Tour the Demoiselle
Tail Skid
Santos-Dumont tried several different designs of the
Demoiselle. Some of them had a tail wheel. Some had a skid
and a tail wheel. This example of the #20 has just the
tail skid, and it resembles a little bit of an umbrella handle, if
you will. Made of steel tubing just heated up and bent round, and
then braced with some wire to keep it from breaking off of the
airplane. You'll notice that there's a little structure just before
the curve on the bottom. And that's fastened to the frame so that as
the airplane rolls forward it wouldn't pull the tail skid off.