The Wright brothers may have taken all the credit, but Brazilians
insist that the real 'father of aviation' was Alberto
Santos-Dumont. Whether or not he deserves that epithet, Alberto was
certainly the most eccentric of aviators. He swanned around the sky
in extraordinary machines long before Wilbur and Orville Wright
came along, and was feted for his exploits by royalty and
aristocracy. History shows that his inventions - various peculiar
balloons with car engines attached - never caught on, but Alberto
captured the late 19th- and early 20th-century imaginations in a
way hard to overstate. The tale of this dapper, charming adventurer
- the Eddie the Eagle of his day - is told by Paul Hoffman in the
same enthusiastic manner that made his previous book, The Man Who
Loved Only Numbers, such a success. Hoffman admits that until
recently he had never heard of Alberto Santos-Dumont and was amazed
to find the man still revered in his native Brazil as the first
aviator to master powered flight. Until 1906, Alberto was similarly
acclaimed in Europe. He built contraptions in which it was
necessary to perform rumbas in order to stay aloft. He was given to
crashing into rooftops, and almost impaled himself on church
spires. His exploit of flying around the Eiffel Tower was only
overshadowed by a lavish 'aerial' dinner party he threw for VIP
guests. He suspended tables and chairs from the ceiling to give his
guests a taste of the high life, and apologized profusely when the
roof fell in on them. The story of Alberto's deeds is both amusing
and exciting, detailing not only the great man's insatiable
optimism but showing also that he really did make some amazing
breakthroughs. Hoffman places the tale in its context of aerial
development generally so that there is a feel of those pioneering
days. Tragically, the excitement proved too much for Alberto. He
went mad and died while trying to fly with feathers attached to his
arms. (Kirkus UK)
From the author of The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, winner of the
prestigious Rhone-Poulenc science award: the history of aviation
told through the extraordinary story of Alberto Santos-Dumont, the
forgotten man who battled to be the first to free himself from the
confines of the earth. Ask most people who flew the first aeroplane
and you'll get the same response: Orville and Wilbur Wright. But
ask a Brazilian the same question and you will get a different
answer: Alberto Santos-Dumont, the man they have crowned the
'father of aviation'. Fearless Alberto Santos-Dumont was a slight
and wiry man who built flying machines that could hold no one
heavier than himself and required a daredevil dexterity to stay
aloft. Never before or since has there been an aeroplane in which
the pilot has had to stand up for the whole flight (he had to
perfect the rumba in order to get his Bird of Prey into the air at
all). Nor has anyone else had a personal flying machine -- a small
powered balloon that he kept tied to a lamp post outside his
apartment when he was not bar-hopping, handing the reins of the
airship to the doorman at his favourite night spot. His genius and
charisma led him to be celebrated
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