"Even in 1903 the airplane sustained itself in the air for nearly a minute. If it's not sustaining itself under its own power it's not going to stay up that long," Jakab says.
Even in France -- never a country too eager to agree with the US point of view -- the Wrights are considered to have flown before Santos-Dumont, says Claude Carlier, the director of the French Centre for the History of Aeronautics and Space.
"There's a strong nationalist issue at play here," says Marcos Villares, Santos-Dumont's great grandnephew. "Flight was a very important step in human history, in the history of technology. Every country wants to claim priority."
FATHER TIME?
But that is not to say that Santos-Dumont does not deserve recognition for his other contributions.
By rounding the Eiffel Tower in a motorized dirigible in 1901, he helped prove that air travel could be controlled and a practical means of transportation.
"Just to show that the flying machine was practical is an incredible achievement," says Hoffman, his biographer.
At his summer home in the Brazilian mountain town of Petropolis, tour guides perpetuate myths about Santos-Dumont -- such as how he invented the wristwatch.
Santos-Dumont experts deny that assertion, although they concede he was probably the first male civilian to use a watch after asking his friend Louis Cartier to make him a timepiece he could use while flying. Previously, only royalty and soldiers had used watches.
To this day, you can still buy the Santos-model Cartier watch for only a couple of thousand dollars.
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