Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932)
Alberto Santos-Dumont was born on 20 July 1873, in the village of Cabangu, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. at the age of 18, his father sent Santos-Dumont to Paris where he devoted his time to the studies of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. he had a dream and an objective: to fly.
Santos-Dumont pursued his dream of flying with a winged aircraft, instead. in 1906, santos-dumont took the nacelle of his dirigible balloon no. 14 and added to it a fuselage and biplane wings, whose cellular structure resembled the kites still found nowadays in japan. an antoinette v8 engine of 24 hp power was installed ahead of the wings, driving a propulsion propeller; the airplane flew rear-first and was denominated 14-bis (since it was descendent of the dirigible balloon no. 14). it had a wingspan of 12 m and 10-m-long fuselage, and had a tricycle fixed landing gear. santos-dumont developed what has to be called the first flight simulator, using winches and gears to let the 14-bis roll down a plan, while he learned how to control the plane. on 21 august 1906, santos-dumont made his first attempt to fly. he did not succeed, since the 14bis was underpowered. on september 13th, with a reengined 14bis (now with a 40 or 50 hp power engine which he obtained through louis bréguet), Santos-Dumont made the first flight of 7 or 13 m (according to different accounts) above the ground, which ended with a violent landing, damaging the propeller and landing gear. on october 23th, 1906 his 14bis biplane flew a distance of 60 meters at a height of 2 to 3 meters during a seven-sec-long flight. Santos-Dumont won the 3,000 francs prize archdeacon, instituted in july 1906 by the american ernest archdeacon, to honor the first flyer to achieve a level flight of at least 25 m.
before his next flight santos-dumont modified the 14-bis by the addition of large hexagonal ailerons, to give some control in roll. since he already had his hands full with the rudder and elevator controls (and could not use peddles since he was standing), he operated these via a harness attached to his chest. if he wanted to roll right he would lean to his right, and vice versa. one witness likened santos-dumont's contortions while flying the 14-bis to dancing the samba! with the modified aircraft, he returned to bagatelle on 12 november. this time the brazilian made six increasingly successful flights. one of these flights was 21,4 sec long within a 220 m path at a height of 6 m. the brazilian always used his cartier wristwatch to check the duration of his flights. the flight experiments with the 14bis took place at le bagatelle (air)field in paris. Santos-Dumont did not employ any catapult or similar device to place his craft aloft. as far as the world knew, it was the first airplane flight ever and santos-dumont became a hero to the world press. the stories about the wright brothers' flights at kitty hawk and later near dayton, ohio, were not believed even in the us at the time.
Pioneer Profile
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