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Title: My Airships: The Storyof My Life by Alberto Santos-Dumont by Alberto Santos-Dumont, Adam Starchild ISBN: 0-89875-245-0 Publisher: University Press of the Pacific Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: It is not who the first was that counts!
Comment: Guess what? I am another passionate Brazilian spending sometime commenting on Santos Dumont. ...and of course I want to be included among those who agree that Santos Dumont was the first to really fly a heavier than air (without catapults).
Why do I think so? Just because I am a Brazilian and that was the way I was taught in school. Yes, Brazilian school. Like in the US you go to school and learn that the Wright Brothers were the first, in Brazil we also go to school, but we learn that Santos Dumont was the first.
Does it matter all about the Write Brothers' case? Not more than it matters whether Santos Dumont made that "first flight on December 23rd, 1906 before a huge crowd on Bagatelle Field, Paris, with full press and media coverage and movie recording and that It was an Official Experiment, homologated by Aero Club de France members present at the meeting." No, it does not matter. Why not? Because like Theodore Roosevelt said "It is not the critic who counts*".
It is not who the first was that counts! Santos Dumont and the Wright Brothers were conquerors, while you and I and all these people trying to defend one or the other are just a bunch of critics, who does not count at all.
Whether the Americans "explained their position with unassailable logic" or the Brazilians go with our "way of recounting history that isn't quite so dependent on a timeline", this is just a cultural difference.
In my opinion Santos Dumont x Write Brothers is analogous to Brazilian x American culture. Americans will never prove to Brazilians and Brazilians will never prove to Americans.
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." by Theodore Roosevelt.
Rating: 5
Summary: Forgotten aviation pioneer
Comment: Although the achievements of Santos-Dumont (1873-1932) are not widely appreciated today, a ring of familiarity still clings to his name from the days when he was one of the most famous men in the world. Probably more flamboyant than any other figure in the history of aviation, he was the first man to succeed, not once but time after time, in leaving the ground, flying through the air to a place of his own choosing, and landing safely. Around the turn of the century he was the most prominent of all the early aviators, and his balloons, dirigibles and (later in his career) heavier-than-air craft were frequently to be seen in the air around his beloved city of Paris.
At the height of his first fame and triumphs, when he was 30 years old, Santos-Dumont dashed off an intriguing and delightful book about himself and his work, Dans l'Air (immediately translated as My Airships), published in 1904. In it he tells of his childhood in Brazil, his early fascination with machinery and passion for the novels of Jules Verne, his early success in France as an enthusiastic automobilist, his first balloon ascent in 1893, his famous balloon Brazil, and the joys and trials of his first ten dirigibles (1898-1904). Referring to himself as "inventor, patron, manufacturer, amateur, mechanician and airship captain all united," his egocentric but nonetheless admirable personality imbues the whole account with grace, whether he is praising the joys of lunching in a spherical balloon or describing one of his numerous hair-raising scrapes with death while navigating the air.
Today, this book appeals to us as a delightful evocation of the age he lived in, with all the romance of early aeronautics. Prize competitions, brief touch-downs at a café for refreshments, and the near-slapstick crash landings that somehow can't be taken seriously are only a few of the exciting elements of Santos-Dumont's account. Information on early aviation, excitement, evocation of the turn of the century, and lively, passionate writing on a fascinating subject; and all of these will captivate and enthrall any reader in the pages of this extraordinary book.
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Title: Man Flies: The Story of Alberto Santos-Dumont, Master of the Balloon, Conqueror of the Air by Nancy Winters ISBN: 0880016361 Publisher: Ecco Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air Travel by Douglas Botting ISBN: 0805064583 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Airship Aerodynamics: Technical Manual by War Department ISBN: 1410206149 Publisher: University Press of the Pacific Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: To Conquer the Air : The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight by James Tobin ISBN: 0684856883 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Unlocking the Sky: Glen Hammond Curtiss and the Race to Invent the Airplane by Seth Shulman ISBN: 0060196335 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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