Alberto Santos Dumont And the development of the Santos Dumont VI Air Ship

Vintage magazine article originally published in 1901 Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 110 years.

Alberta Santos Dumont has been the talk of the civilized world for many months. He has come nearer than anyone else to solving the last great problem that the ingenuity of man has set itself to conquer.

The young Brazilian's advantages are many. He has ample wealth the great cost of experiments gives him no concern. He has a genius for mechanics. He is absolutely fearless. No danger shakes his judgment and the most trying and unexpected situations have not found him wanting. Furthermore, he is very slight, weighing about a hundred pounds — no small aid to an aeronaut. At the same time, he possesses remarkable strength and endurance.

At St. Cloud last summer I saw the young man returning from a spin through space with the Santos Dumont V. The flying machine was almost above its shed in the Parc d'Aerostation, and the spectators, who had been watching its graceful evolutions and admiring the navigator's control of his huge craft were waiting for the descent. Suddenly Santos Dumont was seen to clamber out of his little car to the slender framework supporting the motor. If he had slipped, if a sudden gust of wind had struck the balloon and caused hint to lose his hold, he must have plunged downward three hundred feet to destruction. The spectators gasped and shuddered, and when the aeronaut regained his car in safety they cheered. One of the coupling wires had become jammed against the side of a pulley. It was a most dangerous thing to try to free it but Santos Dumont did not hesitate for a second.

In five years he has constructed six air ships, and each has been an advance upon its predecessor. He worked long and hard before he was known outside of a small circle of enthusiasts who have been devoting wealth and energy to solving the problem of aerial navigation. On the 12th of last July, when the young man made his first flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower his name flashed over the earth. Santos Dumont was trying for the prize of twenty thousand dollars offered by M. Deutsch for the first air ship that should be sailed from the Parc d'Aerostation, at St. Cloud, around the Eiffel Tower and back in thirty minutes. The total distance is a little short of nine miles. The Brazilian made the round trip in forty one minutes, being baffled by a head wind when he endeavored to enter the park through it comparatively narrow opening between lofty sheds. When the struggle had lasted five minutes, his supply of petroleum became exhausted, the motor stopped, and the balloon was at the mercy of the wind. Santos Dumont tore the silk covering in order to make a quick descent, but the machine was blown across the Seine and became entangled in a tree in the garden of M. Edmond Rothschild.

Each of the Brazilian's six machines has been called the Santos Dumont, with the addition of a distinguishing number. The first one collapsed and fell nearly fifteen hundred feet. The Brazilian shouted to those handling the guide rope to pull against the wind, and he landed unhurt. In the gradual evolution to the present air ship, most of the changes have been the result of lessons taught by accidents. The Santos Dumont VI is a cylindrical balloon one hundred and eight feet long, nineteen and one half feet in diameter, with a volume of eight hundred and eighty cubic yards, to which is attached a four cylindered petroleum motor weighing two hundred and sixteen pounds and developing twenty horse power. The motor drives a propeller screw, a little more than thirteen feet in diameter, which makes three hundred revolutions a minute. It also operates an air pump that fills the compensating balloon, which will be described.