Alberto Santos-Dumont
Flew an airship round the Eiffel Tower, gave the prize money away, and refused to patent his aeroplanes
Alberto Santos-Dumont was born in 1873 on a coffee plantation in Minas Gerais, where his father used steam engines and railways on a scale that fascinated the boy. He grew up building rubber-powered model aeroplanes. In 1891 the family went to Paris, and after his father was injured he was released at eighteen with money and instructions to study mechanics.
He learned to fly balloons, then built a series of small airships driven by petrol engines, which he flew over the boulevards and moored outside restaurants. In October 1901 he won the Deutsch prize of 100,000 francs by flying from Saint-Cloud, round the Eiffel Tower and back within half an hour. He gave the money to his workmen and to the poor of Paris.
He turned to heavier-than-air machines. On 23 October 1906, in front of officials of the Aéro-Club de France at the Bagatelle field, his box-kite-like 14-bis took off under its own power and flew about 60 metres. It was the first powered flight in Europe to be officially witnessed, and news of it reached the world before the Wright brothers\' longer flights were widely believed. His Demoiselle of 1909, a tiny bamboo monoplane, was one he refused to patent: he published its plans so that anyone could build it, and many did.
He developed multiple sclerosis and was deeply distressed by the military use of aircraft. He took his own life in Brazil in 1932.