The VanDersarl Blériot: a 1911 airplane homebuilt by teenage brothers
7 comments
·November 27, 2025consumer451
jacquesm
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.
ForHackernews
"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
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
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.
xeonmc
Reminded me of this book: https://archive.org/details/borednothingtodo0000spie
nosianu
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
Here is one in flight, very recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYdpoOakAY