Blériot XI The Blériot XI is the aircraft that was used by Louis Blériot on 25 July 1909 to make the first flight across the English Channel made in a heavier - than - air aircraft . This achievement is one of the most famous accomplishments of the " pioneer era " of aviation , and not only won Blériot a lasting place in history but also assured the future of his aircraft manufacturing business . The event caused a major reappraisal of the importance of aviation ; the English newspaper , " The Daily Express " , led its story of the flight with the headline , " Britain is no longer an Island " . It was produced in both single and two - seat versions , powered by a number of different engines and was widely used for competition and training purposes . Military versions were bought by many countries , continuing in service until after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 . Two restored examples — one each in the United Kingdom and the United States — of original Blériot XI aircraft are thought to be the two oldest flyable aircraft in the world . Design . The Blériot XI , largely designed by Raymond Saulnier , was a development of the Blériot VIII which Blériot had flown successfully in 1908 . Like its predecessor , it was a tractor configuration monoplane , with a partially covered box - girder fuselage built from ash with wire cross bracing . The principal differences were the use of wing - warping for lateral control . The tail surfaces consisted of a small balanced , " all - moving " vertical rudder with no fixed fin , at the very rear vertical member of the fuselage structure , and a single - level , horizontal tailplane surface with elevator surfaces comprising the outermost cell of the stabilizer ' s structure on each end , pivoting together with a torque tube running through the fixed inner sections linking the " tip elevators " , mounted under the lower longerons of the fuselage . Like its predecessor , the engine was mounted directly in front of the leading edge of the wing and the bracing and warping wires were attached to a cabane structure made of steel tubing above the fuselage , with its five members oriented like the edges of a simple single - gable d house roof in shape , and an inverted four - sided pyramid , also of steel tubing , below it . When first built , it had a wingspan of and a small teardrop - shaped fin was mounted on the cabane , but this was later removed . The main undercarriage was also like that of the Type VIII , the wheels being mounted in castering trailing arms which could slide up and down steel tubes , the movement being sprung by bungee cords . This simple and ingenuous design allowed crosswind landing s with less risk of damage . A sprung tailwheel was fitted to the rear fuselage in front of the tailplane . When shown at the Paris Aero Salon in December 1908 , the aircraft was powered by a 7 - cylinder R . E . P . engine driving a four - bladed paddle type propeller . The aircraft was first flown at Issy - les - Moulineaux on 23 January 1909 but although the aircraft handled well the engine proved extremely unreliable and , at the suggestion of his mechanic Ferdinand Collin , Blériot made contact with Alessandro Anzani , a famous motorcycle racer whose successes were due to the engines which he made , and who had recently entered the field of aero - engine manufacture . On 27 May 1909 , a Anzani 3 - cylinder fan ( or semi - radial ) configuration engine , was fitted . The propeller was also replaced with a Chauvière " Intégrale " two - bladed propeller made from laminated walnut wood . This propeller design was a major advance in French aircraft technology , and was the first European propeller to rival the efficiency of the propellers used by the Wright Brothers . During early July , Blériot was occupied with flight trials of a new aircraft , the two - seater Type XII , but resumed flying the Type XI on 18 July . By then , the small cabane fin had been removed and the wingspan increased by . On 26 June , he managed a flight lasting 36 m , 55 seconds , and on 13 July , Blériot won the Aero Club de France ' s first " Prix du Voyage " with a flight between Etampes and Orléans . The Channel crossing . See Louis Blériot : Channel crossing The Blériot XI gained lasting fame on 25 July 1909 when Blériot crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover , winning a £1 , 000 prize awarded by the " Daily Mail " . For several days , high winds had grounded Blériot and his rivals : Hubert Latham , who flew an Antoinette monoplane , and Count de Lambert , who brought two Wright biplanes . On 25 July , when the wind had dropped in the morning and the skies had cleared , Blériot took off at sunrise . Flying without the aid of a compass , he deviated to the east of his intended course , but , nonetheless , spotted the English coast to his left . Battling turbulent wind conditions , Blériot made a heavy " pancake " landing , damaging the undercarriage and shattering one blade of the propeller , but he was unhurt . The flight had taken 36 . 5 minutes and had made Blériot a celebrity , instantly resulting in many orders for copies of his aircraft . The aircraft , which never flew again , was hurriedly repaired and put on display at Selfridges department store in London . It was later displayed outside the offices of the French newspaper " Le Matin " , and eventually bought by the " Musee des Arts et Metiers " in Paris . Operational history . After the successful crossing of the English Channel , there was a great demand for Blériot XIs . By the end of September 1909 , orders had been received for 103 aircraft . After an accident at an aviation meeting in Istanbul in December 1909 , Blériot gave up competition flying , and the company ' s entries for competitions were flown by other pilots , including Alfred Leblanc , who had managed the logistics of the cross - channel flight , and subsequently bought the first production Type XI , going on to become one of the chief instructors at the flying schools established by Blériot . In February 1912 the future of the Type XI was threatened by the French army placing a ban on the use of all monoplanes . This was the result of a series of accidents in which Blériot aircraft had suffered wing failure in flight . The first of these incidents had occurred on 4 January 1910 , killing Léon Delagrange , and was generally attributed to the fact that Delagrange had fitted an over - powerful engine , so overstressing the airframe . A similar accident had killed Jorge Chavez at the end of 1910 , and in response to this the wing spars of the Blériot had been strengthened . A subsequent accident led to a further strengthening of the spars . Blériot , understandably , took this matter very seriously , and produced a report for the French government which came to the conclusion that the problem was not the strength of the wing spars but a failure to take into account the amount of downward force to which aircraft wings could be subject to , and that the problem could be solved by increasing the strength of the upper bracing wires . This analysis was accepted , and Blériot ' s prompt and thorough response to the problem enhanced rather than damaged his reputation . Further development . The Type XI remained in production until the outbreak of the First World War , and a number of variations were produced . Various types of engine were fitted , including the Y - configuration Anzani and the and Gnome rotary engines . Both single and two - seat versions were built , and there were variations in wingspan and fuselage length . In later aircraft the tip elevators were replaced by a more conventional trailing edge elevator , the tailwheel was replaced by a skid , and the former " house - roof " five - member dorsal cabane being replaced by a simpler , four - sided pyramidally framed unit similar to the ventral arrangement for the later rotary - powered versions . Blériot marketed the aircraft in four categories : trainers , sport or touring models , military aircraft , and racing or exhibition aircraft . Civil use . The Type XI took part in many competitions and races . In August 1910 Leblanc won the " Circuit de l ' Est " race , and another Blériot flown by Emile Aubrun was the only other aircraft to finish the course . In October 1910 , Claude Grahame - White won the second competition for the Gordon Bennett Trophy narrowly beating a Type XI fitted with a Gnome flown by Leblanc . In 1911 , Andre Beaumont won the Circuit of Europe in a Type XI and another , flown by Roland Garros , came second . Louis Blériot established his first flying school at Etampes near Rouen in 1909 . Another was started at Pau , where the climate made year - round flying more practical , in early 1910 and in September 1910 a third was established at Hendon Aerodrome near London . A considerable number of pilots were trained : by 1914 nearly 1 , 000 pilots had gained their " Aero Club de France " license at the Blériot schools , around half the total number of licences issued . Flight training was offered free to those who had bought a Blériot aircraft : for others it initially cost 2 , 000 francs , this being reduced to 800 francs in 1912 . A gifted pupil favoured by good weather could gain his license in as little as eight days , although for some it took as long as six weeks . There were no dual control aircraft in these early days , training simply consisting of basic instruction on the use of the controls followed by solo taxying exercises , progressing to short straight - line flights and then to circuits . To gain a license a pilot had to make three circular flights of more than 5 km ( 3 mi ) , landing within of a designated point . Military use . The first Blériot XIs entered military service in Italy and France in 1910 , and a year later , some of those were used in action by Italy in North Africa ( the first use of aircraft in a war ) and in Mexico . The Royal Flying Corps received its first Blériots in 1912 . During the early stages of the First World War , eight French , six British and six Italian squadrons operated various military versions of the aircraft , mainly in observation duties but also as trainers , and in the case of single - seaters , as light bombers with a bomb load of up to 25 kg . Survivors . In addition to the aircraft used by Louis Blériot to make his cross - channel flight in 1909 , on display in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris , a number of examples have been preserved .