FIRST FLIGHT 
The Musée des Arts et Métiers has had the bright idea of celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Louis Blériot’s historic cross-Channel flight by building a flight simulator inside a replica of his plane (the real one, basically a wooden crate with wings, is on permanent display in the museum). It re-creates the conditions of that flight, right down to the weather and the crash landing on English soil. Kids used to sophisticated video games may find it a bit tame, but they should be impressed by the terrifying primitiveness of the equipment (Blériot could not accelerate or slow down the plane, for example; to land, he had to cut the motor and glide). The accompanying exhibition offers some context for the flight. Photo © J.C. Wetzel-Cnam
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