Vintage Wings - Demoiselle 1908

*** Vintage Wings ***

Tellier Monoplane - 1910

Since before the beginning of the 20th century the Chantiers Tellier firm, located in Paris, was well known for building fast motorboats. Alphonse Tellier, son of the founder of the company, soon became more and more interested in flying machines, and by 1908 began designing propellers and testing lifting surfaces.
In 1909, after the Reims meeting, he was asked by Emil Dubonnet to design and build him an aeroplane. The result resembled a much-elongated Bleriot XI, with tapered wings braced from a single tall inverted V tower extending above and below the fuselage, and fitting a 4 inline-cylinders engine.
Testing took some time: at first, Dubonnet, who did not know how to fly, learned to taxi with a provisional 20 hp motor, since the planned 35 hp Panhard-Levassor was not ready. Finally, with the larger engine, Dubonnet flew it on 8 March 1910 and was breveted on it on 17 April. While still unlicensed, on 3 April, he won a prize from the magazine La Nature for a 100 km flight taking nearly 2 hours (from Draveil to La Ferte sous Jouare), during which flight he landed near Orleans to ask his way.
20 days later he took off from his private field at Draveil and landed at Bagatelle, having achieved the first flight over Paris (at an altitude of 30 to 100 m).
The aircraft was destroyed in a landing accident on 28 May.

*** All aircraft can be seen inworld in my shop ***