General Information

Serial #

N/A

Part Number

1

Total Parts

2

AKA

N/A

Patents

N/A

General Description

PREDOM. WOOD FRAME; METAL; FABRIC COVERING

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

710.0 cm

Width

900.0 cm

Height

255.0 cm

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Aviation

Category

Aircraft

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Borel Morane

Country

France

State/Province

Unknown

City

Unknown

Context

Country

United States of America

State/Province

Unknown

Period

1911-14

Canada

The Museum’s Borel-Morane was imported into the United States in 1912 and it is the oldest known surviving aircraft to have flown in Canada. Georges Mestach, an early Belgian exhibition pilot, was one of a handful of Europeans to fly in North America at that time and in 1911 was the first aviator to have flown at the capital of the Quebec province. He and his manager/mechanic, Ernest Mathis, unloaded the Borel-Morane in New Orleans from the ship that carried it across the Atlantic. Soon after, they began exhibition flying throughout the continent with stops that included Winnipeg, Quebec and Sherbrooke. However, the Borel-Morane proved no match for Winnipeg’s stiff prairie wind and Mestach badly damaged the aircraft in a crash against a fence. The machine’s checkered career also included a crash at an air meet near Chicago that resulted in North America’s first midair collision fatality. The damaged aircraft was then sold in 1913 because of import duty irregularities. Mestach continued to fly for the new owner until the aircraft was purchased in 1914 by Earl S. Daugherty of Long Beach, California, an early American exhibition pilot. Although Daugherty suffered a fatal aerial accident in 1928, the aircraft remained in his family’s possession until purchased by the Museum in 2002.

Function

Unknown

Technical

In 1909, Louis Blériot gained world-wide fame for crossing the English Channel in his Blériot XI monoplane. Raymond Saulnier, who had worked with Blériot, soon left him to design and build an aeroplane of his own. Saulnier, with his childhood friend Leon Morane and Gilbert Borel, formed the Société anonyme des aéroplanes Morane-Borel-Saulnier in 1911 and developed the little monoplane known as the Borel-Morane. This single-seat aircraft has a simple V-leg landing gear with a small skid beside each wheel, a tall double tail skid, elliptical wingtips and a high rectangular rudder. The tailplane is fitted with tip elevators and the aft fuselage was sometimes left uncovered. The wing is braced with wires attached to a pyramidal pylon and the aircraft was usually powered by a cowled Anzani or Gnome engine of about 50 hp. The number of ribs in the Borel-Morane wings varied with the aircraft version.

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

none

Missing

no engine

Finish

red fuselage & vertical stabilizer; tan-yellow wings & horizontal stabilizers; canopy & side engine access panels painted green; frame is dark brown wood grain; black landing gear & wheels; red steering wheel

Decoration

none