Just a two-hour drive from The Inn at Gray’s Landing is the Wright Brothers Memorial. It’s the real deal — the actual place where the Wright brothers flew their “Flyer”. Operated by the National Park Service, it was a favorite day-trip of Inn at Gray’s Landing guests during the 18 years this historic property operated as a B&B.
Visitors to the Wright Brothers Memorial are invariably exhilarated by the experience. There’s just something thrilling about standing on the exact spot where humans first took to the air.
The Wright brothers’ first flyer had no wheels. Instead, it ran along an improvised rail until it became airborne. The takeoff rail is visible in the photo below, which captures the moment humankind entered the age of powered flight.
The first flight of the Wright Flyer, December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Winning a simple coin toss, Orville piloted the first flight. The photo above was taken by John T. Daniels using Orville’s single-frame, single-exposure camera. A crewmember at the local lifesaving station, Daniels had never operated a camera before.
The details of the first flight are as follows:
- Pilot: Orville
- Speed: 6.8 miles per hour
- Altitude: 10 feet
- Duration: 12 seconds
- Distance: 120 feet
- Temperature: Freezing
- Windspeed: Gusts to 27 miles per hour
Note that in the photo above, the pilot lays prone on the lower wing to reduce aerodynamic drag. The brothers originally intended the pilot to lower himself to a vertical position and land on his feet. However, they soon discovered he could remain prone when landing. All their flights for the next five years kept the pilot in that position.
Flying in the prone position is especially exhilarating. The Park Service has constructed a full-scale interactive metal replica of the Flyer that allows you to lie in the exact position the Wright brothers used when piloting their Flyer, letting you experience this thrilling feeling first-hand. Don’t miss trying out the metal replica! It’s located just behind the towering Wright Brothers Memorial, which sits atop the 100-foot sand dune the brothers first used to test their gliders before they attempted powered flight.
Orville and Wilbur initially lived and worked in a hut they built themselves. The hut functioned both as a workshop and their living quarters. Once their Flyer began to take shape, they constructed a second hut next to the workshop where they lived until their first flight.
While the original huts no longer exist, the replicas constructed by the Park Service are so convincing that visitors soon forget this, quickly becoming immersed in the thrill of the first flight, which took place just a few feet from the huts.
The first powered Wright Flyer was built of lightweight spruce and muslin for surface coverings. Orville and Wilbur hand-carved the wooden propeller themselves.
Because none of the engine manufacturers the Wrights contacted could make an engine lightweight enough, their shop mechanic, Charlie Taylor, built the engine himself in just six weeks. Rare at the time, it was an aluminum-cast engine.
In all, the Flyer cost less than a thousand 1903 dollars, equivalent to about $28,000 in 2022.
Following the fourth flight on December 17, 1903, a powerful gust of wind flipped the Flyer over several times, despite the crew’s attempt to hold it down. Severely damaged, the Flyer never flew again. Years later, Orville restored it. In 1948, it was moved to the Smithsonian. However, a full-scale replica can be viewed in the Memorial’s main display building, which sits just opposite the site of the first flight.
Note that the Wrights flew not at Kitty Hawk, but instead at Kill Devil Hills, 4 miles to the south. The origin of the name Kill Devil Hills is “kill devil”, the ancient term for rum.