Frank and Jules VanDersarl were unusual, they were teenagers who decided they were going to build an airplane, and they built their Blériot from plans.
It’s possible that they used the plans published in the 1909-1911 issues of Aeronautics magazine.
The brothers also designed and built the engine. “It’s a classic case of, ‘We didn’t know it was impossible, so that’s why we did it.’ And then they taught themselves to fly.” Jules made the first flight on June 10, 1911.
Jules VanDersarl eventually left aviation, but Frank remained involved until the Great Depression, and eventually became a machinist in Denver.
Their Blériot languished in storage until the 1960s, when Frank and another brother, John, began a restoration that was never finished. The airplane made its way to an Italian owner, and Javier Arango acquired the aircraft in 2008.
Arango originally wanted to restore the airplane to resemble a factory-built Blériot. But the VanDersarl design had several modifications the brothers made in their home-brewed version. There’s an improvised version of the Blériot cloche—the mechanism for the stick’s control of wing-warping and elevator; they had to arch the wooden beam at the very front of the airplane to accommodate their home-built engine. “I convinced him not to [change the airplane],” says Jakab. “There’s a number of original factory built Blériots out there.” Arango later told Jakab he was very glad he’d kept it as it had been built.
The airframe is the original structure the VanDersarls built, though the wings eventually deteriorated and were replaced. “The engine disappeared at some point,” Jakab says. The current engine is a copy that Arango’s longtime friend, mechanic, and fellow pilot Chuck Wentworth built from a few sketchy notes and photographs and data.
Arango first flew the Blériot on November 3, 2011. In a book he wrote about it, he commented, “A Blériot does not take off. It levitates.”
https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/javier-arango-extraordinary-gifts-180970368
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