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Designed by Louis Blériot and Raymond Saulnier, the Blériot XI monoplane was developed from the earlier Blériot VIII monoplane design. On July 25, 1909, Blériot flew the aircraft over the English Channel from Calais, France, to Dover, England. This was the first successful crossing of the Channel in an airplane. The feat made Blériot a worldwide celebrity and earned him the £1,000 prize established by the British newspaper the Daily Mail a year earlier. The design was highly successful, produced in numerous variants, and flown widely by early aviators, including Harriett Quimby and John and Matilde Moisant. In 1911, Earle Lewis Ovington carried the first U.S. airmail in a Blériot XI. See "Aviation Evolutions: The Jim Lund 1:72 Scale Model Airplane Collection", which features more than 200 models, on display, pre-security, in the Aviation Museum. http://bit.ly/AviationEvolutions This image was posted on March 30, 2018.

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