Orville Wright’s Own Story
Willi the approach of llie 45th anniversary
of the first airplane flight, we believe onr
readers will he interested in Mr. Wright's
own description off this great event.
By ORVILLE WRIGHT
I This article appeared originally in the
American Legion AfontMg of September. 1920.)
THERE was a strong, cold wind
from the North when my broth¬
er Wilbur and I went to bed at
Kitty Hawk, N. C., on the night of
December 16. 1903. We arose next
morning to find that the puddles
of water left by the recent rain
were covered with ice. and that the
wind was still blowing at a ve¬
locity of around 25 miles an hour.
Hoping that it would die down,
we stayed indoors the early part of
the morning. The wind, however,
was as brisk as ever at 10 o’clock,
and as it showed no likelihood of
abating we decided to make our ex-
Kriment anyway. Since we could
:e the machine into the strong
wind, it should be a relatively sim¬
ple business to launch it from level
ground.
The necessary track was laid,
though not without difficulty,
since the biting cold compelled us
frequently to retire to a shed where
a wood fire was burning in an old
carbide can.
Eventually all was ready. Seven
of us were on hand — my brother
and I. J. T. Daniels. A. D. Ether¬
idge, and W. S. Dough, members of
the Kill Devil Life-Saving Station;
W. C. Brinkley, of Mantco; and a
boy, Johnny Moore, of Nags Head.
A hand anemometer showed the
velocity of the wind to be between
24 and 27 miles an hour, which is
not far off from what Government
Weather Bureau records indicated.
I mention this because today, with
a generation of aerial development
and research to profit by. nobody,
not myself at least, would dream
of going up in a strange machine in
a 27-mile wind, even if he knew
that the machine had previously
flown and was apparently sound.
My brother had made an unsuc¬
cessful attempt to fiy on Decem¬
ber 14. It was therefore my turn to
try. I ran the motor a few minutes
to heat it up, and then released
the wire that held the machine to a
wooden track. The machine started
forward, Wilbur helping to bal¬
ance it by running alongside. With
THE STATE. December II. 1948
the wind against it. the machine got
under way so slowly that Wilbur
was able to stay alongside until it
lifted from the track after a run of
40 feet.
One of the men from the life-
station clicked a camera at that
instant and caught a historic pic¬
ture. The machine was at that time
about two feet off the ground.
“Seven of us were on hand,
among them being a boy, Johnny
Moore, of Nags Head.”
This is Johnny Moore of Colling-
ton as he looks today. He is the
only surviving member of the
group that witnessed the first flight
at Kitty Hawk. (Photo by Hem-
mcr).
The flight lasted 12 seconds. Its
course was rather erratic, owing in
part to air conditions, in part to the
pilot’s inexperience. The front rud¬
der was balanced too near the cen¬
ter, so that it had a tendency to
turn by itself, with the result that
at times the machine would rise to
about 10 feet and then as suddenly
aim toward the ground. One of
these darts ended the flight 120
feet from the point where the ma¬
chine had first risen from the wood¬
en track.
It may be interesting to note
that while the machine was making
only 10 feet a second against a wind
that was blowing 35 feet a second,
the speed of the machine relative
to the air was 45 feet a second, so
that the length of the flight was
equivalent to 540 feet in still air.
This was the first time in history
that a machine carrying a man
raised itself by its own power into
the air in full flight, went ahead
without reduction of speed, and
landed at a point as high as that
from which it started.
< Editor s note: We are indebted
to Comptroller General Lindsay C.
Warren for a copy of the above
article. Mr. Warren included it in
a speech he made in the House of
Representatives on Tuesday. Feb¬
ruary 8. 1927. That was while he
was a member of Congress. The
purpose of the speech was to urge
the construction of an appropriate
memorial on the spot where the
Wright Brothers made their first
flight. It was largely due to Mr.
Warren’s interest and efforts that
the present monument on Kill
Devil Hill was erected. )
Looking across the Uwharries
from the top of Bald Mountain, in
Stanley County, with an elevation
of 2.000 feet, one’s range of vision
covers the location of more than
80 gold mines which have, in times
passed, produced more than a
hundred million dollars.
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