Talk:Aida de Acosta

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Women's History Mid‑importance

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First woman to fly powered aircraft?

Several newspaper reports state that Rose Isabel Spencer, the wife of Stanley Spencer (aeronaut), piloted a powered airship in London on 14 July 1902.[1] [2] I intend to add this fact to the article while retaining Aida de Costa's claim, as both seem to be supported only by press accounts. Alansplodge (talk) 22:08, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems off that this source [3] says "Mrs Santos Dumont once promised Ms. Roosevelt that she should be the first woman to navigate the airship". Mr. Santos Dumont wasn't married though. Popish Plot (talk) 13:48, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Santos-Dumont wrote his own account of the occasion in 1904.

This appears in his 1904 book My Airships, at the end of a chapter recounting his experiences with the No. 9, on pages 301–302.

... The cruise of the "No. 9" on this occasion was, naturally, a short one; but the other, in which the first woman to mount, accompanied or unaccompanied, in any air-ship, actually mounted alone and drove the "No. 9" free from all human contact with its guide rope for a distance of considerably over a kilometre (half-mile), is worthy of preservation in the annals of aerial navigation.
The heroine, a very beautiful young Cuban lady, well known in New York society, having visited my station with her friends on several occasions, confessed an extraordinary desire to navigate the air-ship.
"Would you have the courage to be taken up in the free air-ship with no one holding its guide rope?" I asked. "Mademoiselle, I thank you for the confidence."
"Oh, no," she said; "I do not want to be taken up. I want to go up alone and navigate it freely, as you do."
I think that the simple fact that I consented on condition that she would take a few lessons in the handling of the motor and machinery speaks eloquently in favour of my own confidence in the "No. 9." She had three such lessons, and then on 29th June 1903, a date that will be memorable in the Fasti of dirigible ballooning, rising from my station grounds in the smallest of possible dirigibles, she cried: "Let go all!"
From my station at Neuilly St James she guide-roped to Bagatelle. The guide rope, trailing some 10 metres (30 feet), gave her an altitude and equilibrium that never varied. I will not say that no one ran along beside the dragging guide rope, but, certainly, no one touched it until the termination of the cruise at Bagatelle, when the moment had arrived to pull down the intrepid girl navigator.

Though he doesn't name de Acosta, his identification of her is consistent.

A point of explanation: the "guide rope" Santos-Dumont mentions, a term borrowed from ballooning, was a rope which trailed along the ground that he habitually used, not to lead the airship around, but to stabilize its height, through the rope's partially supported weight. A rise in height would cause more of the rope to dangle, increasing the airship's load and causing it to descend again, while a drop in height would leave more of the rope trailing on the ground, lessening the airship's load and causing it to rise.

--Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 08:54, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]