The Original Airplane Exhibited

Orville Wright in 1904 flight 85 at Huffman Prairie near Dayton, November 16. Distance: approximately 1,760 feet; time: 45 seconds.

1905 flight 41—Orville’s 12-mile flight of September 29.

1905 flight 46, October 4—20.8 miles in 33.3 minutes, the second longest flight of 1905. It was exceeded only by the 24-mile flight of October 5. The era of the airplane was well on its way.

Orville Wright (1871-1948) taken about 1908.

During their Dayton experiments, the Wrights had continued to pilot their airplanes while lying prone with hips in the cradle on the lower wing. Now they adopted a different arrangement of the control levers to be used in a sitting position and added a seat for a passenger. The brothers brought their airplane to Kill Devil Hills in April 1908 to practice handling the new arrangement of the control levers. They wanted to be prepared for the public trials to be made for the United States Government, near Washington, and for the company in France.

They erected a new building at Kill Devil Hills to house the airplane and to live in, because storms the year before had nearly demolished their 1903 camp buildings. Between May 6 and May 14, 1908, the Wrights made 22 flights at their old testing grounds. On May 14 the first flight with two men aboard a plane was made near West Hill; Wilbur Wright being the pilot, and Charles Furnas, a mechanic, the passenger. Orville and Furnas then made a flighttogether of over 2 miles, passing between Kill Devil Hill and West Hill, and turning north near the sound to circle Little Hill before returning over the starting point close to their camp to land near West Hill on the second lap.

Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) taken about 1908.

Byron R. Newton, a newspaper reporter, was concealed in the woods with other newsmen near camp to watch the Wrights fly. Newton predicted in his diary just after seeing his first flight: “Some day Congress will erect a monument here to these Wrights.” Nineteen years later the Congress established the area as a National Memorial.

Wilbur journeyed to France after completing the tests at Kill Devil Hills, while Orville returned home to complete the construction of an airplane for the United States Government. As Wilbur set about methodically to assemble his airplane at Le Mans, some 125 miles from Paris, skeptics greeted the delay by accusing him of bluffing. But Wilbur refused to hurry. “Le bluff continue,” cried a Paris newspaper. However, when Wilbur took off on August 8, circling the field to come in for a perfect landing, the crowd could scarcely believe its eyes. Skeptics were confounded, and enthusiasm was uproarious.

Orville and his passenger, Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois, round the captive balloon which marked the turning point of the Army speed test flight from Fort Meyer, July 30, 1909. The flight was just under 43 miles an hour.Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution.

Wilbur’s complete lack of conceit, together with his decency and intelligence, won from the French people a hero-worship attitude, while the press was unsparing in its praise and lamented having called him a bluffer. TheFigarocommented, “It was not merely a success but a triumph; a conclusive trial and a decisive victory for aviation, the news of which will revolutionize scientific circles throughout the world.” It was a statement to the press by a witness, Maj. B. F. S. Baden-Powell, president of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, that is most often quoted: “That Wilbur Wright is in possession of a power which controls the fate of nations is beyond dispute.” One of Wilbur’s sayings in France became famous: “I know of only one bird, the parrot, that talks,” he said, “and it can’t fly very high.”

Orville’s first public flight was on September 3, 1908 at Fort Myer. He circled the field one and one-half times on the first test. “When the plane first rose,” Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., recorded “the crowd’s gasp of astonishment was not alone at the wonder of it, but because it was so unexpected.” Orville’s final flight at Fort Myer in 1908 ended in tragedy. The airplane crashed, killing Lt. Thomas Selfridge, a passenger flying with Orville. Orville suffered broken ribs, a fractured leg, and hip injuries.

In 1909, Orville completed the Government test flights by flying 10 miles in 14 minutes, or just under 43 miles an hour. The United States Army formally accepted its first airplane from the Wrights on August 2, 1909. During the same year both brothers made further flying triumphs in Europe where they became famous flying in France and Italy. While Orville was making sensational flights in Germany (as required for the formation of a Wright company in that country), Wilbur, in America, made spectacular flights at New York City where more than a million New Yorkers got their first glimpse of an airplane in the air.

Commercial companies were formed in France and Germany to manufacture Wright planes before the Wright Company was organized in the United States with Wilbur as president and Orville vice president. In financial affairs the Wrights were remarkably shrewd—a match for American and European businessmen. They grew wealthy as well as famous, but they were not happy as businessmen and looked forward to the time when they could retire to devote themselves again to scientific research.

Orville returned to Kill Devil Hills in October 1911 to experiment with an automatic control device and to make soaring flights with a glider. The new device was not tested because of the presence of newspapermen at the camp each day. Orville set a new world’s soaring record of 9 minutes and 45 seconds on October 24. This remained the world’s record until it was exceeded 10 years later in Germany. On May 30, 1912, Wilbur Wright, aged 45, died of typhoid fever. Orville survived him by 36 years.

Orville always thought that the National Museum in Washington, administered by the Smithsonian Institution, was the logical place for the original Wright 1903 airplane to be preserved and exhibited. However, for a long time he was unwilling to entrust the airplane there because of a controversy between him and the Smithsonian in regard to the history of the invention of the airplane. In 1928, Orville lent the plane to the Science Museum at South Kensington, near London, England, with the understanding that it would stay there permanently unless he made a written request for its return. Finally, in 1942, the dispute with the Smithsonian was settled to Orville’s satisfaction, and the next year he wrote a request to the Science Museum for the return of the airplane to this country when it could be safely shipped after World War II ended.

After Orville Wright’s death, on January 30, 1948, his executors deposited the original 1903 airplane in the National Air Museum. It was formally placed on exhibition on December 17, 1948, in Washington, D.C., the 45th anniversary of the first flights. The priceless original airplane now occupies the highest place of honor among other interesting aeronautical exhibits.

On March 2, 1927, the Congress authorized the establishment of Kill Devil Hills Monument National Memorial to commemorate the Wrights’ achievement of the first successful flight of a man-carrying, power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. The area was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, on August 10, 1933, and on December 1, 1953, the name was changed to Wright Brothers National Memorial. The memorial contains about 425 acres. It embraces the actual site of the first four flights and the sites of most of the glider experiments.

The visitor center represents the focal point in the interpretation of the area. In addition to an extensive series of modern museum exhibits telling the story of the memorial, the center also houses an information desk, where literature is available, and the administrative offices of the memorial. From the exhibition rooms, there is a sweeping panoramic view of the reconstructedWright brothers’ 1903 camp, the first flight grounds where markers designate the take-off and landing points of the first flights, and the Wright memorial shaft atop Kill Devil Hill.

About 100 yards southwest of the visitor center stand two wooden structures built by the National Park Service in 1953 on the 50th anniversary of the first flight. They are reconstructions of the Wright brothers’ 1903 living quarters and hangar based on historical research and photographs of the originals. The furnishings within the living quarters are of the 1902-3 period, and are almost exact duplications of those used by the Wrights.

Less than 100 feet west of the camp is a 10-ton granite memorial boulder placed by the National Aeronautic Association in 1928 on the 25th anniversary of the first flight. The boulder marks the take-off point of the first flight and of the three additional flights made December 17, 1903. A reconstruction of the original single-rail starting track is placed at the north and south sides of the boulder. Four numbered markers north of the boulder designate landing points of the powered flights made on December 17, 1903.

About a quarter of a mile south of the visitor center lies Kill Devil Hill, used by the Wrights for gliding experiments during the period 1900-1903. The north slope of this hill was also used for the unsuccessful attempt at flight on December 14, 1903. Before the Wright memorial shaft was erected, conservation work was begun in 1929 on the massive 26-acre dune of shifting yellow sand to anchor the 91-foot-high dune by seeding it with special grasses adapted to sandy soil.

Atop Kill Devil Hill stands the striking Wright memorial shaft, a triangular pylon 60 feet high, made of gray granite from Mount Airy, N.C. Construction was begun February 4, 1931, and the shaft was dedicated November 19, 1932. Its sides ornamented with outspread wings in bas-relief, the pylon gives to the eye the impression of a gigantic bird about to take off into space. Stairs lead to the top of the shaft and an observation platform which offers a good view of the surrounding country—magnificent dunes, the Atlantic Ocean, Albemarle Sound, and even West Hill, a quarter of a mile west of the shaft, in the direction of the sound. West Hill, the sand dune which was the scene of many of the Wrights’ gliding experiments in 1901-3, was stabilized by the National Park Service in 1934 to preserve the historic site.

Aircraft over the Wright memorial shaft.

Wright Brothers National Memorial is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. A superintendent, whose address is Kill Devil Hills, N.C., is in immediate charge.

Aileron—A control surface set into or near the trailing edge of an airplane wing, extending, when in the wing, toward the tip and usually within the contour of the wing, and used to control the longitudinal axis of an airplane.

Airborne—Of an airplane or other winged craft: Supported entirely by aerodynamic forces, flying.

Airfoil—A surface or body, as a wing, propeller blade, rudder, or the like, especially designed to obtain a reaction, as lift or thrust, from the air through which it moves.

Angle of attack—The acute angle between the chord of an airfoil, and a line representing the undisturbed relative airflow. Any other acute angle between two reference lines designating the cant of an airfoil relative to oncoming air.

Aspect ratio—The ratio between the span of an airfoil and its chord.

Camber—The curve of an airfoil section from the leading edge to the trailing edge. Camber is usually expressed as the distance from the chord line to the upper or lower surface of an airfoil.

Center-of-pressure travel—The movement, or the amount of movement, of the center of pressure along a chord of an airfoil as the latter is inclined through its normal angles of attack.

Chord—An assumed straight-line tangent to the lower surface of an airfoil section at two points, or a straight line between the leading and trailing edges of an airfoil section, or between the ends of the mean line of an airfoil section; the distance between the leading and trailing edges of an airfoil section.

Drag—A resistant force exerted in a direction opposite to the direction of motion and parallel to the relative gas or air Stream.

Dynamic lift—The lift given an airplane by the aerodynamic force produced from an adequately designed airfoil.

Glider—A fixed-wing aircraft having no power plant and constructed so as to glide and soar.

Gliding—The art, science, and activity of moving through the air in a glider.

Heavier-than-air aircraft—Any aircraft weighing more than the air it displaces.

Lift—That component of the total aerodynamic forces acting on an airfoil or on an entire aircraft or winged missile, perpendicular to the relative wind, and exerted, normally, in an upward direction opposing the pull of gravity.

Lighter-than-air aircraft—An aircraft that rises and is supported in air by virtue of a contained gas weighing less than the air displaced by the gas.

Nose dive—A steep dive by, or in, an aircraft.

Power plant—The complete engine or engines in an aircraft, together with propeller or propellers (if any), accessories, fuel and oil tanks and lines, etc.

Powered aircraft—An aircraft having one or more engines, as distinguished from a glider.

Tailspin—A spin, so named in reference to the characteristic spiral action of the tail when the airplane is in a spin.

Warp—To change the shape of something, especially an airplane’s wing, by twisting. To give lift or drop to a wing by twisting it at the ends.

Wind tunnel—A chamber through which air is forced at controlled velocities, up to several thousand miles an hour, and in which airfoils, airplanes, missiles, scale models of airplanes, or other objects are mounted in order to observe and study the airflow about such objects, as well as the aerodynamic effects upon them.

Wingspan—The span of a wing, measured or taken between the tips or outermost extremities of either a single-piece wing or a wing that is separated by other aircraft components.

Wing-warping—The action of warping a wing, or a control system for warping the wings at will.

Yaw—An angular displacement or motion to the left or right about the vertical axis of an airplane.

Gibbs-Smith, C. H.,A History of Flying. Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1954.

Kelly, Fred C.(Ed.),Miracle at Kitty Hawk, the Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Farrar, Straus and Young, New York 1951.

Kelly, Fred C.,The Wright Brothers. (A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright.) Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1943.

McFarland, Marvin W.(Ed.),The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, including the Chanute-Wright Letters and other Papers of Octave Chanute. 2 vols., McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1953.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1963 OF—710-606

(Price has of National Park Service Publications may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D.C.)

Sketch of the Wright’s 1901 wind tunnel.

Back to Index Next