Wright Brothers First Flight
Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first successful flight in history near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Wrights needed a place with wide-open spaces and long strong steady winds and among the
a few places were Kitty Hawk, a small fishing village on an isolated strip of beach on the Mid-Atlantic coast.
This took place between 1899 and 1905- The program of aeronautical research and experimentation led to the great invention of powered airplanes in the year 1903 into the practical flying machine two years later. After that, all the airplanes incorporated the basic design elements of the 1905 Wright Flyer.
1. Where Did the First Flight of an Aircraft Take Place?
- A. Kitty Hawk
- B. Raleigh
- C. Wilmington
- D. Charlotte
Facts about the First Airplane
- The Wright Brothers built the first-ever self-powered airplane and the first flight occurred on December 17, 1903.
- The brothers are also credited for solving the ‘flying problem’ when they invented the ‘3-axis control’ that meant pilots were able to steer their airplanes whilst in flight.
- The brothers used to fly gliders and each glider that they built had a different wingspan or a different wing shape in hope that each glider would become more aerodynamic and would stay up in the air for longer.
- More than 700 flights were made by the Wright Brothers in their gliders.
- The Wright Brothers called their plane ‘Wright Flyer’
- The Wright Flyer I cost less than $1000 to build.
- The weather was very windy, with icy gusts of 43km/h on the day of the flight.
- The most commonly used textbook photo of the Wright Flyer I is the one with Orville Wright flying the plane.
- The plane made 4 flights in total and on the 4th flight wind caused the plane to flip over and it was totally damaged. The plane could not be flown again.
- The Wright Flyer I is currently at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.