On our way back from Currituck, we stopped at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.
This painting of the two of them adorns the wall of the visitors center.
This picture taken of the first moment of flight is so iconic. The guy who was set up to take the picture got so excited he didn't remember if he had snapped the photo. Turns out he had!
The selection of the location for the flight, along with the tremendous amount of time the two brothers had spent in learning about and determining what would make a man made object fly... pitch, roll and yaw, was pretty impressive. Here I always thought it was trial and error. Which it was, but with a lot of research and understanding of what they were doing.
Most of the time, you think of great inventions as being by a lone scientist somewhere. The fact that these two brothers worked so well together was a tribute to their dedication. And, it turns out they got their drive from their mother, whose family was in the carriage making business, and she understood about mechanics. When she died, it was their sister who encouraged them to keep going. Their father was a minister and not so mechanically inclined. Go, girls!
This plaque is near where the flights actually took place. And up on the hill is the monument, erected in 1928. Talk about shifting sands, the hill had moved 460 feet since the time they took their flight to the time the monument was built. It took a lot of work to stabilize the hill first.
Orvillle and Wilbur took turns trying to fly, and it was Orville's turn when they made the 59 second flight that they determined was under control and not just luck.
The stones depict the length of the flights they took the day they were finally successful.
This is a beautifully constructed monument, with wings on the sides. It is just hard to imagine what came so quickly after this flight. They obviously understood what they had done and were able to build from there.
No comments:
Post a Comment