Bleriot X1 replica flies - Geoff Jones reports
CHAD AND Betty Wille are passionate about old aeroplanes – for “old” read: “really old”. Farmers in the Mid-West
USA, about eight miles south of Corning, Iowa, their main focus for many years has been a beautiful 1929, OX5-powered Waco 10 that is hangared among other rare and valuable antique aeroplanes at the grass airfield of Brodhead, near Madison, Wisconsin.
In 2002, with the centenary of Louis Bleriot’s historic 1909 crossing of the English Channel looming, Betty Wille suggested to her husband that it would be great to be able to celebrate the July 25th event by flying a replica Blériot XI. With the suggestion made, the next problem was obtaining a Blériot – in the 21st century the only sure fire way of doing this is to build your own replica.
And this is what Chad and Betty Wille did. Using modern materials, but to original drawings and specifications, the homebuilt to end all homebuilts slowly took shape. Fortune shone on them because they were able to source and restore an original Anzani, threecylinder, air cooled, semi-radial fan engine. It is rated at 22/25 hp and is fitted with a handcarved two-metre diameter propeller.
With construction completed in Iowa, Chad Wille transported by road the components of the replica Blériot XI to Brodhead for final assembly during August 2011. Chad is also lucky enough to have accumulated time in another Blériot, serial number #56 which flies regularly from Old Rhinebeck, New York. For a few years he was chief pilot at Old Rheinbeck so was able to fly its Blériot and many other antique and contemporary aircraft. Taxi tests resulted in a short “hop” on September 1, but after a few tweeks to the airframe and controls, Chad made the official first flight on September 9.
Chad told me recently: “My Blériot flies extremely well. It is stable in calm air and quite solid in turns with no adverse yaw or tendency to over-bank. I also found this with the example I flew at Old Rhinebeck”. Cruise speed of a Blériot is remarkably slow at about 32 mph, established at Brodhead with a car running alongside. And although the elevators are sensitive, they are extremely effective, the rudder feels normal, the wing warping is responsive, but care is needed in turbulence as the aircraft has a tendency to run out of lateral control. However, the Blériot responds quite well to rudder input for roll control, just like a model aeroplane, probably due to the large 80 dihedral of the wings.
Chad prefers to fly the Blériot in still, cold and calm conditions, but when he has flown it in gusty and turbulent weather, has found the work-load increasing considerably, even though the aircraft remains fully controllable. The Willes did not make the 2009 centenary for their first flight – but the end result is nevertheless a marvellous tribute to their workmanship.
Speed is never at the forefront of building and flying any aircraft from the beginning of the twentieth century. Their replica aircraft is also a fine tribute to the design skills of Louis Blériot and the astute engineering that combined the aircraft design with the relatively efficient Anzani engine.
