siderealApr 6, 2025

Reading the autobiography of my idol, Alberto Santos=Dumont.

He was a Brazilian inventor who designed and flew the first practical airplane.

The Wright Bros achieved the first powered, heavier than air flight. A huge deal! Alberto met & collaborated with them, and used their wing warping system for his plane.

But the Wright Bros flyer could only launch from a rail. It had to be retrieved and rolled back to the starting point.

Alberto's could land in any flat field and take off again.

Show threadDavid Fetter
@sidereal the Wright brothers seized onto the one thing they'd come up with and tried for decades to assert that they owned heavier-than-air flight in toto. They did immense damage to other attempts to innovate in the flying space. Eventually, they lost, but that was cold comfort to the people crushed in the process.
Apr 6, 2025 at 4:26pmWeb