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Alberto Santos-Dumont[Alber´too sAn´toozh-dUmON´] Pronunciation Key, 1873–1932, Brazilian aeronaut. From 1891 to 1928 he lived in France. A pioneer in the development of aircraft, he was the first to construct and fly (1898) a gasoline-powered airship, the predecessor of the modern blimp. He built several other lighter-than-air craft, winning in one a prize for a round-trip flight between Saint-Cloud and the Eiffel Tower (1901). At Neuilly, France, he established in 1903 the first airship base. In 1905 he turned to the construction of airplanes and in 1909 built a successful small monoplane.
See his autobiography (tr. 1973).
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