| Blériot VIII | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Experimental aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Louis Blériot |
| Number built | 1 |
| History | |
| First flight | 1908 |
TheBlériot VIII was a Frenchpioneer era aeroplane built byLouis Blériot, significant for its adoption of both a configuration and a control system that were to set a standard for decades to come.
The previous year, Blériot had experimented with atandem wing design, theBlériot VI, then built another aircraft, theBlériot VII, in which the rear wing was somewhat smaller than the front wing, and introduced the laterType XI's "bedstead", shock-absorbing and castoring main landing gear design. In the Blériot VIII, he reduced the size of the rear wing yet again, to the point where it was no longer contributing much in the way of lift, but had become thehorizontal stabiliser. More novel was his adoption of a singlecontrol stick that would control bothroll and pitch, while therudder was controlled by a horizontal, centrally pivoted bar swung by the pilot's feet. A similar control arrangement for roll and pitch control had been incorporated into an aircraft the previous year byRobert Esnault-Pelterie, but the Bleriot VIII was the first use in a single airframe of the combination of hand-operatedjoystick and foot-operated rudder control which is in use to the present day as the basic format of aerodynamicaircraft control systems.[2]
Blériot found that the new aircraft flew very well, and for the first time he had sufficient control to fly in circles. He could also keep it aloft for up to eight minutes at a time. During the course of 1908, he modified it a number of times, calling the first major revision theVIII-bis and the next theVIII-ter. With this aircraft on June 29, Blériot claimed the second of three prizes being offered by theAutomobile Club de France for a flight with an altitude of 200 m (660 ft). Longer and longer flights followed: on October 21, he made one of 7 km (4.3 mi), and ten days later flew 14 km (8.7 mi) cross-country fromToury toArtenay and flew back again.
General characteristics
