Pou-du-Ciel

These pictures depict the specimen as displayed at Malta's Aviation Museum, April 2003.

I have found a number of pages mentioning this particular individual EN199 (mainly Spitfire survivor listings): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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The following text is from the museum's homepage:

"When Bleriot made the first epic flight across the English Channel in 1909 few realised the tremendous significance of that feat. Twenty six years later, another French pioneer, Henri Mignet, crossed the Channel in his Pou du Ciel (Flying Flea) to spread his gospel of ultra-light planes amongst the air-minded Englishmen.

The Flying Flea was a low powered home-made aeroplane and was an entirely new type, breaking away from established practice in many ways. The cost being especially low. The machine is a kind of tandem biplane, the rear wing’s leading edge being just under the trailing edge of the front wing. The front wing is movable as a whole, its leading edge a pivot, and its upward and downward deflections constituting the elevator for the longitudinal control of the machine. It is simplicity itself, for the pilot has only one control, and that by hand. The movements of the control stick right and left turn the machine, and its forward and back movements head it upwards and downwards.

Our specimen has been built from scratch at the museum's workshop by the Malta historic Aircraft Preservation Group. This is an exact replica of the original built by Henry Mignet in the 1930s, but powered by a modern Citroen 2CV engine. It has been successfully taxied, but not flown."


 
 
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