author
Alberto Santos-Dumont
1873–1932
A daring Brazilian inventor who helped turn human flight from dream to reality, he became famous in Paris for steering airships around the Eiffel Tower and later for his 14-bis airplane flights. His experiments made him one of the most celebrated figures of early aviation.
1 Audiobook
My Airships; The Story of My Life
by Alberto Santos-Dumont
About the author
Born in Brazil in 1873, Alberto Santos-Dumont grew up around machinery on his family’s coffee estate and later moved to Paris, where he devoted himself to aeronautical experiments. He became widely known for building balloons and dirigibles at a time when flight was still a risky and open question.
His fame soared in the early 1900s after highly public airship flights in Paris, including a celebrated trip around the Eiffel Tower. He is also remembered for the 14-bis, the aircraft with which he made a landmark powered flight in Europe in 1906. In Brazil, he is often honored as a founding hero of aviation.
Santos-Dumont also designed the light Demoiselle monoplane and wrote about his experiments, helping spread enthusiasm for aviation beyond specialist circles. He died in 1932, but his name remains closely tied to the adventurous, inventive spirit of the earliest age of flight.