In 1902, after winning the Deutsch prize the previous year, Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos Dumont left for Monaco to conduct a series of experiments with his airship, which were described as having the sole purpose of gathering information for the inventor.
Between January 28 and February 14, 1902 Santos Dumont made 5 flights, with the last one ending in an accident in the Bay of Monaco.
Background
In 1901, Santos Dumont won the Deutsch prize after circling the Eiffel Tower with the airship No. 6. Displeased by the controversial award ceremony and exhausted by media attention, Santos Dumont resigned from the Aéro-Club de France and accepted an invitation from Prince Albert I of Monaco with Duc de Dino as intermediary, after having begun negotiations in late October, to work in Monaco. In part, he also accepted the invitation because of the climate in Paris at that time of year and due to the fact that the Prince of Monaco would build an Aerodrome and finance his experiments.
His goals in Monaco were to prove the airship's military utility over water, due to military analysts having suggested that airships could perform reconnaissance missions for the navy, as well as a possible crossing from France to Corsica in February 1902.
Experiments
Preparation
Santos Dumont had arrived in Monaco at the end of January 1902, when the Aerodrome, built on Boulevard de la Condamine and occupying the areas called the "Radziwill Lands", was already complete. The hydrogen production plant was built in one month Which, added to the time it took to build the Aerodrome, was a three-month process. It was a solid construction, to avoid the same fate as the French Aerodrome in Toulon, which was carried away by storms.
The Aerodrome was 182 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 50 feet high. The doors were 50 feet high by 17 feet wide and weighed 9680 pounds, making them the largest ever built at the time, breaking a world weight record and being the responsibility of Santos Dumont's engineer-builder, Mr. Cabiraut. Despite their dimensions, the balance was such that on the day of the Aerodrome's opening they were opened by Princes Constantinesco and Marescotti Ruspoli, aged 8 and 10 respectively.
The hydrogen plant, between Louis and Antoinette Streets, held six metric tons of sulfuric acid along with the same amount of iron filings that, when mixed, created eight cubic meters of hydrogen per hour, allowing the airship to be inflated in ten hours. The public panicked when the Bay of Monaco turned red on January 22, 1902, which led to the suspension of the process and Santos Dumont had to explain to the authorities that the material released was only rust and harmless to marine life, and that it had passed through three stages of purification before being released.
1st flight
The first flight took place on January 28, 1902, with Santos Dumont, who almost fell into the sea on takeoff, entered Monaco Bay and then returned to the Aerodrome at high speed, having stayed between 32 and 164 feet from the sea during the whole process. The first experiment soon pointed out the shortcomings of the landing mode: due to the sea wall, the crew responsible for helping the airship land was in a difficult situation due to the height of the obstruction. So it was proposed to place a landing platform just above this area. Despite this, Santos Dumont was able to approach the sea-wall, turn off the engine, and enter with the natural thrust of the airship over the crowd watching the flight. The flight was 30 minutes long and about six thousand people watched the experiment.
2nd flight
The same afternoon a second flight took place that more than signaled the difficulties of landing and after the Prince proposed to knock down the sea-wall, this time Santos Dumont proposed to create a landing platform, which was accomplished after twelve days of work and during construction occurred one of the rare public appearances of Empress Eugénie, widow of Napoleon III. The second flight lasted 45 minutes and Prince Albert I recognized the risk of the airship maneuvering so close to the city, due to the chance of a wind hurling it against houses.
3rd flight
The third flight took place on February 10, 1902, where they soon noticed the ease in launching that the platform offered. The airship took off with ease and was soon heading for the ocean, with the maritime guide-rope being dragged in the water as a stabilizer and staying within 164 feet meters of the ocean. The flight lasted about one hour.
The distance Santos Dumont traveled during these experiments was greater than when he circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower, as well as being able to face high-speed winds.