Dear Sirs,
I recognize the importance of Wright Brothers to the progress of aviation, to people of USA. But I'll never recognize any kind of primacy in flight from that Gentlemen, first because they were working in absolute "secret", until 1908, when they presented their ground device dependant flying machine in Europe for the first time. Considering the alleged date for the first flight event, I cannot understand why 5 years later they were still using a catapult. I can't understand also why they tried to convince everybody with a simple photograph of an airplane flying high (more than a meter) over the launch rail, when hundreds of people watched every experiment made by Alberto Santos-Dumont since the beginning of the century, including that first flight on December 23rd, 1906 before a huge crowd on Bagatelle Field, Paris, with full press and media coverage and movie recording. It was an Official Experiment, homologated by Aero Club de France members present at the meeting. The numbers: 200 meters ground roll, 80 to 90 cm height, 60 meters distance, 30 to 35 km/h speed. About October 23rd, 1906 flight, Mr. Gordon Bennet, American, owner of Herald newspaper, told: "The first Human mechanical flight", among several other European newspaper headlines. Then, on November 12th, 1906, he managed to perform two more flights: In the first he traveled 82 meters in seven seconds. In the second, he managed 220 meters in 21 seconds, flying well above the crowd (out of ground effect) and winning Archdeacon Prize, established for the first to fly over 100 m distance. This last flight could last longer, but it had to be interrupted when the crowd precipitated under the flying machine, the pilot deciding to abort the experiment. Note: All this flights was done with absolute no ground equipment, such as catapult or ground engine. This fact, registered in a session of Aeroclub de France, on December, 1910 as "the first Aviator of the universe to fly in an motor airplane", was remembered too, by the Archdeacon Prize itself, and a Monument on Bagatelle with the inscriptions:
"Ici le 12 novembre 1906, sous le controle de l'Aero-Club de France, Santos-Dumont a établi les premiers records d'áviation du monde. Durée 21s 1/5 Distance 220 m"
(Translation: Here, on November 12th, 1906, under control of Aero-Club de France, Santos-Dumont established the first Aviation Record of the world. Duration: 21 sec 1/5 Distance 220 meters).
Well, I'm only 42 years old, I didn't experience those events myself. But everybody can research on all available documents in libraries and newspapers. History (yes, real History!) tells us through dozens of European and a fistful of American newspapers what really happened. And what happened wasn't a whisper message to my neighbor in a silly game, but a strong shout that traveled over the ocean at that time, and is echoing until the present days...
By the truth.
Yours sincerely,
Capt. Roberto Rodrigues Mola
Sao Paulo - Brazil
P.S. Santos-Dumont donated all the money from all the prizes he won to his faithful mechanics, in order to reacquire their tools given to pawn. Santos-Dumont was an idealist, aviation passionate, and never requested a patent for his machines, giving for nothing all the plans for 14-Bis and Demoiselle construction to anybody who requested them.
