Wrights and Wrongs
David Jordan recalls the career of the man Brazilians claim to have been the true pioneer of powered heavier-than-air flight.
As the world commemorates the centenary of Orville Wright’s flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17th, 1903, which is said to have inaugurated aeroplane flight, a Brazilian writer has suggested that the celebrations are three years premature. Rodrigo Moura Visoni, who has spent years researching the Wright brothers’ claim to be the first aviators, has strengthened evidence that what they flew in 1903 was not an aeroplane but a glider.
Documents collated by Moura Visoni seem to confirm that his fellow-countryman Albert Santos-Dumont has the more reliable claim as the world’s first heavier-than-air aviator.
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