Modern No. 19 Demoiselle
Modern No. 19 Demoiselle
I was excited when I learned the Wings Over Miami Air Museum was keeping a modernized version of Alberto Santos-Dumont’s No. 19 Demoiselle — the 1908 design which was ahead of its time. Santos-Dumont was written about in the previous week so let us look more closely at the aircraft I recently photographed. It looks very much like the original but with subtle, though significant, design changes:
- The airframe made of aluminum tubes, not wood and bamboo
- The empennage is conventional, no longer a unit attached to a universal joint
- Ailerons have taken the place of wing warping
This aircraft must be a joy to see in flight like the one in the 1965 film, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes.
The modernized No. 19 Demoisselle — photo by Joseph May
The pilot must have a remarkable view beneath during flight — photo by Joseph May
Ailerons, not wing warping as in the original design — photo by Joseph May
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Suzette Rice of the Wings Over Miami Air Museum (see comment below from her) notified us of Fernando Botelho’s untimely death. He was a great man who accomplished many things — please see the next post which is about him and the accident which took his life.
Hi Joe,
Thank you for the wonderful shots of the Demoiselle. Unfortunately, the plane is upstate at this time. The owner of it (Fernando Botelho) passed away in an accident in Brazil not long after this year’s Sun n Fun. The Demoiselle was traveling around the state on display and has not come back to our museum.
Oh Suzie, that is such sad news. Thanks for the update on the owner — I looked him up and see that he contributed a lot with regard the aviation’s history not only having these Demoiselle aircraft made but also having them flown to various museums and the like.