Louis Bleriot built the first monoplane.
After the Wright Brothers conclusively proved powered flight to be possible using a biplane design. Louis Bleriot remained among the many insisting that a monoplane design was possible. After all, birds, bats and other creatures in nature do not look like a biplane. By 1909 he proved this theory to be correct by using a cleverly designed cable system to reinforce his wings. Add the slightly better engines available in 1909 (as opposed to 1903 when the Wrights flew) and the monoplane is possible.
As we all know, the monoplane design would eventually predominate, and engine technolgy would continue to advance rapidly in aviation, but the credit for the first monoplane goes to Louis Bleriot, and it was proudly displayed at the Exposition de la Locomotion Aerienne in Paris in 1909. Bleriot also won a 5000 pound prize offered by a British newspaper that same year by flying his plane across the English Channel. The French were very proud of this, and the importance of the Wrights' achievements ( as well as their patent rights) were largely downplayed in France despite them touring the country with their planes also in 1909. Although the technology he employed for controlling the plane clearly belonged to the Wrights by invention and patent. Bleriot became a successful aircraft manufacturer while the Wrights failed in their similar business endeavor, and did not recieve royalties from Bleriot. In America, a court eventually decided the rights to the aileron were covered by the Wrights patent, but even there it was a long legal battle.
French aeronautic pride was a stubborn thing, and had a long and proud history dating all the way back to the first hot air, and then, hydrogen, balloon flights in the 1700's, as well as the first propellor driven balloon, and the first dirigible. French contributions to manned flight are very tangible from its very beginnings, and after the Wrights; Bleriot, the Voisin Brothers, and Robert Esnault are all Frenchmen who made important contributions. One might still fault France and Bleriot for not giving the Wrights their proper credit or honoring their patent rights, but the importance of French designs to the developing field of aviation is indisputable.
Bleriot's design was quickly surpassed by the metal body and cantilevered wing design of the German Junkers J1.
