By S. Mark Rhodes

Santos-Dumont helped make aviation into a spectator sport in the early 20th century (Abrams)Alberto Santos-Dumont is the most influential early aviation pioneer you (probably) never heard of; equally urbane and enigmatic, Santos-Dumont lived like a character out of a Jules Verne novel, taking his flying machines out to shop, have coffee (with his good friend Louis Cartier with whom he helped develop one of the first popular wristwatches) or for a quick trip around the Eiffel Tower.

Santos-Dumont’s charming, full life and contributions to aviation are well chronicled in Victoria Griffith’s The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont (Abrams Books for Young Readers).  Ms. Griffith was nice enough to correspond with In Flight USA’s Mark Rhodes about (among other things) her book, Santos-Dumont’s life and times, the illustrations of her artist collaborator Eva Montanari and whether Santos-Dumont would have been good company.