CHANNEL CROSSING

 

CHANNELCROSSING

‘It’ll befine, cherie,’ Louis Blériot assured his wife, ‘I’ll be therebefore you.’

Praying fervently he was right,Alice boarded the destroyer Escopette to sail to England to await hisarrival. From its deck she watched the flimsy plane run down the slope, holdingher breath until it had wobbled into the sky and set off across La Manche.

Thirty-sixminutes later Louis landed with a thump near Dover Castle, to be met by acorrespondent from the Daily Mail, who telephoned his paper with thenews that their £1000 prize had been won, not by the American brothersbut by a Frenchman.

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I took the above photograph at Tenerife Airport in 2013, the Centenary of the date the Frenchman Louis Bleriot flew his tiny plane into Tenerife. This was a replica, of course, but simply walking round it and seeing the bicycle wheels on its undercarriage gave me the shudders - fancy having the courage to cross the sea in that! 

This cement outline marks the spot where he landed at Dover, UK, on July 25th 1909 after a 36.5 minute flight across the English Channel, know to the French as La Manche.Apparently the owner of The Daily Mail had put up the £1000 prize fully expecting - even hoping? - that the American Wright brothers would win it!

The image below shows the slightly damaged plane after its somewhat rough landing on a field chosen at the last minute - Bleriot had been expected to land on Dover beach, so it took his wife a little while to reach him!