We drove out to the Outer Banks and then headed north to Kitty Hawk to the Wright Brothers Memorial Site. As soon as we got out of the car, we could see the 60 foot Wright Brothers Monument atop Kill Devil Hills. We were hoping to walk up there later.
We walked out to a ranger talk that was being held at the site where Orville and Wilbur Wright's first successful airplane flight occurred.
She recruited volunteers to help re-create that first flight. These girls played Orville and Wilbur. :)
On December 17, 1903, Orville flew 120 feet in 12 seconds making it the first time that "a manned heavier-than-air machine left the ground by its own power, moved forward under control without losing speed, and landed on a point as high as that from which it started." (from NPS brochure)
Orville and Wilbur had asked John Daniels who worked at the nearby life-saving station (now known as the Coast Guard) to take a picture which meant squeezing the bulb to the camera. After that first flight, Orville and Wilbur asked John if he remembered to squeeze the bulb to take the picture. John said he wasn't sure because he got so excited seeing the plane fly. But he did and below is that picture of that first historical flight and the only picture that John Daniels ever took. :)
Orville and Wilbur had three more successful flights that day. There were markers showing the starting point and finishing point of all 4 flights. This was the starting or lift-off point.
After the ranger talk, I walked out to all the ending points. The below pictures show me at each of the markers and then the pictures I took back toward the starting point to help give an idea of how far each flight was. The first flight was 12 seconds long and flew 120 feet.
The second flight was also 12 seconds but flew 175 feet (Chuck zoomed me up in the picture so I seem closer than I really was).
The third flight took 15 seconds and flew 200 feet.
And the 4th flight flew for 59 seconds and flew a whopping 852 feet! Where are you Melissa?
Oh, there you are (zoomed up, of course).
And this is a view from the 4th marker looking back at the lift-off point. Can you imagine how excited Orville and Wilbur must have been?
Near the lift-off point was a reconstructed hangar and living quarters/workshop.
This wing was in the back of the living quarters/workshop.
The below picture shows what the structures originally looked like.
We got back to the visitor center in time for another ranger talk in front of the full-size replica of the original plane.
This is the motor that powered the plane.
Orville and Wilbur Wright did not graduate from high school but were self-taught and had two successful businesses: a printing company and a bicycle shop. They began their serious aeronautic research in the late 1890's. They studied the research of the recently deceased German glider experimenter, Otto Lilienthal. Through their own experiments at Kitty Hawk, NC (chosen because of its continuous winds and sand for soft landings), they determined that Lilienthal's wing designs were faulty.
They even used their own wind tunnel to determine this.
With their over 1,000 glider flights (without power), they developed the controls to produce the pitch, roll and yaw that even today is a part of every airplane flight. Below is a replica of the glider.
While we were in the visitor center, a thunderstorm had rolled into the area with lots of rain and lightning popping everywhere...
...so we decided to just drive around the hill where the monument set.
At the bottom of the hill behind the monument, there was a full-size bronze replica of that first flight.
We headed back home and it rained off and on the rest of the afternoon. The wind and rain got so bad at one point our MagnaShade blew off the windshield. That was the first time that had ever happened! Fortunately, it was not damaged and we put it back up after the rain stopped.
When the sun tried to peep out later than evening, we were treated to another rainbow.
And for dinner, we enjoyed some delicious boiled shrimp! Yummy! :)
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