Alberto Santos Dumont, Brazilian aviator and inventor (Palmira, today Santos Dumont, Minas Gerais State 20 July 1873 – Guarujá, São Paulo State 23 July 1932)

Of French descent

IMPROVEMENTS/INVENTIONS

More than 20 inventions related to ballons, dirigibles, monoplanes and biplanes

Many inventions in field of mechanics  

Discovered and comproved balloons dirigibility and their motion in the air without requiring winds force (1898)

Performed the first mechanical flight in the world (with 14-bis) and developed the first flight simulator (1906)

Introduced main landing gear unit in airplanes

Stablished stabilizer function to mooring cable and developed flight stabilizers

Produced propellers, aluminium compounds and other materials

Placed gasoline engines in dirigibles

Invented hangar with sliding doors (1900) and  Demoiselle 20, the first hang-glider (1909)

First to employ engines (1898) and illuminating gas (1899) to ballons (Amerique balloon, the first use of petrol engine in aviation (1898))

Developed the precursor of ailerons

Introduced landing wheels, dihedron and nose to airplanes

The artificial horizon for pilots guidance

The utilization of rubber dampers   

Improvements in carburetors and magnets 

Invented opposed-piston engine   

Built an airplane with aquatic slipper (hydroavion forerunner) 1907 

Improvements in aircraft construction techniques

Invented life-saver cannon, that throw safety buoys  

Conceived Marciano, a motor that aid skiers motion 

A kind of knapsack for individual flight

Platform shoes 

Half stairs

An engine that produces electric power

Wrist watch for men (1904)

A mechanism for take edible baits before racing dogs

Designed and built the first automobile with the best power to weight ratio until then (1897) 

Pantographic door 

HONORS

Lunar Santos Dumont crater

Deutsche Prize (1901)

TRIVIA

Invited to meet US President Theodore Roosevelt in White House (1904)