EAA Sport Aviation - September 2011

ouis Blériot’s 1909
flight across the
English Channel cre-
ated an international
sensation. His Blériot
XI was one of the first
aircraft produced in
large numbers; it set
the standard for air-
craft controls still in use today; and it was used
to train many famous American pilots, includ-
ing Harriet Quimby, Earle Ovington, and Clyde
Cessna. The EAA AirVenture Museum simply
needed to have a Blériot XI.

The project started in 2006 as a way to increase the museum’s coverage of early 20th century aviation. Museum Director Adam Smith convened a small group of interested volunteers and explained the museum’s need for a Blériot XI and also that very little money was available for the project. With typical homebuilding spirit, the group decided that a genuine Blériot XI would be prohibitively expensive to buy, so they would simply build one. How hard could it be, since the original was built in

a matter of months? The paths the project would take will sound familiar to experienced builders.

The team’s next step was to survey other Blériot XI projects, gaining information and motivation. A small group traveled to Brodhead, Wisconsin, to see Gary Karner’s Blériot XI in construction. Over the next months, trips were taken to various aviation museums to study and photograph their Blériot XI displays.

A need for construction plans was evident. The group quickly learned that few plans were available and none were deemed particularly authentic. If original factory plans ever existed, they were rumored to have been lost when a barge sunk during World War II. The various available plans were incomplete and somewhat contradictory. The team decided to use the most detailed of the plans, drawn by John Rozendaal in 1911 for a series of articles in a German automobile magazine. However, even those plans omitted many critical dimensions and details, such as the airfoil used and the engine installation. Rozendaal’s