1872-1936

French Aviator

French aviation pioneer Louis Bléirot was the first person to fly a plane over the ocean in a heavier-than-air craft, a feat of great daring for the early 1900s.

Bléirot was born July 1, 1872, in Cambrai, France. While he amassed a great fortune at an early age by inventing automobile headlights, Bléirot's lifelong devotion was focused on aviation. His earliest flight experiments involved towed gliders on the Seine River. While in his thirties, Bléirot used the newly available lightweight engines to design his own aircraft. He taught himself to fly while continuing to improve his initial design by trial and error. His series of airplane configurations ranged from box-kite biplanes to a tail-first monoplane. In 1907, at the age of 35, he made his first flight at Bagatelle, France.

But it was Bléirot's incredibly dangerous 40-minute flight...