How difficult was it to fly the very early aeroplanes of 1909/1910?

The OP asked ‘HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO FLY THE VERY EARLY AEROPLANES OF 1909/1910?‘.

The 25 hp engine was fitted to some of the early Blériot XI, thus it is authenticl for the period 1909/10. ISTR that the first aircraft to cross the channel had one. 

“It is almost unflyable”, he says. “Never mind crossing the Channel — I wouldn’t cross the River Trent in it!

Remember he is talking about a their Bleriot with a 25 HP Anzani engine , Mikael Carlson flies it with a 50Hp Gnome

Here’s a quote from Rob Millinship (the 2nd highest time Bleriot pilot at the Shuttleworth Collection )

“It is almost unflyable”, he says. “Never mind crossing the Channel — I wouldn’t cross the River Trent in it!

[ quote ]This is the Mikael Carlson article I mentioned – https://vintageaviationecho.com/mikael-carlson-bleriot/[ /quote ]

Article Title says it all : “Unlearn what you know about conventional flight“

This is the Mikael Carlson article I mentioned – https://vintageaviationecho.com/mikael-carlson-bleriot/

“The Blériot will be the worst aircraft you will ever fly. You could fly it for 30 years and most of the flights will not be fun. But after the flight you have the huge satisfaction of knowing you’ve flown an authentic first generation aeroplane that is a pioneering design dating back over 110 years.”

Thanks Oracle for pointing out those books.

I liked the “Aeroplane” 1914 by Claude Graham-White a lot
 

A small excerpt :

It is amusing, nowadays, to look back, say, to the year 1908, and recall some of the statements that were made about learning to fly. It was, for instance, when the Wrights began to train pupils, declared impossible to teach an ordinary man to balance himself in the air. [Pg 227] The Wrights could do it—yes; but they, contended the critics, were altogether abnormal men. It was argued, indeed, quite seriously, that the brothers had some phenomenal gift—that they could move far more quickly than ordinary men; that they were, in a word, two aerial acrobats. But, when put to a practical test, such arguments were proved idle. The first pupils who went to the Wrights did learn to fly. They learned easily, and without accident; and after this, growing in numbers with rapidity, the world’s airmen were numbered in fifties and hundreds, and then in thousands.

I have a write-up of an interview with Mikael Carlson waiting for publication on The Vintage Aviation Echo. It’ll likely be a couple of weeks before it’s “live” as there is another article ahead of it in the queue, but it’s 4,000 words on flying the Thulin A / Blériot XI from a man who has flown the aeroplane for nearly 30 years and has crossed the Channel in one (twice). I’ll post a link here when it’s published as I’m sure it’ll be of interest to the OP.

When I read a chap named Neil Williams say that the early aircraft he flew were ‘difficult’ I tend to listen. 
 

Why take Neil or my word for it, read what the early pioneers had to say;

• Claude Grahame-White, The Story of the Aeroplane (1910) 
• Claude Grahame-White, The Aeroplane (1914) includes accounts of Farman biplanes, Voison biplanes, and Antoinette monoplanes ISTR.

Both the Grahame-White books can be found free on-line as digital editions.

Or, if you are willing to put your hand in your pocket and pay £££, then get a copy of;

• F Warren Merriam, First Through the Clouds.

Exactly.
Look at how someone will look at our cars in 50 years time. He will find it a death trap with something possible terrible going to happen every second.
They learned to fly those planes by them selves with only some ground instructions!
Real difficult planes to fly where the century series jet fighters, killing experienced pilots by the dozen.
Good example are a jetski. Most accidents happens because the driver closes the thottle when a collision is imminent. Wrong !  no power no steering. No steering you collide

I think the point was more, if your brought up flying machines that exhibit bad habits then you have the advantage as will have the muscle memory to respond to these problems in a more natural way. Those brought up on modern aircraft whose traits tend to be much calmer have to think harder about how to correct issues in a problem. 

OK, so you haven’t flown them? 
 

You really think that a ‘lack of power’ and a slow response to ‘throttle’ made them easy to fly? 
 

Torque due to the radial engine wasn’t an issue? Unreliable engines not an issue? Adverse yaw, poor or non-existent stability not an issue? The list of things that could kill or seriously injure the pilot and passengers of early aircraft is very long. 

I am a maintenance engineer at the “Early Birds” foundation in the Netherlands for the last 30 years.

http://www.vroegevogels.org/

Pim205GTI – I wonder if you could tell the forum WHY, in your opinion, early aeroplanes were not difficult to fly? Do you speak from experience of having flown them?

In my opinion the early planes were not difficult to fly….. if you were a pilot at that time.
The problem with flying them today are the pilots which have many hours on planes which have:

– enough power

– quick throttle response

– benign stall characteristics

– good en proportional steering characteristics

– full wheel brakes can be applied any time

Put such a pilot in a sudden difficult flying situation and he will probably automatically make the wrong decisions

Perhaps one could add to the mix that there was no proper flight instruction so the early constructors and pilots were having to teach themselves to fly at the same time as being the test pilot.

Early constructors/designers also used different methods/designs of flight controls,Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Pelterie (R.E.P) was an early user of ailerons for roll control and he patented the first 3 axis control column circa 1908 which fairly quickly became the standard control system.

Thank you for those responses.

I heard that the fly/no fly test was to light a match and hold it up into the air.
If the wind was sufficient to blow the match out you went to the pub instead.

Not too many seatbelts to prevent leaving the scene of an abrupt stop either!

For an example of this, see http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=6773.0. There weren’t too many parachutes either!

While they may have flown slower than modern aircraft, the crashworthiness thought bubble was still years away. Not too many seatbelts to prevent leaving the scene of an abrupt stop either! 

If you search on You tube there are a number of talks by Shuttleworth pilots each on one particular aircraft. I have seen one on the Bleriot.  I have (somewhere) a book on ‘Flying the Aircraft of the Shuttleworth Collection.’ It was published some years ago.

mmitch.