Pioneers of Aviation

The early years of the 20th century were the most exciting and significant in the development of aviation.  There were epic flights made among others, by the Wright brothers, Santos-Dumont, Louis Bleriot, Henri Farman, the Voisin brothers, Leon Delgrange, Breguet brothers etc.  They built and flew airplanes. There were British pioneers like A.V. Roe, Geoffrey de havilland, T.O.M. Sopwich, Grahame-White. American pioneers included S.F. Cody, Glenn Martin, Langley and Glenn Curtiss.  Many of these names became famous in later years.

The Wright brothers were the first to fly but there were several others who were working on flying machines of one kind or the other for years before that.  One of them Clement Ader made an airborne hop under power for a distance of about 50m.  Ader made a large steam powered machine he called 'L'Eole' in which he made a series of hops in 1890.  But none of these could be termed as 'flown'.  He designed, constructed and tested Ader Avion II in 1893 which  met with little success as with the later Ader Avion III in 1897.  He can be seen on a Mauritanian stamp issued in 1977:

In 1901 Wilhelm Kress, an Austrian who had experimented with balloons and airships, made his first attempt at flying on Lake Tullnerbach, near Vienna, in a tandem winged aircraft of his own design. It had two airscrews and was mounted on floats but the motor was much too heavy to lift the machine and a sudden tilt wrecked it beyond repair.  Kress can be seen on Austrian air stamps of 1922-23.

The success of the Wright bothers' attempt has already been dealt with in an earlier post.  Another pioneer of that time was Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian who put France at the centre of the aviation world.  Santos-Dumont's airships have been the subject of an earlier post.  He moved from balloons to airships to aircraft.  He flew in a box-kite craft built by Gabriel  and Charles Voisin for about 100 feet at Bagatelle, near Paris, in 1906.  This was the first official powered flight in Europe.  The aircraft was named 14 Bis as it succeeded his 14 airships.  In 1919 he built the world's first light plane, the Demoiselle, with a bamboo frame and a wing span of only 20 ft. 

The Demoiselle is featured on a stamp issued by Cambodia to mark the 120th birth anniversary of Santos-Dumont.

Santos-Dumont's 14 Bis is shown at the lower part of this stamp issued by Zaire.

Santos-Dumont and Airships

It was not until the invention of the gasoline-powered engine in 1896 that practical airships could be built. In 1898, the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first to construct and fly a gasoline-powered airship.
Arriving in Paris in 1897, Alberto Santos-Dumont first made a number of flights with free balloons. He thought of combining the De Dion engine that powered his tricycle with a balloon, which resulted in 14 small airships that were all all gasoline-powered. His No. 1 airship first flew on September 18, 1898.

 Between 1898 and 1905, he built and flew 11 dirigibles. He would glide along Paris boulevards at rooftop level in one of his airships, commonly landing in front of a fashionable outdoor cafe for lunch. On one occasion he even flew an airship early one morning to his own apartment at No. 9, Rue Washington, just off Avenue des Champs-Élysées, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.

The zenith of his lighter-than-air career came when he won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize. The challenge called for flying from the Parc Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than thirty minutes. The winner of the prize needed to maintain an average ground speed of at least 22 km/h (14 mph) to cover the round trip distance of 11 km (6.8 miles) in the allotted time.

On October 19, 1901, after several attempts, Santos Dumont succeeded in using his dirigible Number 6. Santos Dumont was awarded the prize as well as the prize money of 125,000 francs. In a charitable gesture, he donated 75,000 francs of the prize money to the poor of Paris. The balance was given to his workmen as a bonus. An additional matching 125,000 francs was voted to him along with a gold medal by the government of his native Brazil. 

Santos Dumont #6 rounding the Eiffel Tower in the process of winning the Deutsch Prize

 

 Santos Dumont's aviation feats made him a celebrity in Europe and throughout the world. The public eagerly followed his exploits. He won several more prizes and became a friend to millionaires, aviation pioneers, and royalty. In 1904, he went to the United States and was invited to the White House to meet U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.  He remains to this day, a prominent folk hero in his native Brazil.


His primary interest soon turned to heavier than air aircraft.  See my earlier post on this.