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North Carolina: First in Flight

The “Tarheel State” of North Carolina has an unusual boast. The state is home to the very first airplane flight, made on the sandy hills of the tiny town of Kitty Hawk on the chain of Barrier Islands known as the Outer Banks. Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright may have lived in Ohio, but they took their flying contraption south in hopes of making it fly!

Orville and Wilbur Wright owned a bicycle shop in the town of Dayton, Ohio when they got the brainwave to develop a flying machine. They worked on it despite many odds and made many designs before coming up with the famous "Wright Flyer" This was made of wood and metal with canvas stretching across the wings. The pilot had to lay flat on his stomach to steer the controls and fly the plane.

It was not an easy job to bulid a prototype for the first airplane. It was a tough and long drawn out process and they had to work for four whole years between 1899 and 1903 to get the aerodynamics right. Though they were successful in their first flight, they still had to work really hard till 1905 to develop a stable and viable airplane. The Wright family also contributed to the development of these airplanes in full. Wright sister helped her brothers in sewing and streching the canvas across the wing frame.

The Wright brothers actually made several trips to Kitty Hawk even before the completion of the Wright Flyer. In 1900, Orville and Wilbur made the trip to the North Carolina coast to test gliders in order to better understand aerodynamics. When they made their historic trip in 1903, the duo left in September with Flyer in tow. By this time, they were well acquainted with the area and the people, often recruiting locals to help them haul and repair the Flyer.

Orville and Wilbur’s 1903 version of the Wright Flyer was a great deal heavier than the previous planes, in fact it was a whopping 125 pounds heavier than the brothers intended. Since the plane was unable to be launched like the previous models, a 15-foot launching rail was built to help propel the plane skyward. This rail was laughingly known as “Grand Junction Railroad.”

The brothers had to often abandon their daily tests because of the stormy weather in the late fall and early winter in 1903. They sometimes wondered whether they would be able to accomplish this massive feat this year as they intended. However the North Carolina weather cooperated with them at last and they successfully made their tests and their subsequent flight into the history books.

On December 17th, 1903 the Wright brothers made history when their Flyer took off into the air. Orville piloted the first ever flight after a quick coin toss. He climbed into the controls and took off at 10:35 in the morning. The plane soared into the North Carolina sky for a whole 12 seconds and covered a distance of 120 feet long. But that was the beginning of a new age giving a new meaning to speed.

The brothers made three more flights after their maiden flight. Wilbur took credit for the longest flight, he flew for 59 minutes and covered 852 feet. The State of Carolina witnessed this historic feet on a cold December day. A monument was constructed on top of a hill called Devil Hill, North Carolina to honor this miraculous feet of engineering and the willpower of man.

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