Circuit De L’Est Race v1.0
The Circuit De L’Est was a race that took place in August of 1910, starting and ending in Paris. It was less of a case of the first finisher to get the reward, but ANY finisher would get the reward. With a distance of 805 km (500 miles), this race was designed to test the endurance of the aircraft of the day. 35 pilots signed up, 10 showed up, 8 managed to take off for the first leg, and only 2 finished the entire three-day race at all – more than the 0 the organizers had been expecting. The winning aircraft was a Gnome-powered Bleriot XI flown by Alfred Leblanc, having flown a total of 12 hours, 1 minute broken up over the 3 day event.
Now it’s your turn. Hop in your Bleriot XI, put away your moving map, and navigate purely by following roads. The plane doesn’t have a compass, after all, and you’ll want to pay particular attention to which direction you’re heading based on the sun. If you want a particular challenge, fire up the RIP version of the Bleriot and add in some random failures for fun.
The flight plan is as close as I could come to recreating the historic route. I recommend not actually landing at airports (as they didn’t have any) but instead pick fields near the towns.
Bon chance!
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