The issue regarding the 'primacy of flight' - who in fact invented air navigability, and brought us all the benefits of the magnificent invention of devices that allow human flight, is a subject that is debated a lot in Brazil today, but it seems to be a question closed in the United States - it is even considered a taboo.
I avoid this issue whenever I can, especially when there are American friends in the conversation, but this week I was put up against the wall and had to say my opinion about it. I was with João Villares, great-nephew of Santos=Dumont, whose physical resemblance to the inventor always moves me (see photo), some Brazilian air force officers, friends and a group of reporters at the São Paulo Air Force base, who tirelessly searched for answers.
After that, in a meeting with friends 'Dumontologists', Marcos Palhares, Astronaut of Virgin Galactic and Henrique Lins de Barros, greatest and most respected scholar, specialist in Santos=Dumont, (you can watch this LIVE here), I decided to make this post, reluctantly, as I much prefer to show on my blog the 'wonderful life of Santos=Dumont', as the title says, than to keep bringing up issues that allow for the already fierce dispute and divisions that have polluted the pages of social networks lately.
“So, OK” I said, “let's go back to October 23, 1906, at the Campo de Bagateli in Paris...”
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| Luiz Pagano and João Villares, great-grand-nephew of Santos=Dumont at the São Paulo Air Force base, in the background Tupi Pop paintings by Luiz Pagano, part of the Aeronautics collection, in the Authorities Room at Guarulhos airport |
On that day Santos=Dumont has just been recognized as the Archdeacon award holder for having flown 60 meters with an aircraft conceived, designed and piloted by himself. The rules called for the aerial device to take off by its own means, without any kind of outside assistance, have pertinent flight controls, and land without accidents of any kind. S=D did this in front of the judging committee, in the presence of members of the scientific community at the time, photographer reporters and even a cameraman, not to mention the thousands of people present in the park - everyone was celebrating because humanity had just seen the first flight of heavier-than-air....
At that moment, a surly fellow approaches, determined to end up with the party’s atmosphere and shouts to the people "wait, wait ... , someone have already flown in America", some three or four people who hear him in the crowd looked at him shocked, and one of them exclaims "what are you saying?", the spoilsport then promptly goes on:
Spoilsport - This was not the first flight.
Perplexed Interlocutor – What are you saying?
Spoilsport – Two brothers in America already flew, almost three years ago, on a beach in North Carolina.
Perplexed interlocutor - was it registered by the scientific community, did it have witnesses?
Spoilsport – Yes, some civil servants, three passersby, a dog and even the president of the city bank.
Perplexed interlocutor – did the plane take off by its own means?
Spoilsport - No, the takeoff was carried out through a rail that pulled the plane, without the use of wheels, and threw it into the air.
Perplexed Interlocutor – Is this reported anywhere?
Spoilsport – Yes, in their personal diary.
Perplexed Interlocutor – Do they have a patent, or something that proves the flight?
Spoilsport - The Wright Brothers filed for patent even before their first trial flight. The application, which included diagrams of the invention, was sent on March 23, 1903.
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This was a hypothetical dialogue, but based on the facts of the time.
In my defense
I must say that I really admire the Wright brothers, I consider their work ingenious, as much as that several other aviation pioneers, I love American culture and I envy the way they treat their heroes in America, I even put a replica of Flyer that I nicely illustrated in a comic story that I wrote for a Brazilian magazine called Superinteressante, Issued in February 2002 (see photo).
I had the enormous privilege of working for two American companies, firstly as desk dealer the former Chemical Bank, company that I worked for almost three years and a stove manufacturer from Los Alamitos CA called Dynmac Cookins Systems, I have always been very well received in the United States and most of all, I love american people, I would like it very much of having in my country, Brazil, a system that privileges scientists, museums, professors and scientific discoveries as much as the USA does.
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| Illustration by Luiz Pagano for his comic book, with a replica of the Wright Brothers Flyer in the background "I greatly admire and respect the Wright Brothers, as well as the dedication to science of the American people" |
Finally, I do not in any way, want to demoralize or reduce the importance of anyone, I simply want to recognize the facts that need to be recognized in the matter of the primacy of flight, in a scientific documental way.
That being said, let's get to the facts:
Why Smithsonian belittles Santos=Dumont?
Marcos Palhares, a Santos=Dumont scholar, visiting the Smithsonian, found that despite having a large collection of pieces from our father of aviation, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, the institution that maintains the largest and most significant collection of aviation and space artifacts of the world, fully dedicated to the science of aviation, placed Santos=Dumont in a lower corner of its huge space, with a few models, with the following words:
"Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont made the first public flight of a powered airplane in Europe with his 14-bis on October 23, 1906, covering 60 meters (197 feet). On November 12, 1906, he traveled 220 meters (722 feet), still short of the Wrights' best flight of 1903".
*** This article is made up of a continuation (Part 2) and its conclusion (Part 3) - please click on the two previous links for a complete overview.
It is quite clear that, unfortunately, the institution omits science in the name of the 'America First' policy and despises the achievements of the Brazilian aeronaut.
This kind of attitude only raises suspicion against the American historical context - when comparing the Wrights with Santos=Dumont in such a diminutive way, it is evident that at some point in history, Dumont's multiple achievements caused discomfort to the fragile and untenable position of primacy of the brothers.
The Wrights' Secret Flight
After the secret flight from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers - Orville (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 - 30 May 1912) continued work on a cow pasture in Dayton from 1904 and 1905.
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| João Villares, great-grand-nephew of Santos=Dumont, shows the bedside clock that Santos=Dumont wore on all his trips. on the back the inscriptions "appartenant à Santos=Dumont" - belongs to Santos=Dumont |
The Wrights were terribly concerned about being copied. In no way wanted to reveal their creation without patent protection and a signed sales contract, the brothers remained at the site for the next two and a half years while they tried to commercialize their invention.
So it was that, at dawn in 1908, with plane sales contracts to a French union and the US Army finally in hand, the Wrights were ready to take off again that spring. They returned to Kill Devil Hills with a rebuilt version of their 1905 plane - now modified with upright seats and controls, and a second seat for a passenger. On May 14, 1908, Wilbur and Orville took turns taking Charles Furnas, one of their mechanics, as a passenger.
Weight x power ratio
According to Ozires Silva, co-founder of Embraer, the conglomerate that is the third largest company in its field in the world, the Flyer could never have flown because it violated the laws of physics.
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| The laws of physics states that it takes 1Hp to lift 6 kg off the ground, the Flyer had almost 23 kg per Hp - impossible flight |
According to him, there is a weight/power ratio of the engine, in which planes heavier than air need to overcome gravity through displacement in the atmosphere - 1 Hp sustaining 6 kg of flight is the limit, the greater the weight per HP, the lower the flight probability.
In the case of the 14 bis of Santos=Dumont, we had a 50 Hp engine to sustain an aircraft weighing 290 kg (average 5.8 - within the limit of what is possible). The Flyer, on the other hand, weighed 274.4kg and had a 12Hp engine (average 22.83 - completely out of the possible).
The laws of physics speak for themselves.
The Wright Brothers' Public Flights
It is important to say that the Wright brothers' first effectively public flight took place only on August 8, 1908, in which they were duly accompanied by a scientific committee, documented by photos and filmed in the presence of the general public. Prior to that, all other alleged flights had no proper documentation, were merely based on out-of-context allegations and photos, not different from flights performed by pioneers prior to Dumont.
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| Flying replicas - No attempt to replicate the Wright brothers' Flyer's flight took off, as did Ken Hyde of the Wright Experience with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Meanwhile, replicas of the 14-Bis fly regularly, like this one owned by enthusiast and pilot Alan Calassa, who even wanted to send one of his replicas to the Smithsonian - but unfortunately, the proposal was rejected by the museum. |
The Wrights invited the public, and the media to witness their flights in late May of 1904. About 30 reporters showed up at Huffman Prairie on May 23. The Wrights could not get the airplane motor to run properly, and everyone went home disappointed.
A handful came back on May 26, but the Wrights were only able to manage a glide flight of about 25 feet
In 1905, after the Wrights felt they had worked the bugs out of their invention and had created a practical airplane, they invited the public back again. They sent out about 30 invitations to people whom they thought would make credible witnesses. Several hundred showed up at Huffman Prairie to watch them fly on October 4 and 5, 1905. On October 5, Wilbur claims to have been able to keep the Wright Flyer 3 in the air for 39 minutes, flying 30 complete circuits of the field and covering over 24 miles -- in public.
In short, the Wrights claim to have made at least six flights of varying degrees of success before 1906.
If only witness claims serve to attest to the first flight, we must disregard Dumont and the Wrights for electing Clement Ader as the great inventor, who claimed to have made a flight with the Éole (aka Avion) before 1900. Ader, just like the Wrights, was flying in secret to the military.
The world only witnessed the Whright brothers' flight in the year 1908, in France, when Wilbur began catapult-powered flight (did not take off by its own means) on August 8, 1908, almost two years after Dumont, on the airstrip of Hunaudières horse racing near the city of Le Mans in France. His first flight lasted just 1 minute and 45 seconds.
Flying Replicas
Besides Dumont and the Wright Brothers, which other pioneers claim the title of first to fly?
- Abbas Ibn Firnas - The first report of a gliding flight took place in the year 875, in Andalusia, a poet of the time said that it flew faster than the Fenix, but it took much longer than the mytical bird to recover from the terrible accident;
Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (Santos, Brazil, December 1685 — Toledo, November 18, 1724) was the first Brazilian inventor and scientist, famous for the creation of the hot air balloon in 1709.
For the design and testing of a scale balloon called Passarola, Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, nicknamed the flying priest, was considered the father of aerostation. But we must remember that it was the Montgolfier Brothers: Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne, two pioneering French inventor brothers, who built the first manned balloon in the world, which raised Étienne to the skies on June 5, 1783.
- João de Almeida Torto - was a Portuguese resident in Viseu who in 1540 with the aid of a self-designed flying apparatus, on 20 June, having tried to fly with a wing system manufactured by himself.
It is said that on June 20, 1540, João Torto will have climbed to the top of the Cathedral of Viseu where he had built, with the permission of the Church, a launching ramp.
-Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (Anklam, Pomerania, May 23, 1848—Berlin, August 10, 1896), known as the "Father of gliding flight"From 1891, Otto began his collection with more than two thousand flight attempts , in some cases performed up to 80 times a day.
On several of these occasions the German aviator had a sprained foot and broken arms, in what can be considered the first air accidents.
- Ukita Kōkichi (浮田 幸吉, 1757 – 1847) was a Japanese aviation pioneer, ancestor of my friend Yasuyuki Ukita, writer and journalist, great connoisseur of Santos=Dumont, who is often praised for making artificial wings and flying with them. He is considered to be the first Japanese person to fly. He is also known as Chōjin Kōkichi (鳥人 幸吉/Kōkichi the birdman), Hyōgu-shi Kōkichi (表具師 幸吉/Kōkichi the Paperhanger), Sakuraya Kōkichi (櫻屋 幸吉), Bizen'ya Kōkichi (備前屋 幸吉), and Binkōsai (備考斎).
Ukita tried flying from a bridge over Asahigawa-river(旭川) in the summer of 1785. Some references say that he glided several meters, but others say that he just fell.
Several other aviators or their supporters claimed the first manned flight in a powered plane. Claims that have received significant attention are:
-Shivkar Bapuji Talpade with his airplane Marutsakhā (1895) - flew 460m at Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai, Indian pioneer with interests in aeronautics and Sanskrit;
-Clément Ader in 1897 invented and patented an aircraft based on the designs of a pioneer in biomimetics, Louis Pierre Mouillard, called by various names – Éole; Zephyr; Avion, but what the French liked to call the 'énorme chauve-aouris en lin' (the huge linen bat).
It had a redesigned light aluminum steam engine, with 4 cylinders and 20hp of power, the Éole Ader flew 100m at a height of 20cm from the ground in Sartory, south of Versailles;
-Gustave Whitehead, a German immigrant, residing in Connecticut with the model aircraft 21 and 22 (1901-1903) – the number 21, which had its design inspired by Lilienthal's wing, flew for the first time 201 meters in Fairfield;
-Samuel Pierpont Langley (1903) - and his airplane called 'Aerodrome A';
-Karl Jatho (1903) - On August 18, 1903, 4 months before Orville Wright, Karl-Jatho, born in Hanover February 3, 1873 - Hanover, took off from flat ground with the sole impetus of his engine. 18 meters on his first flight, with a tricraft, three meters above the ground, in November 1903, still a month before Wright, he performed a series of flights over 200 feet and over 10 feet above the ground.
Since we can accept accounts and the testimony of bystanders as evidence, I don't see why we can't accept Shivkar, Ader or even Whithead as having been the first to fly, they all came before Dumont and the Wright Brothers, they're all awesome and genius, and all of them have wonderful flight reports.
All these pioneers mentioned above have their flights reported by witnesses, as valid as the Wright brothers' witnesses, but with the exception of Santos=Dumont, none of them flew in the presence of other scientists, journalists, technical committees, who validated their flights based on scientific methods, with reliable, extensive and secure documentation. Santos=Dumont was the first to have his flights filmed.
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The brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière projected a film for the first time in 1895, filming and projecting movies was already a reality, from the first flights and it is excellent scientific evidence - why then has never been cinematographically documented any flight of these other pioneers?
If we are going to use the proper and perfect use of the scientific method, taking into account the problem solving approach, where scientists ask pertinent questions and carry out different tests, demonstrate the discovery in front of experts, capable of evaluating all steps on a scientific basis, without prejudice or interests other than science - there is no doubt that Santos=Dumont was the first man to fly with the heavier-than-air, to bring to humanity all the benefits of air transport and to inspire a whole generation of new pioneers.
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