The Blériot VIII was a French pioneer era aeroplane built by Louis Blériot, significant for its adoption of both a configuration and a control system that were to set a standard for decades to come. The previous year, Blériot had experimented with a tandem wing design, the Blériot VI, then built another aircraft, the Blériot VII, in which the rear wing was somewhat smaller than the front wing, and introduced the later Type XI's "bedstead", shock-absorbing and castoring main landing gear design. In the Blériot VIII, he reduced the size of the rear wing yet again, to the point where it was no longer contributing much in the way of lift, but had become the horizontal stabiliser. More novel was his adoption of a single control stick that would control both roll and pitch, while the rudder was