He commissioned the constructor Henri Lachambre, of the firm Lachambre & Machuron, to build what he aimed to be the smallest free balloon ever built, with a 113 m3 hydrogen chamber, 6 metres (20 ft) in diameter and a total weight of 27.5 kilograms (61 lb).

[1][2][3] Before flying in Brésil, Henri Lachambre's team let Santos Dumont make ascents in both France and Belgium as a way of gaining experience.

[4] According to Godin da Fonseca [pt], Santos Dumont was influenced to build his first balloon when he followed the Paris-Amsterdam car race in 1897.

[12] The aeronaut also described that the balloon was "...beautiful in its transparency, like a big soap bubble.

[18] Dias 2006 describes that because of his innovations in developing a balloon of reduced size and cost, Santos Dumont "...would have made a great contribution to aeronautics," even if he had only created the Brésil.