Blériot V

The Blériot V was an early French aircraft built by Louis Blériot in 1907 and was his first monoplane. It was a canard pusher with a braced wooden box-girder fuselage covered with varnished silk, wooden cantilever wings that could be folded upwards for transport, and a 24 horsepower (18 kilowatt) Antoinette water-cooled V-8 engine at the rear. After several taxiing trials it left the ground on 5 April 1907 for a flight of only about 6 metres, the first time one of his aircraft had flown. On 19 April, travelling at around 50 kilometres per hour, it left the ground again but nosed over and was largely destroyed, though Blériot was unhurt. It was the first of his experimental aircraft to achieve any measure of success.