Bleriot XI
Remembering Edith…
In homage to aviator Edith Cook from Ipswich, Telford Thomson stepped up to the plate and offered to build a replica Bleriot – helped along the way by numerous generous people…
I
blame it all on Edith. Who? You know, Edith Maud Cook, the first British woman to fly an aircraft (January 1910). It was a Bleriot XI, very similar to the one in which Louis Bleriot crossed the Channel in 1909, other than the shape of the rudder. Edith was born in Ipswich on the 1 September 1878 and was unfortunately killed only months after her Bleriot flights, following a parachute accident on the 14 July 1910. I am a member of the Suffolk Aviation Heritage Museum near Ipswich and having had a long time interest in Edith, we had previously arranged for a Blue Plaque to be placed on the house in Ipswich where she was born, and to have a headstone erected on her previously unmarked grave. So, one day, members were talking about how nice it would be if we could arrange to have an Edith Cook Memorial Hall at the museum, perhaps even a replica Bleriot XI. Research soon showed that the cost to have one built was far beyond our means, in the region of
Above Edith Cook First British woman to fly an aircraft.
£12,000. This is when I said that I would build one. In retrospect, this was perhaps somewhat rash as, at that time, I had no plans or technical drawings of a Bleriot, no experience in building one, no materials, nowhere to build it and no budget! What could possibly go wrong…?! I decided straight away that if I was going to the trouble of building the Bleriot, I may as well find a set of plans for a flyable aircraft and build it as if it were going to fly, even though it would be for static display only. Unfortunately, my flying days are behind me with 1,000-plus hours mostly on Tiger Moths, Austers and Luton Minors. That was in the ‘good old days’ when you did not need a radio to fly into airfields like Stansted or Brussels International, petrol was two shillings (10p) a gallon, and few airfields charged landing fees.
The search for materials and sponsors
Finding the plans turned out to be far more difficult than I had anticipated. They were available, but we would have
42 | LIGHT AVIATION | February 2020
LAA02.bleriot.V2.LB.indd 64
24/01/2020 16:48
