Great Engineers & Scientists

Today is the birthday of Alberto Santos-Dumont, one of the most influential (as well as controversial) aviation pioneers. He was born on July 20, 1873 in Brazil.

Getting Things off the Ground

Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first man to successfully combine an internal combustion engine with a ballooning apparatus. The aviator was also long-believed to be the first to fly a heavier-than-air motorized plane. After the unfortunate passing of his father, a wealthy engineer and entrepreneur involved with the Brazilian coffee industry, Santos-Dumont's career soared. His unconventional methods of achieving flight got off the ground, however, only after he studied chemistry, physics, astronomy, and mechanics in Paris.

It was in 1898 that Santos-Dumont left the ground in his first balloon. The round and unusually small craft called Brésil (Brazil) was actually capable of lifting over 114 lbs. His second balloon, America, had 500 cubic meters of capacity. Faced with competition from 12 other balloons, Santos-Dumont's America reached the highest altitude and remained in the air for 22 hours.

Time Will Tell

Between 1898 and 1905, Alberto Santos-Dumont built and flew 11 dirigibles and combined the use of his lighter-than-air aircraft's piston-powered engines with hydrogen. He won the Deutsch Prize, which was granted by oil tycoon Deustch de la Merthe, when for the first time in the history, a dirigible soared around the Eiffel tower on October 19, 1901. This achievement garnered Santos-Dumont a prize of 100,000 francs, and well-deserved acclaim for building the first airship to complete a specified circuit around the Eiffel Tower and back within a half-hour.

Aside from aeronautics, Santos-Dumont's name is stamped in time, quiet literally, as his old friend Louis Cartier was able to transform a gift to the aviator into a common male fashion accessory: the wrist watch. As an alternative to the pocket watch, which allowed one to tell time but was not hands-free, the Santos wrist watch was a timekeeper of great precision that allowed the aviator to clock his experiments. Although the wrist watch had been invented much earlier, the Santos-Dumont watch helped to popularize this style of timepiece.

According to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Alberto Santos-Dumont also visited the United States in 1904 and was invited to the White House to meet President Theodore Roosevelt, who was supposedly interested in the marriage of aviation and warfare. Santos-Dumont and the Wright brothers never actually met, however, even though both names were often spoken in the same breath later on.

The First in Flight Controversy

To this day, many researchers, historians and aviation enthusiasts argue that Orville and Wilbur Wright were not the first to fly for various technical reasons. These critics start with the fact that the Wright aircraft used a ramp to accelerate and thus did not take-off with its own power. Many also argue that because the Wright Brothers did not fly a predetermined distance before an independent panel of experts, their efforts cannot qualify as standardized for scientific practice.

Nevertheless, the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission argues that on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers completed the world's first successful, powered, heavier-than-air flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina by achieving a 12-second, 120-foot journey. As far as the world knew, however, Santos-Dumont's held the "first in flight" title, a claim which made the Brazilian aviator a hero to the world press. Stories about the Wright Brothers' flights in the United States were not recognized or publicized at the time.

Ascension, Descent, and Legacy

The Brazilian aviation pioneer continued with his experiments, building other dirigible balloons, including the Demoiselle, the design of which was the aircraft built by Alberto Santos-Dumont. The Demoiselle's drawings were released for free.

Alberto Santos-Dumont retired from his aeronautical activities in 1910 and became seriously ill with what researchers believe was the onset of multiple sclerosis. At the time, he was also suffering from a serious bout of depression that some say was caused by the use of airplanes as weapons of war. This mental and physical descent ended after Santos-Dumont took his own life in the city of Guarujá in São Paulo on July 23, 1932.

Resources:

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics: http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=432

The Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/14/1071336816574.html?from=storyrhs

U.S. Centennial of Flight commission: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/Santos-Dumont/DI41.htm