First aircraft student

Heron

Platinum Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
7,562
Location
Bauru - Sao Paulo - Brasil
Aircraft
Golden Butterfly
Total Flight Time
7.5 h.
SElf training in the dawn of aviation.
The aircraft is hanging from a balloon the number 14, hence the name 14-BIS for the airplane.
When he flew for the crowd and judges at La Bagatelle, he already knew what he was doing.
Next year it will be the 100th aniversary of this flight and the replica is already flying demos all over the place.
His last project The Demoiselle had the number 20 and he was working on a delta wing when he toolk his own life.
The man himself Alberto Santos Dumont.
Heron
 

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The Demoiselle is my favourite pre-World War 1 airplane. As Santos Dumont was a small man, this plane was too small for most!

Jim
 
Yes he was! He had very feminine structure and behavior, maybe it was a factor in his death.
I want to go to his house (museum) and find out if he used or gave credit to another Brazilian that discovered and patented angle of attack functions in the late 1800's.
He had a total of 20 projects and invented some other stuff. Cartier invented the wrist watch on Santos request for hands free while flying.
Heron
 
Demoiselle

Demoiselle

The 'definitive' version of the Demoiselle was the No.20, which reverted to a wing-mounted 2 cylinder Dutheil-Chalmers engine of 35 hp, and introduced a more substantial fuselage of three bamboo poles arranged in a triangular section and braced with steel tube. A joystick mounted on the pilot's right controlled the elevators, and a wheel on his left the rudder. Wing-warping was provided, controlled by a body harness. Another interesting feature was the radiator tubes which followed the underside of the wings to improve streamlining. Several of these mature Demoiselles were sold to enthusiasts who wanted an affordable way into aviation. A lightweight and skillful pilot was required, though. Specifications:-span 16 ft.9 in. (5.1 m.) - length 26 ft. 3 in. (8 m.) - height 7 ft. 10.5 in. (2.4 m.) - wing area 110 sq.ft. (10.2 sq.m.) - take-off weight 315 lb. (143 kg) - speed 56 mph (90 kph).
 

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Amazing guy Santos was! Floating around on a ballon to go to his social events and latter zipping about at 95 km an hour all over the place.
I think a replica (improved) will be a good flying machine.
Heron
 
I just read a bio of Santos. Very interesting guy, although a bit of an odd duck. Interesting that both Brazil and France claim him as a son (and indeed, they are both probably right to).

When the French came to Oshkosh a couple years ago they brought some vintage planes in the Airbus "Beluga," including a beautiful replica of the Demoiselle. I made it the subject of a "Plane Porn" feature in my blog some time ago.

https://hoglog.com/C503639400/E158982318/index.html

What beautiful workmanship!

It was very difficult to fly, replica builders say, because of the wing-warping. Like the Blériots, if a wing started to drop you had to catch it straightawy or it got to a point where you didn't have enough roll authority to correct it. And with a heavier pilot than Santos (who I think was 120 lb or so) you would be flying at the brink of a stall to begin with, so increasing the camber of the wing by wing-warping, instead of bringing the wing up, would stall it!

The Shuttleworth Collection has a Demoiselle that they fly a little (like the Blériot, they keepit in ground effect). There was one built for the movie Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines in 1965 which might be the same machine. Even with a more powerful engine (Continental 65?) the thing could barely fly. So what they did was get a slender woman to fly it, and she did all those stunts you see in that very funny movie.

I don't mean to insult Santos by saying his machine was hard to fly -- remember, in those days NOBODY knew what he was doing and they were making it up as they went along. It was largely thanks to Santos that France became the other great center of aviation innovation, even surpassing the USA, before World War I.

cheers

-=K=-
 
Heron,

Your address is back in Pompano. Does that mean that you letf the States and are back in Brazil?
 
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