History Who Really Invented the Airplane Part 3 - Trivia-Library.com - 0 views
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ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT
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In 1897 he flew in a balloon for the first time and thereafter became one of the foremost balloonists in France.
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In 1905 he built an airplane consisting of three box kites connected to each other by bamboo poles, powered by a steam engine.
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Orville and Wilbur Wright, the sons of a midwestern minister, displayed a high mechanical aptitude even in their youth. This, coupled with investigative natures, made Orville (1871-1948) and Wilbur (1867-1912) ideal inventors. By their early twenties they had built a printing press and designed a new bicycle, which they also manufactured. They became interested in flight by reading about the glider experiments of German aerialist Otto Lilienthal.
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By December of 1903, the brothers were back at Kitty Hawk with their first powered airplane, a double-winged, box kite-shaped contraption with an undercarriage attached to a stationary monorail track. On Dec. 17 Orville stretched out in the middle of the lower wing and took off on a 12-sec., 120-ft. flight. That same day, Wilbur flew for 59 sec., covering 852 ft.