Amanda Wright Lane with Mario Villares (left) and Fernando Botelho (right.)

Note: Some links here are to Portuguese-language sites.

SAU PAULO, BRAZIL—A descendent of the Wright brothers met her counterpart to Brazil´s most famous air pioneer on May 22 in advance of a major Brazilian air show.

Amanda Wright Lane, great-grandniece of Wilbur and Orville Wright, met Mario Villares, grandnephew of Alberto Santos-Dumont, at Sao Paulo Air Force Base adjacent to the civilian airport. The meeting took place minutes after Lane arrived from her hometown in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The meeting was arranged by Fernando Arruda Botelho. He is a Brazilian business executive and pilot who promotes Brazil´s aviation heritage internationally through his private foundation.

Through several interviews with Brazilian news media, Lane and Villares seemed determined to avoid a century-old dispute over who made the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air flying machine.

´´I would hope this day, today, is the opening of a new era. We are talking about airplanes. We are talking about pioneers,`` said Villares, of Sao Paulo, an engineer and retired steel-business executive.

He said Santos-Dumont´s pioneering work is virtually unknown in the United States and not widely known even in Brazil.

Lane said she admires Santos-Dumont´s passion for flight and the many ways he expressed it, designing both lighter-than-air and winged machines.

``He saw flying in so many ways,´´ she said.

Tuesday's press conference kicked off four days of aviation-related activities for Lane and Villares. Later on Tuesday, they toured the Wings of a Dream Museum in Sao Carlos, about 160 miles from Sao Paulo. (Map of Sao Paulo State.) The museum is owned by a private foundation managed by TAM Airlines, a Brazilian air carrier. On Wednesday, the Brazilian Air Force gave them royal treatment with a tour of its Air Force Academy. Lane gave a lecture detailing the Wright brothers' accomplishments. And on Thursday, they took part in the opening ceremonies for the annual Broa Fly-In, a private aviation expo and air show on Botelho's airport near Sao Carlos.

At the fly-in, Alan Calassa flew his 14bis, a replica of Santos-Dumont's first powered airplane, in formation with two of Botelho's Demoiselle lookalikes. The Demoiselle was a later Santos-Dumont design that resembles a modern ultralight. Underscoring the spirit of friendship, Lane climbed into Calassa's craft and posed for pictures with him and daughter Aline, who has also flown the machine.

Brazil recognizes Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian native who longed to fly and moved to France to study engineering in the late 1800s. He designed a series of powered lighter-than-air ships, then focused on winged flight and won a French prize for the first heavier-than-air powered flight in 1906.

The Wright brothers made their first powered flights at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903. They demonstrated a practical airplane on Huffman Prairie in Ohio in 1905, and received a U.S. flying-machine patent in 1906. But the claims of the two publicity-shy brothers were widely viewed with skepticism at the time, while Santos-Dumont had made a reputation with lighter-than-air flight and made his heavier-than-air flight in an official contest. Europe finally recognized the Wrights when Wilbur made their first public flights in Le Mans, France, in 1908.

The Brazilian Air Force revers Santos-Dumont as the father of Brazilian aeronautics, but little is known about the Wright brothers in South America's largest country. Likewise, Santos-Dumont is virtually unknown in the United States.

Botelho believes the Wrights and Santos-Dumont share a common heritage as air pioneers, and he wants people around the world to know about them and draw inspiration from their stories.

Lane, representing the Wright family, is making her first visit to Brazil at Botelho´s invitation. Botelho previously made two trips to the United States to promote Santos-Dumont.

His first visit was in 2005 to give a presentation about his foundation's project to build replicas of one of Santos-Dumont´s flying machines, a dainty, ultralight-like airplane dubbed the Demoiselle.

He returned in 2006 to display the completed replica at Sinclair Community College in downtown Dayton and make demonstration flights (watch my video) at Dayton Wright Brothers airport in concert with the Wright ``B´´ Flyer, a lookalike of the Wrights´1911 airplane, which is based there.

The National Air and Space Museum displayed the machine last October. (Watch video.)

``I admire Fernando´s efforts to have Brazil understand its aviation heritage and the fact he wants to connect all the aviation pioneers,`` Lane said. After his visits to Dayton, ``I´m more than happy to return the favor,´´ she said.

The fly-in featured impressive flights by Calassa in his 14bis, accompanied by two Demoiselle lookalikes — one piloted by Botelho. The closing act was a performance by the Brazilian Air Force's Smoke Squadron — the Esquadrilha da Fumaca — which is also scheduled to fly at the Dayton Air Show in July.

Photo Gallery