Bleriot

   Louis Bleriot made his fortune in carbonic-gas lamps for automobiles, but he soon became fascinated with the problems of flight. Captain Ferdinand Ferber, of Chalais-Meudon, persuaded Gabriel Voisin to visit Bleriot in his workshop where he was experimenting with his first ornithopter, and the 2 began a brief and provocative collaboration. Bleriot's first efforts were imitations of the work of others, notably the Wrights and Langley, but only when he began working with his own designs and those of Raymond Saulnier did his work take wing.

   I: In 1900 Bleriot built a 1.5-meter span model of his ornithopter design, powered by a carbonic acid motor, and started the fullscale machine the following year. The design called for a single pair of flapping wings each braced with a single long kingpost, centered on what looked like a tall tank for the gas below and the engine mounted above. He built 3 motors in succession and each one exploded. He gave up the project, though the model had seemed promising.