Career
After experimenting with a flapping-wing design from 1900 to 1903, he built a glider and several experimental airplanes, each better than the preceding one. BlériotBleriot held the first aviator's certificate issued by the International Aeronautic Federation. He concentrated upon monoplanes after 1906, and piloted his BlériotBleriot XI monoplane, powered by a three-cylinder Anzani engine, across the English Channel from Calais to Dover on July 25, 1909, winning the £1,000p1,000 Daily Mail prize offered by Lord Northcliffe for this flight. His monoplanes were among the most advanced available. The swivel-wheel crosswind landing gear was standard equipment on Blériot airplanes until about 1912. During World War I his plant built ten thousand airplanes for the French Army, including the famous Spad fighter. Blériot produced many military and civil airplanes and seaplanes up to 1935, when his manufacturing business was closed.