Blanc, Henri

   Henri Blanc was a lawyer; Emile Barlatier was a balloonist and chairman of the Automobile Club de France in Marseille. Early in the century they built and studied kites, and then constructed 2 large powered model kites, one with a 1.25 hp Herdtle-Bruneau engine, the other with a 2.25 hp Buchet, each kite with 2 tractor propellers. In 1906 they began work on a full-scale single-seater monoplane with batlike wings and a large forward elevator surface; it was not successful. Like the kites, it had a centrally-mounted engine driving 2 tractor propellers.

   (Span: 14 m; wing area: 60 sqm; 3-cylinder 14 hp Buchet)
  
   Barlatier went off to Canada to become famous as a balloonist, and Henri Blanc worked on with his brother. In 1910 the Blancs developed a new aviation site, the Aerodrome de la Crau, at Miramas, now the location of the test base of the Armee de l'Air at Istres, and they tested a new light monoplane. In 1913 Henri Blanc invented an automatic stabilizer and then disappeared from the aviation chronicles.

   Barlatier et Blanc: Their first monoplane was tested at the end of March 1908 at the military camp of Le Rouet, near Marseille, fitted with a 30 hp 7-cylinder REP. The fuselage consisted of 2 parallel wooden box spars with the pilot between them, and a large tailplane at the rear, supporting 4 triangular fins and rudder. Automatic stability was to come through the action of a moving tailplane set ahead of the rearmost one. The REP motor drove a 2-bladed tractor aluminum propeller coupled to a cooling fan, which might also have served as flywheel.

   (Span: 14 m; length: 9.5 m; wing area: 45 sqm; empty weight: 240 kg)