H.King Aeromarine Origins (Putnam)
Three days after the float-glider trials over the Seine, Gabriel Voisin and Louis Bleriot met by chance and Bleriot suggested going into partnership.
This was agreed; and so largely to Bleriot's ideas (and much to Gabriel's alarm) a powered aircraft was built, the essential features of which were two ellipsoidal wing cellules arranged in tandem. Gabriel relates a tale of doubt and woe, the last indignity being the necessity of giving up the floats, which he knew so well, and of replacing them 'with "skids" equipped with buoyancy bags'.
The initial test took place in 1906, on Lake Enghien. 'It was disastrous,' says Gabriel; so after further trials and errors, and by common consent, the idea of trials from water was given up.
L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
III: Undaunted, Bleriot had Voisin build a second machine, this one powered, with 2 large equal-size elliptical cells for wing and tail, the whole rig floating on 3 pairs of small pontoons. An Antoinette engine was installed sideways, driving 2 tractor propellers through flexible shafts. It was tested, unsuccessfully, in May 1906 at Lake Enghien, and Bleriot planned to replace the single Antoinette engine with 2.
(Wing area: 60 sqm; empty weight (with 2 engines): 430 kg; 24 hp Antoinette)
