Although the Wright brothers resided in Dayton, Ohio, had their business there, and did nearly all the research and fabrication of their gliders and flyers there, they did their most important testing near Kittyhawk, NC, on the Outer Banks. For said testing, they needed reliably constant wind, some elevation (hillocks), and sand (softer landings). Also seclusion: a race was on, internationally, to be the first to fly. Thus the dunes of the NC coastal beaches. The first four powered heavier-than-air flights occurred on December 17th, 1903, but in the years prior to that, at Kittyhawk, the Wrights had conducted more than a thousand flights in the assortment of gliders they had constructed, exploring and solving many of the problems of lift, airfoils, turning and banking, control, and related issues; all this before adding power--a gasoline engine and propellers they themselves designed and built--to the mix. It is difficult to imagine all this occurring anywhere but a place like Kittyhawk...and North Carolina's claim of "First in Flight" is not as disingenuous as it might seem. The US National Park Service Wright Brothers Memorial Museum at Kittyhawk is excellent, both in telling the Wright brothers' story but also the stories of other early experiments in heavier-than-air flight, and of all the science and engineering involved in early flight.*
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| Helpful model of the campus |
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Big Kill Devil Hill--from which the glider experiments of 1901-1902
mostly were launched---surmounted now by the 1930 Wright Brothers
Memorial |
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| Orville's drafting kit and engineering manual |
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The very famous First Flight photo...12 seconds, little more than a hundred
feet; Orville at the "controls" |
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Replica of the first Flyer; the original was destroyed for flying by a gust
of wind after the fourth flight |
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| Scale model |
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| A new kind of propeller the Wrights invented |
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| The hangar and living quarters at Kittyhawk |
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| Reconstructed living quarters |
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The airfield as it was in 1903...the large stone on the left marks where
the launch rail was...the three stones to the right represent the first three
flights...each a dozen seconds or so, upwards of 150 feet |
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Launch area; note rail below; wheels would have been useless in the
North Carolina sand dunes |
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The clincher (according to me) was the fourth and final flight that day,
to the far fourth stone...852 feet, 59 seconds in duration, an altitude of 30 feet...
flying for sure! Wilbur the pilot |
*The Museum doesn't get into the patent wars the Wrights engaged in for the rest of their lives and which, most historians argue, stifled the development of American aviation until after WWI. American pilots flew French aircraft in that war....
