Academic Drama: When Santos-Dumont Almost Quit His Airplane Ideas in 1906
From a grant denied and a paper harshly rejected to the very first public fly in Europe
A semi-fictional story about the Brazilian inventor and aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont
For those who do not know him, Alberto Santos Dumont was a Brazilian inventor and aviation pioneer. Born and raised in Brazil in a wealthy family, he moved to French in 1891 to pursue his studies. While most Americans have no idea about it, the Brazilian inventor is credited as the airplane’s actual inventor in many countries. He was the first man who design, build, and flew in his aircraft named 14-bis in the presence of an official audience in Paris on November 23, 1906. The officials from Aéro-Club de France registered the details of such historic achievement. After landing safely, he would have said: “That’s one short flight for a bird, one large flight for humankind.” It seems someone recycled his phase a few decades later.
The dream
Santos-Dumont had the craziest ideas for those times. He was a young man fascinated by the possibility of flying. He believed humankind could do it. But not in balloons, a common approach and not entirely novel at those times. He was convinced we could do it “like a pro,”…
