circling to the right, and making the best of his way for the English coast, hoping to land anywhere round about Dover, without tying himself to any definite spot. The lightest breeze imaginable could now be felt from the south-west, the course to Dover being north-west by west.

At 4.41 (French time) the engine was again started. The monoplane rose almost immediately, flew half a mile towards Sangatte, then turned to the right and, passing over the sand-hills, crossed the coast line exactly at 4.42, just a hundred yards from where I had taken up the highest position obtainable. The destroyer Escopette (which with two torpedo-boats had been lying off Baraques for an hour or more) was signalled to by a sailor standing beside me, and shaped a course for Dover, but the aeroplane had passed her and had gone rather to the left before the war vessel could gather speed. Through my telescope I was able to watch the tiny craft long after she passed from the view of those around me, and after five minutes I noticed that she made a sudden turn to the left, and seemed to proceed for nearly a mile on a south-west course; after this she again headed for Dover, the height above the sea being, I imagine, 250 feet at most. For 11 minutes I kept her in view, till at last she faded away in the distant misty atmosphere. The destroyer meanwhile was vomiting forth a black column of smoke some three miles to the northward, apparently with no likelihood of overtaking the aviator if he could proceed without mishap to the English shore.

A general stampede was now made for motor-cars, cabs, and bicycles waiting in the road, in order to hurry to the Channel Tunnel works beyond Sangatte, where the wireless telegraphy apparatus was sure to be the first medium for news from England as to the aviator’s progress.

At 5.50 the first wireless message from Dover was received, but it was merely a rumour to the effect that an aeroplane had been sighted. Ten minutes later, however, a second message arrived, stating officially that M. Bleriot had descended in a meadow near Dover Castle, and the announcement was greeted with enthusiastic cheers.

The Frenchman Louis Blériot, then 37, had invested the money he had made from designing the first headlamps for cars into his passion for aviation. This was still in its earliest years and it was Blériot who built the first monoplane and devised the use of a joystick and pedals to control the flight of an aircraft.

The Daily Mail had offered a £1,000 prize to the first pilot to cross the Channel, but most people – including the Wright Brothers – considered the venture impossible or too risky. Nevertheless, a crowd of 10,000 gathered to watch Blériot take off near the workings of the late-nineteenth century project to dig a Channel Tunnel.

Blériot, limping from burns suffered on a previous flight, took 36 minutes to fly the 22 miles (35 kilometres) to Dover at an average speed of 45 mph. He briefly lost sight of the Kent coast when the visibility dipped but otherwise the journey was uneventful.

Subsequently, he set up a business manufacturing aircraft, including during the First World War. In 1927, Blériot greeted Charles Lindbergh when the American touched down on French soil after becoming the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic. (See Lindbergh.)