Blériot Aircraft Books - History, Types and Construction

Louis Blériot - Biographie d'un créateur d'exception

An emblematic figure in the early days of French aviation, Louis Blériot (1872-1936) was an extraordinary wealth creator. An engineer trained at the École Centrale de Paris, he was in turn an entrepreneur, with acetylene headlights, a pioneer of the aeroplane - for three years he designed and piloted his own flying machines -, and an aeronautical industrialist.

Blériot-Aéronautique (1909-1937) was the world's leading aeronautical construction company, producing one machine per day in 1910. When the war broke out, the company was in first place worldwide.
When peace returned, it was still in first place thanks to the quantity and quality of its production. Blériot then owned seven factories and employed 7, 500 people.

Without complacency, the author traces the biography of the man and the history of his societies, showing the setbacks and difficulties encountered during his rise to glory (after the victorious crossing of the Channel), then the fall in a France in crisis. This biography fills a gap, it is enlightening!

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Blériot - La côte d'Opale et les pionniers

From the beginning of the conquest of the air, the crossing of the Strait of Dover tempted the pioneers. It was a competition launched by the English newspaper Daily Mail that caused excitement in the small world of aviators. But it was a duel between two men, Hubert Latham and Louis Blériot, that summed up the adventure, which reached its peak on July 25, 1909 with the victory of the latter.

The Opal Coast, with its immense sandy beaches, was then the scene of all exploits. Berck, Le Touquet, but also Boulogne, Hardelot, Wimereux, Rue and Le Crotoy saw, from the dawn of the 20th century, "these wonderful flying madmen in their strange machines".
What brilliant tinkering and technical prowess, what hours of training, what tests and accidents, courage and madness were necessary before such an exploit was achieved! In love with his region, local historian Joël Rochoy could not fail to commemorate in images the 100th anniversary of the first crossing of the Channel. Have a good flight!

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