G-AANG

G-AANG is a 1909 Blériot XI, a near twin of the machine Louis Blériot flew across the Channel that July. It still carries its original three-cylinder 25hp Anzani engine. By 1910 it was in use at the Blériot Flying School at Hendon.

A heavy crash ended its school days, and the wreck went to a scrap merchant in London. In late 1912 Albert Grimmer, who ran the Flit Cycle Company in Ampthill, bought the remains and took them home. He repaired the airframe, re-covered it and overhauled the engine. With no flying lessons, he taught himself on short hops, starting on Easter Monday 1913. He later used the polo ground at Bedford.

The Blériot was laid up during the First World War. Grimmer later passed it, with his Deperdussin, to Richard Shuttleworth; one account says the price was clearing a stock of empty oil cans from Grimmer's garage. Shuttleworth acquired it in 1935 and rebuilt it as his first historic aeroplane. Letters between the two men about both machines survive from 1935 to 1956.

It flew unregistered at Old Warden for decades before taking the civil registration G-AANG. The Collection's workshops overhauled and re-covered it over the winter of 2008-09. It is now restricted to straight hops along the grass in calm weather.

Kept in the Shuttleworth hangars at Old Warden, where it can be seen between flying days. It flies only short straight hops, on calm evenings at Collection airshows.