Brazilian invented the first airplane [Part 2]

[JTSimon]

Don/Trauama I know it hurts  

http://www.iht.com/articles/121584.htm

In Brazil, an aviator is lauded as pioneer  
Larry Rohter NYT
Tuesday, December 16, 2003  
 
SANTOS DUMONT, Brazil December marks the centennial of the first flight, but don't expect a celebration here, or anywhere else in Brazil, for that matter.

As Brazilians see it, Orville and Wilbur Wright are not heroes or pioneers, but rather villains and frauds who stole credit for the invention of the airplane from the man for whom this quiet provincial town of 46,000 is named: Alberto Santos-Dumont, a millionaire coffee grower's son and renowned bon vivant who became perhaps the most famous aviator of his day.

"Welcome to the Land of the Father of Aviation" proclaims a billboard at the outskirts of town. Nearby stands a full-scale model of the 14-bis, the boxy biplane that Santos-Dumont twice flew before cheering throngs in Paris during the fall of 1906. Though what Brazilian textbooks call "the Wright brothers' alleged flight" at Kitty Hawk on Dec. 17, 1903, took place nearly three years before, Santos-Dumont advocates say that the two Americans cannot be considered the first to fly, for manifold reasons starting with the fact their airplane did not take off under its own power, but used a ramp, and did not have wheels.

In addition, they argue, because the Americans did not fly a predetermined distance before an independent and impartial panel of experts, they did not meet scientific standards of proof.

"It is like a competition at the Olympics," said Henrique Lins de Barros, a physicist who is director of the Museum of Astronomy in Rio de Janeiro. "An athlete has to pass the test in front of judges, playing according to established rules. If he does it the night before, it doesn't count and he doesn't win the gold medal."

Santos-Dumont himself shared and encouraged skepticism about the Wrights' achievement.

In "What I Have Seen, What We Will See," an autobiography published in 1918 predicting intercontinental flights, he said, "I don't want to take anything away from the Wright brothers, for whom I have the greatest respect," but added: "It is undeniable that they worked furtively."

Only in 1908 after his own flights, he argued, did the Wrights come out into the open and allow others to witness their work.

"What would Edison, Graham Bell and Marconi say if after presenting the electric lamp, the telephone or wireless telegraph in public, some other inventor appears with an improved version, saying that he had built them first?" Santos-Dumont asked.

In his heyday a century ago, Santos-Dumont was famous for his daredevil flights in dirigibles. After the Wright brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk, the headline on the first article about their feat in The Dayton Daily News, their own hometown newspaper, read "Dayton Boys Emulate Great Santos-Dumont."

At the very least, aviation historians credit Santos-Dumont with the first flight outside the United States and the first public flight. His admirers also claim that he invented the aileron, which he used successfully on his second flight; the hydroplane; and the first individualized commuter-sport aircraft, the 1909 Demoiselle.

His celebrity helped popularize the wristwatch, which his friend Louis Cartier devised for Santos-Dumont after he complained that he was too busy using his hands while up in the air to keep track of time.

In Paris, where he lived much of his adult life, he was a well-known boulevardier who would fly his dirigible to fashionable restaurants and nightclubs and then tether it to lampposts alongside other patrons' horses.

Santos-Dumont had "a wonderful sense of style and flair and was a trendsetter in fashion as well as technology," said Paul Hoffman, author of "Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight."

"His courage, individualism, defiance of conventional wisdom and willingness to put his life and money on the line, all these things seem to tap into the Brazilian psyche," Hoffman said. The image of Santos-Dumont in his Panama hat and high stiff collar is almost omnipresent among Brazilians. He and the 14-bis have appeared on banknotes and in dozens of songs, poems, paintings and books that celebrate his feats. Rio de Janeiro's main in-town airport is named for him, as are streets, squares, plazas and schools all over this vast nation of 175 million. Not least, Brazilians admire Santos-Dumont for his idealism and indifference to profit. To draw a modern parallel, he was Linux to the Wright brothers' Microsoft, refusing to patent his inventions and allowing the specifications of the Demoiselle to be published in Popular Mechanics so that other dreamers could make the craft themselves.

Even the manner of Santos-Dumont's death, initially covered up, has added to his aura.

He committed suicide at the beach resort of Guaruja on July 23, 1932. Though he had been in and out of sanitoriums and suffered from multiple sclerosis, Brazilians are taught that he hanged himself because he was heartbroken at seeing his invention used in a civil war that was then raging here.

His lionization has intensified since 1973, the centennial of his birth. Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship then, and the generals used him to heighten nationalist sentiment and garner popular support for their drives to manufacture airplanes and launch satellites, both of which have come to fruition.

One result of the official campaign has been a tendency to avoid what Hoffman calls Santos-Dumont's "darker, tortured side."

News accounts a century ago hinted that Santos-Dumont was homosexual, referring to his "feminine timidity," his fondness for "girlish" furnishings and clothing, and "ladylike" demeanor, but that issue is usually glossed over here.

"He is the patron of the Brazilian Air Force, and the generals get indignant at that suggestion," said Lins de Barros, who is the author of the book "Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight."

At the municipal library here, an extensive collection of memorabilia and books documents his life and work and is available to students doing the obligatory course work about Santos- Dumont. But there are no books about the Wright brothers. If they are mentioned at all, the reference is almost certainly disparaging.

"Even today, after so much proof to the contrary, Americans continue not to recognize Santos-Dumont as the true inventor of heavier-than-air flight," the author Wilson Veado wrote in a school textbook published in 1973 but still in print today. "That's what they teach in the schools up there to children like you! Really, it's not honest and it's disrespectful to us." The New York Times

[Citizen-Y]

I invented the cd spindle.

[HIPPI]

I invented the cd spindle.

Max said a Mexican invented that.

[JTSimon]

I invented the cd spindle.

Max said a Mexican invented that.

Citizen-Y is the Mexican  

[Trauma-san]

You can post all the bullshit articles you want, lol.

See, the thing your fragile child-like mind can't understand is, Truth is Truth.  It doesn't matter what you SAY about the Wright brothers, the fact of the matter is, the truth of the matter is, they WERE the inventors of the airplane.  I don't give a shit how many times you want to say they weren't... .the truth is unchangeable, it happened 100 years ago for pete's sake, it happened, and there's nothing you can do about that.  Truth is truth, it can't be changed.  

[JTSimon]

You can post all the bullshit articles you want, lol.

See, the thing your fragile child-like mind can't understand is, Truth is Truth.  It doesn't matter what you SAY about the Wright brothers, the fact of the matter is, the truth of the matter is, they WERE the inventors of the airplane.  I don't give a shit how many times you want to say they weren't... .the truth is unchangeable, it happened 100 years ago for pete's sake, it happened, and there's nothing you can do about that.  Truth is truth, it can't be changed.  

Damn I thought you were smarter than that  

Who discovered America again?

Christopher Columbus

[Don Jacob]

max.........your whole article lacks credibility and consistancy with the history of aviation. my fucking grandpa was in the airforce and studied aviation for 45 years! the brothers wright were first  deal with it. If you still feel the need to debate it, the aviation industry has taken and used more from their flight than any other. so you can TRY to debate who was first but it's undebatable who was  more influencial.

btw i built the first hydrogen car....



saying that santos is the father of air flight is like saying michael jordan was the first star of the dunk contest.

[JTSimon]

max.........your whole article lacks credibility and consistancy with the history of aviation. my fucking grandpa was in the airforce and studied aviation for 45 years! the brothers wright were first  deal with it. If you still feel the need to debate it, the aviation industry has taken and used more from their flight than any other. so you can TRY to debate who was first but it's undebatable who was  more influencial.

btw i built the first hydrogen car....



saying that santos is the father of air flight is like saying michael jordan was the first star of the dunk contest.

Your post just proved you know nothing about early avaiation...none of us do. Just becuase something is written in a history book doesn't make it true.

But if I invented something...I know I would make a big deal out of it.




btw I built the first hydrogen car three years ago and I have witness my mom/pops, Lil James, Betsy, Sam and Uncle Elroy.

I put it on a ramp, rolled down the ramp and I was cruising for 12 secs  

[Trauma-san]

^^ here, we have another example of a kid who thinks he's smarter than the combined sum of everyone in aviation who has lived over the past 100 years.  He doesn't care that anybody with anything to do with aviation can honestly tell him the wright brothers were first, he believes that they're ALL wrong, and he's right.  LOL.  You're a fucking fool.  

[JTSimon]

^^ here, we have another example of a kid who thinks he's smarter than the combined sum of everyone in aviation who has lived over the past 100 years.  He doesn't care that anybody with anything to do with aviation can honestly tell him the wright brothers were first, he believes that they're ALL wrong, and he's right.  LOL.  You're a fucking fool.  

Everyone has their own opinions.
Of course Americans are gonna say Americans invented the first airplane.

And don't use my own insult against me your the fool

[Don Jacob]

actually you're the fool , i grew up with a granparent who has been fluent in the history of aviation for damn near 50 years. he knows more about air craft than most here do about hip hop......so for you to say the wright brothers wern't first is like saying rappers delight wasn't the first huge hip hop single and that the slim shady lp is eminem's first album.

[JTSimon]

actually you're the fool , i grew up with a granparent who has been fluent in the history of aviation for damn near 50 years. he knows more about air craft than most here do about hip hop......so for you to say the wright brothers wern't first is like saying rappers delight wasn't the first huge hip hop single and that the slim shady lp is eminem's first album.

lol @ comparison to hip hop.

Your Grandparents have nothing to do with this unless they were witnesses at the first flight. People are disputing whether the first flight qualified as a true airplane flight not history. Don your slow  

[Don Jacob]

think what you want, we know what we're talking about and you're just a little shit who thinks he knows what he's talking about.


and i don't know how you can belittle the wright brothers aircraft when it was more credible than santos's airplane design......and again the wright brothers' invention is more influencial on the industry

[JTSimon]

think what you want, we know what we're talking about and you're just a little shit who thinks he knows what he's talking about.


and i don't know how you can belittle the wright brothers aircraft when it was more credible than santos's airplane design......and again the wright brothers' invention is more influencial on the industry

  I told why I belittled their flight...I'm done with you, your not reading my posts.

Keep on believing.

[Woodrow]

^Max Powers ^