The Aeroplane Flies High: Kitty Hawk, NC

Sign commemorating the Wright Brothers, with the hilltop monument in the background.

When I was little, somewhere between aspiring to become a Beatle, a lawyer, or a scientist, there was nothing I wanted more than to become an astronaut. I was entranced by the film about the Apollo 13 mission, despite its major plot point about the perils and enormous risks involved, like being stranded in outer space with a dwindling oxygen supply. Instead of focusing on the negative, I was captivated by the idea of weightlessness, of being able to break out of the boundaries of gravity, and seeing our great big planet outside of a spacecraft window, reduced to the size of a quarter off in the distance.

Right around that same time, perhaps to further spur my interest, my grandfather - Papa DiBlasi - gave me a book about the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs called All We Did Was Fly To The Moon. The book told the story from the perspectives of the astronauts, looking back. Some of them waxed poetic about their achievements, fully cognizant of their significance, while others spoke with a tone of wonder and awe, still baffled by their own accomplishments, even with the passing of time. My interest in the space program extended into an overall interest in flight and its history, from Otto Lilienthal’s early experiments with gliders to Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in his Bell X-1.

Getting a drum kit for Christmas renewed my musical pursuits, but my fascination with flight has never gone away. (Except when I’m getting patted down at the airport by a surly rent-a-cop with an even bigger attitude problem than mine, but that’s something for another day.) It only made sense that I would someday travel out to where Orville and Wilbur Wright made aeronautical history in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The actual location of the Wright Brothers’ historic flight is now in what is called Kill Devil Hills, though in 1903 the area was part of Kitty Hawk, which adds to some confusion, especially with today's all-too-accurate GPS devices.

The Wright Brothers, who by today's standards of appearance would be more likely to be a priest (Wilbur) and the manager of a deli counter in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (Orville).

Kitty Hawk is nestled in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a series of narrow and unobstructed islands off the coast. Geographically, their almost anomalous location makes it prone to high winds. The high winds, coupled with the presence of sand allowing for a soft landing, made Kitty Hawk an ideal location for the Wright Brothers’ experiments with flight.

The visitor’s center on the premises doubles as a museum honoring both the Wright Brothers and other aviation pioneers, but the centerpiece is the main exhibition hall, where a functioning model of the Wright Brothers’ plane is on display. It was built by a devoted pilot-turned-historian who replicated every exact specification, from the spruce wood frame to the light cotton fabric that made up most of the plane’s body. The park ranger explained what made the Wright Brothers so noteworthy: their mastery of three-axis control.

Prior to Orville and Wilbur, early glider pilots and aviators only considered pitch (vertical motion) and yaw (horizontal motion) when designing and piloting their aircrafts. The third axis, roll (tilting motion, which combined both horizontal and vertical) was considered a grave danger, with a banking aircraft generally indicating an inevitable crash. Otto Lilienthal died in 1896 from similar circumstances, using not a series of rudders but rather the act of shifting his own weight in his glider to allow for rolling motion.

The hilltop monument (steep walk!) in Kill Devil Hills, overlooking the runway and visitors' center.

It was the Wright Brothers’ mastery of controlled roll that made powered flight a possibility. Learning this gave both of us a tangible sense of energy and excitement, knowing that where we were standing was where it all happened. Their achievements were so monumental that European journalists simply could not believe them. They were dismissed as bluffers, liars, and frauds, especially by the French. With Wilbur’s in-person demonstration at Le Mans in 1908, where he banked around the circular racetrack to a collectively jaw-dropped crowd for nearly two solid minutes, the much-deserved praise (along with retractions and apologies) came flowing in, and the Wright Brothers became globally famous.

We were also both blown away by thinking that the first flight was only 110 years ago. Although Wilbur died in 1912, Orville lived until 1948, witnessing the rapid growth and development of powered flight. He lived to see his invention, for which he and his brother had received no funding, grants, or aid, change the face of travel at both national and international levels. Orville witnessed the airplane become a fundamental component of combat during the Second World War, and he even lived long enough to witness Yeager’s historic flight in 1947.

From the marker stone on the flight path.

For those immortal 12 seconds Orville spent in the air during the first flight on December 17, 1903, his speed was just under 7 miles per hour. A mere forty-four years later, Chuck Yeager was able to travel faster than the speed of sound, peaking at 800 miles per hour. As fascinating as it is for us to look back, it must have been even more fascinating to bear witness to the rapid changes that took place.

120 feet in 12 seconds? That's enough to get through a single peanut.