NOVA | Wings of Madness | TV Program Description | PBS

 In the early 1900s, the most acclaimed celebrity in Europe, and arguably the world, was a fashionable, frail, Brazilian-born aviator named Alberto Santos-Dumont. The first to fly an airplane in Europe, Santos also built and flew the first practical dirigibles, or powered balloons. At a period when most balloons were at the mercy of the wind and many still thought the airplane an impossibility, Santos's bold exploits created a sensation. He was the spiritual father of aviation, and at the same time, a flying P.T. Barnum, intrepidly demonstrating his incredible flying machines in Paris, London, New York, and St. Louis.

But Santos's burst of glory was short-lived. When the secretive Wright brothers finally unveiled their flying machine in France in 1908, Wilbur's piloting skills dazzled the public and instantly eclipsed Santos's fame. Over the next three decades, Santos slipped gradually into illness and despair until he finally committed suicide, tormented by knowing that the airplane, which he believed to be his invention, had become a lethal weapon of war.

Based on the acclaimed biography by Paul Hoffman, "Wings of Madness" tells the colorful and tragic life of this neglected pioneer,…

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