[HN Gopher] The VanDersarl Bleriot: a 1911 airplane homebuilt by...
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The VanDersarl Bleriot: a 1911 airplane homebuilt by teenage
brothers (2017)
Author : ForHackernews
Score : 35 points
Date : 2025-11-27 16:38 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historynet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historynet.com)
| xeonmc wrote:
| Reminded me of this book:
| https://archive.org/details/borednothingtodo0000spie
| nosianu wrote:
| And the magnificent movie "Those Magnificent Men in Their
| Flying Machines" (or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25
| Hours 11 Minutes)
|
| Released 1965
|
| > Set in 1910, the film follows a fictitious air race from
| London to Paris
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Magnificent_Men_in_Their...
|
| Trailer: https://youtu.be/LPlRxXmQ8xM
| gorgoiler wrote:
| The Shuttleworth Collection in England has some of the
| aircraft from that film in flying condition.
|
| They also have a working Bleriot XI -- the world's oldest
| flying aircraft:
|
| https://www.shuttleworth.org/discover/collection/aircraft/bl.
| ..
|
| If the weather is good they fly these for the public every
| summer. It is a wonderful show.
| all2 wrote:
| This was one of my favorite movies growing up. It made me
| want to get into aerospace stuff. This and star wars.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm trying to imagine what a bunch of teenagers could do today to
| get a similar sense of accomplishment. Note that they weren't
| even doing particularly well at _grade_ school.
| thechao wrote:
| My greatgrandmother (born in 1891) left grade school in 6th
| grade for similar reasons. The real reason she was taken out
| was "money". (This was rural Indiana about 1903.) She finished
| her own education through what you might call a master's
| program by studying her brothers' texts. It was an unwise
| person who assume her lack of _formal_ education meant anything
| about her intelligence or informal education.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I have a typing diploma and a driving license so I can
| relate, though I was born a little bit later.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Well it was far removed from today, but our high school had
| been built experimentally on runways in the nearby
| Everglades after the air base had been decommissioned
| following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
|
| The pavement was vast in all directions and educational
| buildings had been placed on or alongside it, all parking
| was on existing tarmac.
|
| Anyway, in Mechanical Engineering our senior project was a
| gyrocopter.
|
| It was pretty much like somebody had a broken one just
| sitting around doing nothing, a student brought it in like
| it was "show & tell" and the decision was made to launch.
| It didn't come in at the beginning of the year.
|
| I did graduate a bit early and never did get to see much of
| the progress.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's fascinating. If the high school my sons go to
| would decide on letting students build an aircraft with
| the intention of flying it I would be donating tools, but
| the rest of the parents here would have the school
| management in court.
|
| Are there any pictures of this project in your
| possession?
| consumer451 wrote:
| Here is one in flight, very recently.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYdpoOakAY
| ForHackernews wrote:
| "The lasting memory is not of flight in the modern sense of
| acceleration, power and performance. It is of how impossibly
| slow this aeroplane flies, and how absolutely improbable it is
| that such a machine can actually levitate above the ground."
|
| https://speedreaders.info/32045-the-vandersarl-bleriot-a-cen...
| jacquesm wrote:
| What an absolutely amazing sight. That turn at 2:30, it's
| incredible how small the turning radius is, it's going that
| slow. I could watch that plane soar all day. Thank you for
| posting this video.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Yes, the turning radius is quite something. It appears that
| the entire vertical stabilizer is a control surface.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Re. your other comment about the cardboard plane: Amazing.
| When I was 9 or so, my friends and me made an 'airplane' in
| the attic of the house where we lived. We flew it all over
| the world looking for treasure ;) It's a good thing we
| didn't see this video or for sure I wouldn't be writing
| this. That is absolutely amazing what that guy is doing
| there and to actually attempt to fly is bravery beyond the
| call of duty. I really hope he succeeds.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Ah cool! I though it might not fit here and did not want
| to appear to be spamming on this post, so I deleted the
| comment.
|
| Here is the video in question for anyone curious:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTEYcDU91
| jacquesm wrote:
| If that's not in the spirit of HN I don't know what would
| qualify. He's a little bit mad though :) I'm already
| antsy with a naked 7" spinning near me and he seems to
| have four 18" within touching distance.
| sema4hacker wrote:
| I'm surprised the rear end of the fuselage was an open skeleton
| instead of being covered like the wings and tail. Wouldn't that
| significantly interfere with the airflow?
| jacquesm wrote:
| It does, but this airplane is so light that it would also
| upset the balance, even a little weight that far back has a
| huge effect on where the center of mass is.
| msuniverse2026 wrote:
| It is so unfortunate that flying has such a credentialist mafia
| holding it back from more widespread use. Imagine if motorcycles
| had even half the regulations to ride as single seater aircraft
| do. Such a ridiculous state of affairs.
| tene80i wrote:
| You don't think there are any noteworthy differences between a
| motorcycle and an aircraft in the sort of damage it can do and
| where?
| msuniverse2026 wrote:
| A 200kg Kawasaki H2R can go close to 400kph on a two lane
| road. It is not going to cause any less damage than a single
| seater falling out of the sky somewhere randomly.
| nosianu wrote:
| (I'm a PP-ASEL, earned in and around SF Bay Area air spaces
| almost three decades ago)
|
| First, people are more likely to crash during takeoffs and
| landings, not in the middle of a flight. Second, it's also
| not just about the damage caused to others, and even if you
| crash in the middle of nowhere quite a few people will be
| busy dealing with it - in that case, remoteness is not a
| good thing but actually more costly. They won't just leave
| you and the airplane lying at the crash site until nature
| reclaims it all.
|
| Furthermore, it is not just the flying itself. If that is
| what you wanted, the crazy early times of flight would have
| been for you, when everybody could just do whatever they
| wanted, wherever they wanted. Much of the learning for the
| license is the rules and procedures. Air space if very
| busy! I have small class D airports where there is so much
| traffic sometimes that I can hardly get a word in to
| announce myself. This will have the potential for stress
| and errors long after you got used to the flying itself.
|
| I can't even begin the shortcuts someone's thinking has to
| take to think flying and driving should be treated the
| same.
| AngryData wrote:
| Depends on the aircraft, current ultralights that you don't
| need to drop $100,000 to get licensed for can only weigh 250
| lbs, while motorcycles don't really have a limit and can
| weight over 1,000 lbs, approaching the weight of a Cessna
| 152. And when you account for crash scenarios, yeah the rider
| is at risk in both, but the motorcycle is far more likely to
| be in and around other people and vehicles during a crash,
| while a plane is 99% of the time over clear land and even an
| emergency landing is unlikely to put other people at risk.
|
| It ain't a perfect comparison, both have problems, but it is
| far easier to get a license to drive a truck hauling 20+ tons
| than to get a license to fly a 500 pound plane, and
| motorcycle licenses is basically a signature and a couple
| bucks away.
| fransje26 wrote:
| Some people thought there weren't. They are not here to tell
| their tale anymore.
| leobg wrote:
| It was also two teenagers who, some 50 years earlier, came up
| with the idea of flying machines and the aerodynamics of wings in
| the first place:
|
| The brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal were watching the storks
| take flight in the meadows of Mecklenburg in the 1850s. And it
| made them think, "We could do that, too, if we only had wings
| like that".
|
| Of course, Otto died in a crash of one of his motorless flying
| machines in 1891, I believe. But the Wright brothers saw the
| eulogy in the paper... and the rest is history.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| George Cayley would beg to differ:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cayley
|
| (or Leonardo da Vinci, for that matter)
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(page generated 2025-11-27 23:00 UTC)