Ebook: Blériot - Herald of an Age

Louis Blériot was the first person to fly across the English Channel in an aeroplane. That is all that is generally remembered about him today. It is well remembered though, and as well as in England as in France.

His flight had such an impact on Britain – the country was no longer an island state. Communications with the Continent became speedier and, unlike many of the major advances in communication, the feat was not performed by a British citizen with a British product.

However, Blériot's life was not just about this one event that made him a household name the world over. He was a professional engineer who had developed a means of employing acetylene to power car headlamps better than any previous method, thereby making cars more useful and at a time when the boom in car ownership had only just started.

The profit from that invention gave Blériot the money to finance his love of mechanical flight and, after experimenting with his own designs, he developed an aeroplane good enough to fly the Channel. Within months he was the largest aeroplane manufacturer in the world and his Type XI became for aviation what the Model T Ford was for motoring. He continued to be a manufacturer of aeroplanes until his death in 1936.

The story of his life is one of triumph and much adversity, of implacable determination, high courage and bold vision. It is the story of a man for whom success was never a sure protection against disaster, for whom, despite fame and fortune, life in pursuit of his chosen star was a struggle without remission.