THE STATE
For December 14, 1935
It Happened
32 Years Ago
A iicvcr-to-bc-f»rgoffen
(Ink* in inoiloni Norlli
Carolina history — He-
comber 17, 1903: the
«lay on which I ho Wright
brothers niailo tlioir
first powered flight at
Kill Devil Hill.
tty N. R. IIOIXOWIXL
ON December 17, thirty-two years
ago, n famous event took place
on the bleak and now-historic
sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, and next
week North Carolina proudly joins
the nation in celebrating the anniver¬
sary of man’s first mechanical flight.
Many myths have gone up around
the manner iu which Wilbur and Or¬
ville Wright first became interested in
the possibilities of an aerial flight in
a heavicr-than-air powered machine.
This, according to Orville Wright, is
the true story:
Thorough Preparation
The inspiration for the flight did
not come from tinkering with a toy
helicopter that the boys’ father had
brought home, as the old legend has
it. Neither did they think much about
the future of aviation during the seven
years of secret experimental work
which preceded the great event. They
were merely convinced that it was pos¬
sible to fly a heavicr-than-air machine
and with instinctive boyish interest
and curiosity, they determined to find
out and to prove their theories, if pos¬
sible, to a doubting world.
The study of Lilienthal, the great
German experimenter who was killed
during a flight in a monoplane glider,
was more responsible for the Wright
Щ
/
The beautiful aviation memorial of Mount Airy Granite
which has been placed at Kill Devil Hill, commemo¬
rating man’s first airplane flight.
arrived, lots were drawn to see which
one should 1>e the first to fly, and Wil¬
bur won. Just before taking off,
и
slight accident to the controls made it
necessary to postpone tin- flight.
The next two days were spent in
making repairs and then Decern I »t 17
was set to muko another attempt. The
night before, Orville, in his excite¬
ment, slept little. Lots were ugnin
drawn and this time, Orville won.
The wind was tested and found to
he satisfactory. The motor was started.
Orville stretched himself out on his
stomach on the lower wing of the
plane, his hands on the controls. Two
spectators shooed away the native
razor-hack pigs common to that sec¬
tion. As the twin propellers Itegnn
to turn, the plane started down the
wooden monorail track, followed by
Wilbur bolding the tip of the wing.
The plane went faster and faster and
finally he could keep up with it no
( Continued on page twenty-six )
Brothers’ idea of flying
than any other one fac¬
tor.
Orville brought home
a book on I.ilienthal's
experimental flights for
Wilbur to read. From
this, their interest grew
and they read every¬
thing they could find on the subject.
After seven years of experimenting
with gliders, windmills, etc., and a de¬
tailed study of aerodynamics, they
felt that they were ready to try out
the machine that they had built.
The Selection of Kitty Hawk
They began to look around for a
suitable spot for their attempted flight.
There must be a hill for the take-off,
a soft spot for landing and steady
winds. After having been informed
by the Weather Bureau at Washing¬
ton that the atmospheric conditions at
Kitty Hawk would be desirable, they
went there for two winters preceding
their flight, continuing their experi¬
ments during the summer at their
Dayton, Ohio, home, where they oper¬
ated a bicycle shop.
December 14 was at last fixed as
the day on which their first attempt
would be made. The plane was set
up several days before. When the day
