Tour the Demoiselle
Main Landing Gear
The landing gear of the Demoiselle was pretty standard fare
for its day. The frame is connected to the gear directly. Very
light, very frail wheels, so you had to land very gently. They're
basically bicycle wheels. And the advantage of where the pilot sat
is where he could stretch out and use his hands to stop the
airplane. It's always a good thing to be able to do that if you're
landing kind of quickly. And you'll notice that Santos-Dumont
usually wore gloves when he flew the airplane, for protection when
he grabbed the wheels to slow down.