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 This year is the centenary of aviation. But, after all, who invented the aircraft? To the Brazilians it was Santos Dumont. To the Americans, it was the Wright brothers. The dispute, that has been going on for 100 years - and which will never lead anywhere - is going to start changing on Saturday, 30, when Brazilians and Americans will join forces in Dayton, Ohio (USA), at the Flight Fest.
At the occasion, a replica of Santos Dumont's Demoiselle - the second aircraft built by the Brazilian, not as famous as the 14 Bis, his first - will fly beside a replica of the Flyer, the aircraft developed by Orville and Wilbur Wright. The novel event was only made possible due to the Wright Brothers Foundation, presided by Amanda Wright, great grandniece of the brothers, and of Arruda Botelho Institute (IAB) - which is responsible for the replica of the Demoiselle. "In the United States, Santos Dumont is not very well known. He does not appear in their history books, in their museum. We are not going to fight about who was the number one, we just want to show the Americans the grandness of the Brazilian," explained Fernando Arruda Botelho, a businessman, president of the IAB and a great Santos Dumont enthusiast. As the Americans are very good in marketing, the Wright brothers figure as the pioneers in flight in the United States, as is the case with other countries that speak the English language. Nobody saw the flight of the Flyer, in 1903, and the flight in 1905 was not ratified. The famous experience by Santos Dumont, in turn, in his 14 Bis, in 1906, in Paris, was ratified and registered. Still, in American schools, students learn that the Wright brothers were the first to fly. There, many children have never even heard the name Santos Dumont. The objective of Fernando Arruda Botelho is to try to follow the same track - although one hundred years late. To make the name of the Brazilian aviator heard abroad, the IAB has built three replicas of the Demoiselle. Two already have specific destinations. One will be used at the event on September 30. The other will be exhibited at the Smithsonian National Air Space Museum - during an aviation event to take place in Washington, the US capital, between October 16 and 23. According to professor Fernando Catalano, an aeronautical engineer at the University of São Paulo (USP) who assisted Botelho in the reconstruction of the Demoiselle, there is an intention of making use of the replicas to promote Santos Dumont's projects in Brazilian schools. "Another idea is to take the replica on a lorry and stop in various cities to make demonstrations," he said. "If the Americans don't know about Santos Dumont, it is because we did not know how to promote him," he explains. Gadget To recreate the Demoiselle (which means both "lady" and "dragonfly"), Botelho and his team took little over a year to make the gadget fly. It all began in 2004. The aircraft was built using the same measurements as the original, based on material published in magazine Mecânica Popular, in 1910. "We made some material adaptations, also due to the different weight of the pilot. Dumont was short and light, and his aircraft was made specifically for him," recalled Catalano. The first attempt was almost successful. In October 2005, one year later, a second attempt got the Demoiselle off the ground. This time, Botelho improved the replica. Each one of the problems of the first was studied carefully and the parts were made by students at the National Service of Industrial Education (Senai), who spent four days drawing the aircraft. Botelho, who is going to fly the replica on the 30th, at the event in Ohio, decided to remake the Demoiselle and not the 14 Bis because another Brazilian, pilot Alan Calassa, from Caldas Novas (in the midwestern Brazilian state of Goiás), had already made a replica of the more famous model. "It made no sense to repeat something that has already been done, but it did make sense to join forces to help rescue this name that had been forgotten in history," says the idealizer of the project. The president at the IAB is programming other flights with his replica. Next year, to commemorate the centenarian flight of the Demoiselle, he is going to cross the English Channel, the 36 kilometers that separate England from France. Anba - www.anba.com.br
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and historical issues (how certain can we be of the Wrights' 1903 flight? It doesn't matter, since we can be certain of a 1905 flight that still preceded anyone else's). But most of all, it's a matter of how you define "practical" (the 14-Bis needed a large flat space in order to take off, the Flyer needed a launch rail - Which is more, or less, practical?). For an overview of all these issues, I recommend you check out 