Blériot VII

The Blériot VII was an early French aeroplane built by Louis Blériot in 1907 as the next step after the tandem wing Blériot VI. Its rear wing was about half the span of the forward wing, a step towards the layout later adopted for most aircraft, and its tail surfaces could move together as elevators or independently as ailerons, one of the first known examples of what later became called elevons. Its undercarriage was redesigned, each wheel on a sprung castering trailing arm sliding on a fixed bedstead frame, and Blériot used that arrangement on nearly all his later designs. It first flew on 16 November, made a U-turn in the air on 6 December, and was destroyed in a crash on 18 December. A 37 kilowatt (50 horsepower) Antoinette V-8 water-cooled piston engine powered it.