" I'm Santos, I weigh 41 kilos without my shoes but with my gloves." Alberto's favourite greeting!
Alberto Santos-Dumont, The Inspired Gadgeteer.
Santos had been creating a spectacle of himself, and flight, in Paris since the turn of the century. He had come to France in 1891 at the age of 18. His family owned a coffee plantation in Brazil, so Santos was a rich man. He wore pin-striped suits and thick soled shoes to make him seem taller. (he was 5 feet tall) To acclimatise himself to high altitudes he would dine at a table a full 10 feet above the floor, servants passed the dishes up from step ladders.Alberto was known as a tinkerer, he is credited with conceiving the world's first wristwatch. He was also an inspired mechanic,able to turn his hand to firstly, motorised tricycles, ballooning, and dirigibles. Santo's early Airships became known all over Paris, on Bastille day he floated above saluting the president of France by firing his revolver 21 times!!
The 14 - bis
In 1904 Santos built a helicopter of silk covered bamboo - it didn't fly. Santos went back to the drawing board. In 1906 he produced the weirdest looking machine to fly to date. Called a canard, because it looked a bit like a duck, Santo's machine had a forward mounted box - like elevator cum rudder assembly and the wings stuck out from the cockpit at a pronounced dihedral. The whole contraption was powered by a 24 horsepower engine driving a pusher propeller. He could only fly standing up, and the thing looked like it was going backwards. Santos called this contraption the 14 Bis, ( the 14 Encore) since it would begin it's flight suspended from beneath his No. 14 dirigible. He was going to use the gasbag to lift the machine into the air.
1st Attempt!
On the morning of July 23rd, 1906 a huge crowd gathered as the 14 - bis was paraded the field known as the Bagatelle for it's first flight. Santos led the way in his Mercedes. The dirigible and aircraft followed, towed by a donkey. On arrival, the crowd was hugely disappointed when Santos announced that the 14 - bis had been damaged and could not fly that day, (it had bumped up against the dirigible). Back to the drawing board!!!
Success!!
On September 13 the 12 - bis was finally released from the dirigible and hopped for about 43 feet before crashing tailfirst into the ground. On October 23 Santos finally kept the strange craft in the air for around 7 seconds, and covered a modest 197 feet. This was the first successful flight of a heavier than air craft, outside America and Santos was hailed as a "conquering hero".The Europeans went mad!!! Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Daily Mail, warned that "There will be no more sleeping safely behind the wooden walls of England with the Channel as our safety moat.(a reference to the Royal Navy) If war comes the arial chariots of the enemy will descend on British soil" He was a little early - the Battle of Britain was still 34 years and a world war away. In the midst of European hysteria Octave Chanute wrote to the Wright Brothers of Santo's achievement saying "I fancy he is now very nearly where you were in 1904".
Alberto Santos Dumont Gallery
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