A £70 plane to beat the traffic? What could go wrong? - Toby Neal looks back on the fatally flawed 'people's plane'
Jams on the M6, road works on the M54, diversions in town... Imagine being able to fly over it all in your own home-built plane and avoid all the hassle.
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The "people's plane" which had a fatal flaw.
Today the idea might not have everyone brimming with enthusiasm, but back in the 1930s there was an aura of excitement and optimism surrounding aviation developments.
And in this atmosphere along came the Flying Flea. It was the brainchild of Frenchman Henri Mignet. Costing about £70 to build, which was a lot cheaper than buying a car at the time, it was a little single seater plane which did 50 miles to the gallon and had a cruising speed of 75mph.
Mignet wrote a self-build book about his invention which caught the public imagination. And to bring his gospel to Britain he flew over the English Channel in a Flying Flea - in French, the "Pou du Ciel" - in August 1935, the journey from Calais to Lympne airfield in Kent taking 52 minutes.
Mignet was a pioneer with his simple "people's plane" which could be built by amateurs and in theory, at least, making aviation accessible to all. If you could nail a packing case together, he said, you could build a Flying Flea.
It had two wings mounted one slightly behind the other on a light fuselage. It had no ailerons, and was instead turned by the rudder. Forwards and backwards movements of the joystick pivoted the entire front wing.
