This is an attempt to fly the Louis Bleriot first English Channel crossing in a plane ever, with an historically accuracy effort in flight simulation; same plane, power, limitations, no icons or GPS map, no instruments, no radio, no wheel brakes, no ground steering control, same day and month (not year due to MSFS limitations), same hour and specially same bad visibility conditions and rain (except wind maybe), just to feel the same that Bleriot felt when making such a great flight with such a delicate plane, the Bleriot XI with the underpowered 25Hp Anzani engine.
Yes, there were other Bleriot XI in other previous simulators, but none had this great accuracy in details, flight model, and until now there were no simulator with such a great scenery and weather conditions availability altogether by default. This all is thanks to Wing42, the 3rd party developer that launched the payware Bleriot XI plane. You can buy it here: https://wing42.com/en/msfs-addons/29-bleriot-xi-for-msfs.html
I wrote down all my feelings, thoughts and decisions at the moment I had them, so this is my own crossing, maybe similar, maybe a bit different, than the one that Louis Bleriot made.
I selected the takeoff position by analysing the two only maps of the zone I could find, but its exact location may be different.
The wind would be different by sure, otherwise I would have made a similar crossing time of 36,5 minutes, but I did it in 58 minutes, so I had headwind for sure and Bleriot had probably tailwind.
The historical landing site that I visit at the end of the video is in this exact position: 51°07’52.1″N 1°19’33.7″E
I could not land there because now it’s a dense wood, but ended less than 200m away, with somewhat damage to the plane. Bleriot also damaged the plane but in a different way.
Well, I hope you enjoy this video. Now we all know how did he felt when crossing the English Channel in these conditions.
Microsoft/Xbox provided a copy of ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator’ to me for review. This is the version 1.10.11.0.
My website: www.airvideoworld.com
Pc specs: I9 9900K 64 GB RAM RTX 2080. Settings High at 4K, recorded and uploaded this video at 4K.
Main Control: Yoko “The Yoke” Plus
Throttle: Honeycomb Bravo Throttle
Rudder: Thrustmaster TPR
That was fun! So far, probably the most realistic channel-crossing experience, since you took the weather so serious. Amazing flight!
very cool!
i did this exact flight the other day, it was wild! i didnt adjust weather, so when the sea winds started gusting i lost all ability to track straight, side slipped nearly the whole way across till i hit the shore line and the winds calmed down a bit.
Congratulations for this great historical video.
How do you set Cockpit Camera View in order to TURN your view around on 360° ?
Currently i am only able to SLIDE SIDEWAYS left and right by arrow key 🤔
Thanks for reply .
Amazing!
Really enjoyable. Who knew that 60 kph airplane could be so exciting? 🙂