"Man can fly". Santos-Dumont used to say this sentence while playing with friends in his childhood.

His aviation affair begun in flying and building lighter-than-air vehicles, until once the brazilian inventor managed to give them dirigibility, and fly around the Eiffel Tower, on that memorable noon of October 19th, 1901 when he conquered the "Deutsche de la Meurth" prize.



Once he solved the problem of steering the lighter-than-air vehicle, Santos-Dumont devoted himself to the heavier-than-air problem.

Initially for testing the perfect conditions of lift and balance, Santos-Dumont coupled his plane to the "Number 14" dirigible, so this was the reason the plane was named "14-bis".



The directional surfaces including the elevators were placed at the very frontal extremity of the airplane, in a contrary conception of the nowadays ways. Its wings were in the back, plus the tractor engine, while the "tail" was forward. Everything including the pilot had a weight of about 460 lb. The surfaces were made of japanese silk, covering a bamboo airframe that used aluminum joints. The control surfaces cables were made of high quality steel, the same kind used by watchmakers in the churches' big clocks. The frenchmen nicknamed that strange machine of "canard", due its resemblance with a duck. The englishmen called it "bird of prey".

With this plane, Santos-Dumont managed to do, on October 23rd, 1906, the first "mechanical flight" of the world, truly homologated, reaching a distance of 60 meters and a height of 2 to 3 marts. Therefore, Santos-Dumont solved the problem of flying a machine heavier-than-air: the "14-bis" doing a run over the Bagatelle field, taking-off from the ground, flying in a straight line and then landing, without any damage.

The significant aerodynamic feature of the "14-bis" was that it had ailerons mounted between the wings, their first use in a powered airplane.

The other original feature of the "14-bis" is that it was the first, and probably the only, plane in history in which the pilot controlled it from a standing position. Santos-Dumont had always stood in his powered balloon flights, and he seemed to regard flying as a chivalrous sport so perhaps he thought that to sit down was somehow ungentlemanly. For whatever reason, once the ailerons were added Santos-Dumont made use of his standing position to control them by wires attached to his jacket. Leaning to the left and right in this way, he is described as using 'samba-like movements' to keep control in the 1906 flight!

Power Plant: 1 "Antoinette" V8 gasoline piston-engine (24 Hp at 1,000 RPM that was upgraded to 50 Hp 1,500 RPM after the first unsuccessful flight attempt)

Fuel capacity: 5 US gal (estimated)
Weight empty: 320 lb
Weight full: 463 lb
Wingspan: 40 ft
Length: 32.8 ft
Maximum ceiling: unknown
Maximum speed: 40 mph

This is a view from the cockpit (basket) of this plane model.

I gave four full lemons in grading the modeling of this plane because for the first time I had to abandon the use of Plane-Maker and do a lot of the modeling by entering nodes coordinates of many parts by hand, in a txt file, not WYSIWYG fashion if you care. It was the only way to got those many "vertical" surfaces that there are in between the wings made.

You can see at the following blown-up view of the model, highlighted by different colors, the many parts I had to conform in very complex shapes, just to accomplish that endeavor.

Once again I did add the pilot's figure, but this time it was a need because this plane had not a closed cockpit, indeed it had no cockpit.

There were two features implemented in a different way because X-Plane currently has not the option needed: the frontal control quadrant in the actual plane is a solid piece that moves in both axis simultaneously, but I had to use independent horizontal and vertical surfaces in the model; secondly, the ailerons in between the wings could not be modeled (they were full movable surfaces) and there are no exceeding wing to be used, so I made them part of the main upper wing.

Although there are these differences the plane behavior is very alike what it might have been in the actual airplane, and yes, it is a very difficult to fly airplane. Thanks whom had the idea to turn all airplanes the other way, flying with the tail at last :)

Almost everything here done by me: Marcelo M. Marques - codename 31 M.M.M
mmarques@frontier.com.br