Louis Blériot was an
engineer who had developed the first practical headlamp for cars
and had established a successful business marketing them. In
1901 he had built a small unmanned ornithopter, but his serious
involvement with aviation began in April 1905 when he witnessed
Gabriel Voisin's first experiments with a floatplane glider towed
behind a motorboat on the river Seine. A brief partnership with
Voisin followed, but after the failure of the Blériot
III and its modified version, the Blériot IV, the partnership
was dissolved and Blériot set up his own company, "Recherches
Aéronautique Louis Blériot" (Louis Blériot
Aeronautical Research). Unlike the business started by Gabriel
Voisin, which was a straightforward design and manufacturing
concern with Voisin acting as aircraft designer, Bleriot's establishment
was, as its name suggests, essentially a privately funded research
establishment, employing various engineers and designers. Owing
to this it is difficult to establish the extent of Blériot's
involvement in the actual design of the aircraft which bear his
name. Over the next few years a series of aircraft of varying
configurations were produced, each one marginally more successful
than its predecessor, and culminating in the Type XI with which
he became famous for being the first to fly across the English
Channel in 1909.
In 1913 Blériot acquired
the assets of the Deperdussin company, following the arrest on
fraud charges of its founder Armand Deperdussin. The name of
the company was changed from Société de Production
des Aéroplanes Deperdussin to Société Pour
L'Aviation et ses Dérivés, generally referred to
by its acronym SPAD. This company became extremely successful
during World War I with its mass production in French factories
and worldwide exports. Production licenses were sold in several
countries, including a larger British factory that was established
near Brooklands at Addlestone, Surrey by 1917, and a production
line at the Curtiss Elmwood plant (Buffalo, NY) in August 1917.
1914-18
During the First World War Blériot Aéronautique
was largely concerned with manufacturing aircraft designed by
others. The only aircraft produced under the Blériot name
was a series of prototype multi-engined heavy bombers, none of
which entered service.
After World War One
The Allied victory in 1918 resulted in difficult times for the
aircraft industry. During the war a large manufacturing capability
had been built up, but the end of the war resulted in the disappearance
of the market for military aircraft, and commercial aviation
was as yet undeveloped. Bleriot liquidated SPAD, selling its
factories and bringing key workers, including the head of design
André Herbemont, to the Blériot works at Suresnes.
On 6 April 1919 Blériot, in association with other leading
French aircraft manufacturers, established the Compagnie des
Messageries Aériennes (CMA), and a prototype 28-seat airliner,
the Type 75 Mammoth, based on the earlier Type 74 bomber, was
exhibited at the Aero Salon in Paris in December 1919, along
with three SPAD designs, the S.27, S.29 and S.30. The Type 75
proved unsuccessful, but 10 examples of the S.27 were ordered
by CMA, and a five-seat development, the S.33 was produced, first
flying at the end of 1920. This was followed by the larger S.46.
Attempts were made to diversify:
a contract to build fishing boats was accepted, and another for
a motorcycle which was produced at Suresnes. At the 15th Paris
Motor Show, in October 1919, the company was promoting a motorcycle
then in 1921 a stylish little cyclecar with a 2-cylinder 750cc
two-stroke engine and shaft drive. The French Blériot
cyclecars are sometimes confused with the Blériot-Whippet
chain-driven cycle cars made at the Blériot-owned factory
in Addlestone, England, but in fact the two vehicles had "little
save size in common".
In 1922 Blériot Aéronautique,
which had been a private company became a limited-liability company,
Blériot Aéronautique S.A.. Although a single company,
aircraft were produced using both the Blériot and SPAD
names, the former generally being used for the larger multi-engined
aircraft, while the smaller single-engined aircraft bore the
SPAD name, and it was these that were most successful. The only
aircraft produced under the Blériot name to be produced
in any quantity was the Type 127, initially designed in 1925
as the Type 117 escort fighter, and later adapted to become a
bomber. 42 examples were bought by the French air force.
The last aircraft built under
the Blériot name was a large flying boat designed in response
to a French Air Ministry requirement for an aircraft for a transatlantic
mail service between Dakar and Natal in Brazil. The resulting
aircraft, the Blériot 5190 first flew in August 1933,
and this prototype, named the Santos-Dumont proved highly successful,
and a number of passenger carrying variants were planned. In
May 1935, after it had completed its twelfth Atlantic crossing,
the French government ordered three more examples, only to cancel
the order six weeks later. In October 1936 the French government
provided capital incentive to boost military aircraft production,
bought and merged several manufacturers, including Blériot
Aéronautique into SNCASO (now Airbus). |
