One of his first trials with a heavier-than-air machine was made
with a huge glider, which was fitted with floats. The curious
craft was towed along the River Seine by a fast motor boat named
the Rapiere, and it actually succeeded in rising into the air and
flying behind the boat like a gigantic kite.

12th November, 1906, is a red-letter day in the history of
aviation, for it was then that Santos Dumont made his first
little flight in an aeroplane. This took place at Bagatelle, not
far from Paris.

Two months before this the airman had succeeded in driving his
little machine, called the Bird of Prey, many yards into the air,
and "11 yards through the air", as the newspapers reported; but
the craft was badly smashed. It was not until November that
the first really satisfactory flight took place.

A description of this flight appeared in most of the European
newspapers, and I give a quotation from one of them: "The
aeroplane rose gracefully and gently to a height of about 15 feet
above the earth, covering in this most remarkable dash through
the air a distance of about 700 feet in twenty-one seconds.

"It thus progressed through the atmosphere at the rate of nearly
30 miles an hour. Nothing like this has ever been accomplished
before. . . . The aeroplane has now reached the practical stage."

The dimensions of this aeroplane were: