Louis Bleriot, an aviation pioneer, sat in his modified type XI monoplane, and took off from Les Baraques, near Calais, France at 4:41 a.m. on July 25, 1909. He landed at 5:17 a.m., in Northfall Meadow, near Dover. He had flown over 24 miles, almost entirely over water, in a fragile plane powered by a weak and unreliable engine.