Many Brazilians credit Alberto Santos-Dumont, who made the first public flight in Europe three years after the Wrights flew at Kitty Hawk, simply because his aircraft sported wheels, while the Wrights took off from a monorail track.

The first significant, public flight of a powered airplane in Europe was made by Alberto Santos-Dumont on October 23, 1906. The Brazilian aviation pioneer flew his aircraft, the No. 14-bis, for a distance of 60 meters (197 feet) at the Bagatelle field in Paris. This flight won him the Archdeacon Prize for the first officially observed powered flight in Europe. While the Wright brothers had flown earlier in the US (1903), their flights were largely private and used a launching rail, whereas Santos-Dumont's plane was "fully self-propelled" and used wheels for takeoff. Another notable pioneer was Traian Vuia, a Romanian engineer who made short powered hops in France earlier in March 1906. However, Santos-Dumont is generally credited with the first sustained and witnessed flight, sparking an aviation revolution in Europe that led to the first cross-channel flight by Louis Blériot in 1909.