Thu, Aug 04, 2016
During Our AirVenture Walkabout We Spotted Something That Looked Like An Ultralight From The Distant Past
As the ANN crew stomped around the grounds at Oshkosh looking for stories, taking pictures, attending press conferences, and creating our video programming, we saw lots of things that were not the big news stories but still got spotted by various staffers from their various viewpoints regarding AirVenture, and aviation.
One of our staffers, who has a particular interest in light sport aviation and ultralight aviation, jumped on a tram and headed south to the ultralight field to see what was going on. According to this ‘flyer of flivvers,’ there was a lot of activity and it looked to him like things are picking up in the world of ultralights.
One of the ultralights he found down in the AirVenture Fun Fly Zone almost looks typical until you got a closer look. It’s actually a look-alike of the 1908 Demoiselle No.23 built by the early pioneer aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont. The version seen at Oshkosh has the same overall appearance but is actually constructed of modern materials. Unfortunately, we never got to see it fly, but it certainly looked like it had the right proportions to be a good little aircraft.
Santos Dumont was an aviation experimenter from Brazil who made his fame while experimenting with aircraft in Europe. His early experiments involved balloons and rigid airships but by 1905 he was experimenting with powered aircraft. He holds the claim to being the first person to fly a powered airplane in Europe in 1906.
Santos-Dumont was a prolific experimenter and entrepreneur. He went into production with his little ultralight style aircraft called the Demoiselle and 1908. He has been generally credited with being the first person to place an aircraft in production in Europe.
(Image by ANN at AirVenture 2016)
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