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Exactly 109 years ago today, Orville and Wilbur Wright took their first successful flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. With Orville as pilot, they were the first to give man the heavier-than-air, self-powered wings that allowed them to soar 120 ft in 12 seconds and tear Icarus a new one in the process.
After their groundbreaking achievement, they walked the four miles back to Kitty Hawk to send this telegram to their father:
Success four flights Thursday morning all against twenty-one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas.
It wasn’t long before the rest of the world realized the significance of the Wrights’ new contraption; they entered a contract with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and were testing “Military Flyers” just a year later. The U.S. Post Office, too, realized its potential and created the Air Mail Service in 1918 (which subsequently gave us transcontinental routes and runway lighting).
The above photo, which documents their first lift off the ground, was taken by John T. Daniels of the Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving station. One of the most incredible things about this image is that, with it, Daniels managed to capture the exact moment that technological and societal history would change forever. [The Atlantic]
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“Over 100 years ago today”
Will we be getting the same post for the next 100 years?
Every single day.
Why is it the 109th anniversary and nobody is making a fuss?
[brazilian mode ON] It was Santos Dumont!!!! [brazilian mode OFF]
Oh come on, give the Kiwis their credit. Richard Pearse made several flights in early 1903, including one of several hundred metres, 9 months before the Wright brothers. Yeah, he crashed into a hedge at the end, but he was the first….
But its easy to take off when you’re upside down, it’s hanging onto the ground so you don’t that’s difficult!
Plus his plane had all the bits in the right places
It was the Brits! From Wikipedia:
Sir Hiram Maxim made a number of experiments in Britain, eventually building an enormous 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) machine with a wingspan of 105 feet (32 m), powered by two advanced lightweight steam engines which delivered 180 hp (134 kW) each. Maxim built it to study the basic problems of construction, lift and propulsion. He used a 1,800 feet (550 m) track with a second set of restraining rails for test runs. After a number of tests, on 31 July 1894 he started a series of runs at increasing power settings. The first two were successful, with the craft lifting off the track. In the afternoon the crew of three fired the boilers to full power, and after reaching a speed of over 42 mph (68 km/h) about 600 feet (180 m) down the track the machine produced so much lift it broke one of restraining rails and crashed after flying at a low altitudes for about 200 feet (61 m).