Brazilian born, French educated, Alberto Santos-Dumont was probably
one of only a few aviation pioneers who could claim significant
accomplishments in both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air
flying machines. He was the first man to succeed, not once but time
after time, in leaving the ground, flying through the air to a
place of his own choosing, and landing safely. Around the turn of
the century he was the most prominent of all the early aviators,
and his balloons, dirigibles and (later in his career)
heavier-than-air craft were frequently to be seen in the air around
his beloved city of Paris. His early experiments were in dirigible
airships of his own design. After many failures, he built a
dirigible that in 1901 won the Deutsch Prize, as well as a prize
from the Brazilian government, for being the first to fly in a
given time from Saint-Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and return. He
wrote My Airships when he was 30 years old, in 1904. In it he tells
of his childhood in Brazil, his early fascination with machinery
and passion for the novels of Jules Verne, his early success in
France as an enthusiastic automobilist, his first balloon ascent in
1893, his famous balloon Brazil, and the joys and trials of his
first ten dirigibles (1898-1904). Referring to himself as
"inventor, patron, manufacturer, amateur, mechanician and airship
captain all united," he describes numerous hair-raising scrapes
with death while navigating the air. Santos' reputation as an
airplane designer was solidified by a machine he produced in 1909.
The famous "Demoiselle" or "Grasshopper" monoplane, was the
forerunner of the modern light plane. Santos eventually returned to
Brazil where, depressed over the use of aircraft in war, he
committed suicide.
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