December 17, 1903. The Wright Brothers Achieve the First Powered Heavier than Air Flight.
Bicycle mechanics Wilbur and Orville Wright initially learned how to make a heavier than air machine take to flight by experimenting first with kites, and later with manned gliders. These devices needed better prevailing winds than those offered near their hometown of Dayton Ohio and so it was to Kitty Hawk North Carolina they resorted to conducting their tests.
Between trips to the coast, they worked in their Dayton shop to develop a suitable engine to power one of their gliders. By December 1903 they were ready and after several failures to get airborne, alternating as a pilot between them, Orville succeeded in making humanity’s first airplane flight of 120 feet, at the breathtaking speed of just under seven miles per hour.
Although photos exist of the event and the press announced it, sometimes in awestruck tones, a healthy skepticism remained. Many people simply did not believe that a man could fly. With the success of the engine, and with a more powerful version soon available, the Wrights no longer needed the winds at Kitty Hawk to boost them into the air. They withdrew from the public eye, remaining in Dayton, and built improved versions of their Flyer. They also used a nearby grassy wasteland known as Huffman Prairie to learn not only how to get airborne but to fly. Their absence from public view added to the disbelief in their success, although by then others had achieved at least basic flight as well.
In 1908 the brothers returned to the public view demonstrating their ability to fly and control an airplane for extended periods, changing altitude and direction at will, and returning to the point of takeoff. In September of that year, Orville made the first flight in history to exceed one hour in duration, and later that month was the pilot of a Flyer which crashed, causing aviation’s first fatality.
The brothers’ genius led to patents which later led to lawsuits, and despite possessing visual evidence of their first flight, disputes over who was actually first in the air. Their own absence from the scene while perfecting the basics of flight contributed to the controversy, which is still debated among fans of one early aviator or another. Nonetheless, December 17, 1903, proved that humans could take to the air. Less than 66 years later, a man would walk on the moon.