Anyone who boards a flight in São Paulo to make the main airlift in Brazil arrives in Rio de Janeiro through Santos Dumont Airport, opened in 1936. When passing through the arrivals hall – a large space with glass windows that allow a panoramic view of the landing and take-off runways, with the Guanabara Bay in the background – it is difficult not to notice a gigantic panel made by the artist from Rio de Janeiro, Cadmo Fausto. The Primordios da Avião portrays Santos Dumont’s flight with the 14-Bis, in Paris, under the eyes of onlookers, with the Eiffel Tower composing the scenery. Bust and panel in honor of the Father of Aviation, at Santos Dumont Airport, in Rio – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil At the main exit of the lobby, the traveler comes across a bust of Alberto Santos Dumont, made by the French artist Hugues Desmazieres. The panel, sculpture and baptism of the country’s first civil airport are tributes to the miner who completes 150 years of birth this Thursday (20). The birthplace itself, Palmyra, is yet another homage. In 1932 the city was renamed Santos Dumont. Alberto Santos Dumont is considered the Father of Aviation. Maximum recognition for the pioneering spirit of having managed to fly with a device heavier than air and with its own propulsion. The feat was at Campo de Bagatelle, in Paris, on October 23, 1906. Air Force non-commissioned officer Maurício Inácio da Silva, a historian at the Aerospace Museum (Musal), in Rio de Janeiro, states that Santos Dumont marked an era. “It was a period of many discoveries, many inventions in all areas. It made possible the flight of the heavier than air, the 14-Bis. For the time it was a success. What Santos Dumont did marked a generation, will stay forever and continues to collaborate a lot with the progress of humanity”, he told Agência Brasil. Life-size replica of the 14-Bis on display at the Museum of Tomorrow – Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil Pioneering abroad Passionate about innovation, Santos Dumont already collected aerial feats before flying the 14-Bis, such as the construction of a balloon – the smallest ever made for the ascension of a person on board, which flew for five hours, also in France, in July 1898. Dumont continued with his pioneering spirit, associating internal combustion engines with balloons, building ingenious rudders, which resulted in the airship. In 1901 he flew over Paris in one of them, drawing the attention of the Brazilian and world press. Living in Paris since he was 18, it was on the banks of the Seine River that he observed a detail that allowed him to evolve from balloons to the first model airplane. In 1905, Dumont was watching a speedboat race, when he realized that the vessel’s engine could be the power generator that would allow the self-propelled 14-Bis. An adaptation that after tests and failures proved to be sufficient for the 60-meter flight, at 3 meters in height the following year. The Brazilian continued with the development of his flying machine. In 1909, he took off in his Demoiselle plane, one of the first airplanes in the world, similar to an ultralight. Santos Dumont regulates Demoiselle – Photo reproduction Iara Venanzi/Itaú Cultural The Father of Aviation died in 1932. He ended his own life at the Grand Hotel La Plage, in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo. A disappointment with the military use of airplanes in the First World War (1914-1918) and also here in Brazil is pointed out as one of the reasons for Santos Dumont’s suicide. “When Santos Dumont launched himself with these inventions, he knew they could be used in war. But he saw the plane as an aerial observer for locating troops and for transporting people. In the First War, he was shocked by their use for bombing. National influence About 100 kilometers from Guarujá, where Santos Dumont lived his last days, is the city of São José dos Campos, in the interior of São Paulo. Since 1969, Embraer has operated there. A company created by the government in 1969 and privatized in 1994. The company is the Brazilian embodiment of Santos Dumont’s legacy, and is today the third largest manufacturer of commercial jets in the world, employing 18,000 people and having already delivered more than 8,000 aircraft. “As a patron of aviation and a pioneer of urban air mobility, Santos Dumont is a great reference and source of inspiration for all of us at Embraer. His genius and pioneering spirit inspire us to overcome, with the same determination and perseverance, the technological challenges of the aviation industry,” said Embraer President and CEO Francisco Gomes Neto to Agência Brasil. With the Demoiselle, Santos Dumont envisaged for the plane a mobility function similar to that of automobiles. He even used the invention to visit friends. This visionary behavior is another one that inspires Embraer today. The eVTOLS or flying cars have great inspiration in Santos Dumont – Publicity “His legacy of innovation is deeply rooted in our DNA. His innovative vision continues in the aircraft we design and new technologies we develop. One example is our current focus on the urban air mobility segment, through the development of 100% electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, the eVTOLS or ‘flying cars’, which are greatly inspired by Santos Dumont, who flew through the city of Paris more than a century ago”, explains Gomes Neto. Other innovations Santos Dumont’s visionary spirit leaves other influences. He was the developer of a hangar, a structure that became essential for the aeronautical industry. If the use of airplanes is not a daily reality for everyone, other ideas and customs of the miner are part of the lives of almost all of us. It was not he who invented it, but who popularized the use of the wristwatch. A more practical model for timing flights and which gained market share when used by the famous inventor. Another is the shower at his house, which used a bucket with perforations and a mechanism for mixing hot and cold water. The invention is at the Casa de Santos Dumont Museum, in Petrópolis, a tourist attraction in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, which is being reopened this Thursday (20), in celebration of the sesquicentennial. International Astronomical Union named Santos Dumont a crater on the Moon – Divulgation It is no exaggeration to say that the inventor is recognized even on the Moon. In 1973, as a tribute to the centenary of the Brazilian’s birth, the International Astronomical Union named Santos Dumont a crater on the Earth’s natural satellite. With 8.8 kilometers in diameter, the crater is 54 kilometers from the landing site of the Apollo 15 mission, in 1971, being the first to be named after a Brazilian and the only one on the visible side of the Moon. Open code Santos Dumont can also be considered a precursor of open source, a term in English that means open code, often mentioned in the computing environment. It is an intellectual property model that allows other inventors to “drink at the source” of an initial idea, allowing for improvements. The Demoiselle plane itself was improved upon by other entrepreneurs at the time. “One of the suppliers of engine parts wanted to patent, and Santos Dumont said: ‘No. I want to leave the rights open because it has to give other people a chance to research and develop the plane, so that we can bring better comfort, a better way of life to the population’, that’s what he wanted”, reports historian Maurício Inácio da Silva. Controversy For over a century there has been controversy over who is the real inventor of the airplane. Contemporaries of Dumont, the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright dispute the primacy, pointing to a feat in December 1903, in a flight propelled by a catapult, that is, it did not have self-propelled and had no record of witnesses. “[No caso de Dumont] everyone was there registering with photos. There was an international commission set up. There was a regulation that said that an airplane would only be the one that took off by its own means, while the Wright brothers were on a beach in the United States, with a super strong wind and using a catapult. They only appeared in Europe in 1908, when other competitors also had several inventions doing well”, says the Musal historian. Path for inventors Here in Brazil, inventors – individuals or companies – who need to register a new technology for a product or process, that is, to guarantee intellectual property, need to apply for a patent. Owning an invention means obtaining an exclusive right to commercially exploit the creation within a certain territory and for a limited time – 20 years, preventing others from copying or using it without your authorization. “With the patent, the applicant can obtain the economic and social benefits of his innovation”, he explained in an interview with Agência Brasil. Musskopf points out that products or processes can be protected. Other creations such as ideas, theories, selling and teaching methods cannot be patented. “The invention must meet the requirements of novelty, inventive activity and industrial application. This means that it must be new in the whole world, significantly different from what exists and have the possibility of being produced in any type of industry”, he details. International patent A patent is a territorial title, that is, the intellectual property titles issued by the INPI function to protect against “piracy” only within the country. To have international protection, you must apply for the patent in the countries or regions in which you want protection. But there are some international agreements that facilitate this process, such as the Paris Union Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). A single order is valid in several parts of the world. The PCT, for example, has 152 signatory countries, including Brazil. In the first five months of 2023, applicants from 67 countries applied for patent protection at the INPI. Among those who filed the most applications are the United States (31%), Brazil (18%), Germany (7%), Switzerland and China (6% each) and Japan (4%). Of the 1,747 requests from Brazilians, most are from individuals (38%), followed by medium and large companies (25%); teaching and research institutions and government (24%); and individual micro-entrepreneur, micro and small companies (12%). The patent application, after the secrecy period, has all the documentation available to the public, so that interested parties can make other developments based on the technology, to make products available on the market after the term of protection. “By patenting an invention, the inventor also contributes to the advancement of science and technology, as a patent can be a source of technical information for other researchers and inventors, stimulating the development of new solutions to humanity’s problems”, highlights Musskopf.
Agência Brasil
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