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Early Pioneers of Aviation

“As an airplane pilot, I thoroughly enjoyed the March 8, 1999, issue of ‘Awake!’ on flying. However, I have one question. Why was there no mention of Alberto Santos-Dumont? He was among the earliest of aviators.”—C. B., United States.

THE March 8, 1999, Awake! cover series, entitled “Flying—How Did It Start? How Safe Is It?” provided a brief synopsis of the history of aviation. Although much of the material focused on the achievements of the Americans Wilbur and Orville Wright, these two brothers were not the only ones to experiment with heavier-than-air flying machines about the turn of the century. Consider a few other pioneers of aviation.

• Alberto Santos-Dumont was born on July 20, 1873, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Paris. There Santos-Dumont studied physics, chemistry, mechanics, and electricity. His ambition was to fly, and between 1898 and 1905, he built and flew 11 dirigibles.

In October of 1906, Santos-Dumont at last achieved his dream of flying in a heavier-than-air craft. In contrast with some other early planes, which needed to be launched by a catapult, the aircraft of Santos-Dumont, the 14-bis, performed its takeoff using its own means of propulsion. Santos-Dumont’s 200-foot [60-meter] flight in the 14-bis is regarded as the first successful motor-powered, heavier-than-air flight in Europe.

In the years that followed, Santos-Dumont was saddened to see the airplane become a tool of destruction. Indeed, it is reportedly his despondency over the use of airplanes in war that led to his suicide in 1932. In any event, Santos-Dumont has a firm place in the history of aeronautics.

• Gustave Whitehead was born in Leutershausen, Germany, on January 1, 1874. Because of his intense interest in aviation, his schoolmates dubbed him the flier. By the age of 13, Gustave was orphaned, and although he moved from place to place in the years that followed, he never lost his passion for flying. For a brief time, young Gustave studied with the famous German aviator Otto Lilienthal. Then, in 1894, he settled in the United States.

As noted in the March 8, 1999, issue of Awake!, some claim that in 1901, Whitehead made the world’s first controlled, sustained flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine. However, there are no photographs to substantiate this claim. Surprisingly, the press was not at all quick to understand the impact of early advances in aviation, even when the Wright brothers made their flight. Indeed, according to the journal Air Enthusiast, “it wasn’t until 1910 that public interest really peaked in this ‘new technology’ and people began to accept that human flight was possible.”

• Samuel Pierpont Langley, a secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., was an astronomer and a physicist. In 1896 he built a steam-powered airplane that flew unmanned for three quarters of a mile before it ran out of fuel.

Of course, steam engines are quite heavy, and they were found to be highly impractical for flight. So Langley’s assistant, Charles M. Manly, designed a 125-pound [57 kg], 53-horsepower engine that would be more suitable. The result was a far more efficient plane, which Langley called the Aerodrome. On October 7, 1903, Manly sat at the controls while Langley’s plane was launched by catapult from a barge. It then plunged into the Potomac River. A subsequent effort two months later was just as unsuccessful. Disillusioned, Langley abandoned his project.

Despite his failures, however, Langley made important strides in the field of aviation. In 1914, eight years after his death, several changes were made to the Aerodrome, and it was successfully flown in Hammondsport, New York, by Glenn H. Curtiss.

These are just a few of the many individuals who spearheaded the field of aeronautics about the beginning of the 20th century. Today, hundreds of thousands of planes of various sizes grace the skies. All of them owe their existence—and some of their success—to the early pioneers of aviation.

[Pictures on page 19]

Alberto Santos-Dumont and his airplane the “14-bis”

[Credit Lines]

Culver Pictures

North Wind Picture Archives

[Pictures on page 20]

Gustave Whitehead and a replica of his heavier-than-air flying machine

[Credit Line]

Flughistorische Forschungsgemeinschaft Gustav Weisskopf

[Pictures on page 20]

Samuel P. Langley and his “Aerodrome”

[Credit Lines]

Dictionary of American Portraits/Dover

U.S. National Archives photo