Evening All,
After a bit of a struggle and numerous mistakes, many of my own making, I have managed to complete the two Bleriot XXIII models to represent the aircraft flown by A. Le Blanc and G. Hamel in the Gordon Bennett Air Race held on 1 July 1911 at the Royal Aeronautical Society's flying field at Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppy, Kent. Both models are scratch built form plastic card, rod and strip and wood, and are rigged with 40 SWG rolled copper wire. The spoked wheels are Everard photoetch.
There were only two Bleriot XXIII's built and they were specifically designed for racing. There are no drawings available and a limited number of photographs so I had to construct my interpretation of these aircraft from the sources available. The XXIII seems to have been a variation on the XXI for which I had a poor quality line drawing.
The Bleriots were powered by 100 hp Gnome Omega Omega rotary engines which were two 50 hp Omega engines bolted together. Originally the wings were of a greater span than shown on the models: prior to the race they had been cut down against the advice of Bleriot, and this seems to have made the aircraft difficult to fly because Hamel crashed after hitting the ground when turning around a pylon. Fortunately his was not hurt, but Le Blanc seems to have flown more slowly and therefore did not win the race. Earlier in May 1911 he had set a speed record in his Bleriot XXIII, but that was with the full wing span.
The published dimensions of the wingspan for these aircraft was too short so I had to work out that the quoted figure was for a wing from the fuselage to the tip: when I made the parts to these dimensions they better matched the evidence from the photographs. The rigging is also part guesswork as the photographs do not show clearly enough how it was arranged, so I have based it on the XXI and what seems reasonable from other types.
Most of the photographs are of the model which represents Le Blanc's machine, (no 5). Hamel's machine varied very slightly in small details from Le Blanc but these are difficult to see unless one looks very closely.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.