The evolution of the airplane since the first flight of Santos-Dumont in 1906 rests on technological advances in many fields of Engineering. The airplane is more a product of Engineering than of Science. For instance, the Navier-Stokes equations that model the behavior of a body in relative motion to a fluid were derived in early 19 century. However, these equations could only be properly solved with the advent of the digital computer.
In the beginning, Aviation development was in many ways a technology of the elite — most elite exhibition fliers, military aviators, and wealthy hobbyists. Their exploits may have thrilled the masses, but for most Aviation was a spectator activity, not a part of everyday life. Exception was made for Santos-Dumont, Farman, Voisin brothers, Blériot, and Wright brothers. All these extraordinary men and other not enlisted here envisaged the Aviation taking an important role in mankind life. Santos-Dumont was the only one who did not look at Aviation as a personal commercial enterprise. Although the rich Dumont himself did not take part in any commercial enterprise, he was aware of the commercial impact of Aviation on the world’s economy and of its potential as warfare.
Therefore, it is easy to recognize that the Internet has enabled a large amount of collaborative projects on a global scale. However, collaborative work in an open source fashion is not new. Indeed, it already took place in Europe at the dawn of Aviation, namely in France. That kind of ambience at that time can be credited to the ideals of the French Revolution. Contrary to this, in the United States, the development of the Aviation encompassed the spirit of the English Revolution. It was business-oriented with people working in secrecy with no or few exchanging of ideas and information. That is the reason why Europe was ahead of America concerning aircraft technology before World War I broke out and a patent war started in the United States among their Aviation pioneers. The meeting between Santos-Dumont and Thomas Edison can be considered confront by English versus French revolutions. Although resulting inconclusive, the meeting revealed the working ambiences prevailing in both continents, North America and Europe. Probably, this talk had exercised some influence on Dumont moving towards airplanes instead remaining in the airship battlefield.
Although a cooperative atmosphere in Europe in the dawn of Aviation was established and widespread, no collective decision concerning the design of airplanes was made. Most of aviation pioneers freely shared their concepts and even entire designs but acted someway independently. A combination of open-source philosophy and collective decision really did not take place in Europe.
Octave Chanute had warned the Wrights that the Aviation world was catching up, especially in France. Thus, Wilbur Wright went to Europe in 1907 and established a workshop to continue improving the flyer concept. His brother remained in the United States to establish business with the American armed forces. Orville Wright carried out the first successful public demonstration of flyer in May 1908, when he registered the first passenger aboard a flight machine. However, Europeans went a step ahead of this: in January 1908, Henri Farman was recognized by Aéro-Club de France as the first aviator to perform a kilometer-long flight. In June 1908, Glenn Curtiss was acclaimed the winner of prize established by the Scientific American magazine for the first 1-km flight in straight line in the United States. The Wright brothers did not take part in the competition. Concerning the happenings in Europe, Wilbur was only able to get the flyer airborne in August 1908. These flights did not impress the European aeronautical community and their machine, and they did not deliver the performance the brothers had promised. After incorporating European technology, outstanding flights took place in late 1908 (Flight-Global, 1909b) and the brothers’ European flyer was the basic airplane they were able to sell to the US armed forces in 1909. In addition, American pilots were at controls of French and British airplanes in World War I. The Americans also mass-produced British airplanes under license in the United States during and immediately after World War I. A good example of this is the British bomber DeHlavilland DH 4, of which 4,346 exemplars left assembly lines in the United States.
How was the spirit of French Revolution put into practice by the Aviation pioneers? Part of the answer is related to the coming on the scene of the Aéro-Club de France (French Air Club). The Aéro-Club de France was founded in 1898 to organize, support, and regulate all efforts to make Aviation an everyday reality. There were already several claims and flight attempts concerning a heavier-than-air machine, balloons flights had become a fad, and there were people and enterprises building and manufacturing airships. Then, people that founded the Aéro-Club de France promptly elaborated rules to testify the first man to fly an airplane. The men behind this initiative were E. Archdeacon, L. Serpollet, J. Verners, M. de Dion, H. de La Vaulx, and Santos-Dumont. The Aéro-Club de France was a basic concept that all other similar air clubs followed suit. Henry Deutsch de La Meurthe (1846-1919) was a tycoon of the petroleum sector and became a sponsor
