Wright Flyer – the first heavier-than-air airplane
After years of expermenting with gliders (none of these exist anymore), Wilbur and Orville Wright inaugurated the aerial age with their successful first flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. Their Flyer sustained damaged while being transported back to the campsite in the dunes. The brothers crated the plane and it was never flown again.
What makes Wilbur and Orville Wright's achievement so significant is not only that it was the first time in history that a manned, powered aircraft completed a fully-controlled, sustained flight, but it proved to naysayers around the world that heavier-than-air flight was practical. After the Wrights proved their critics wrong, the field of aeronautical engineering was born. Governments, universities, and inventors soon began dedicating vast resources to understanding the science of flight and methods of building improved flying machines. In essence, every event and discovery in aviation either led up to or followed from the flight of the Wright Flyer, and it changed the way we live forever. The 1903 Flyer is a centerpiece in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. |
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