December 17, 1903

On December 17, 1903 the Wright brothers made the world’s first flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine that cost about $1000 to build. With Orville at the controls and Wilbur on the ground, the plane flew 120 feet in twelve seconds. Although man had dreamt of flying for centuries, it took these two unschooled young men (bicycle shopkeepers by trade) to finally lift us off the ground.

First Flight
Key to the Wright brother’s success was their methodical engineering and testing that went “beyond the trial and error methods of their contemporaries. When their test flights did not produce as much lift as they had expected, they went back to first principles and carried out a series of scientific experiments with their home-built wind tunnel and bicycle balance.” Best clicks are the multimedia wind tunnel and bicycle balance experiments. Unfortunately the Shockwave simulations seem to work only with Netscape browsers.

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[tags]wright brothers,orville and wilbur,first flight,aviation history[/tags]