On December 17, 1903, 2 Americans, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first powered flight in history.
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| On 17 December 1917, the first powered flight was made (Source:Wikipedia) |
The story of two brothers
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| Wilbur Wright |
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| Orville Wright (Source:Wikipedia ) |
Orville Wright (August 19, 1871-January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867-May 30, 1912) are two engineers from Dayton, Ohio, USA. Before they became passionate about flying machines, they made bicycles. Today, they are considered to be pioneers in aviation. In 1900 and 1901, they built a large glider, which they then improved, modifying the wingspan for more lift, for example. In 1902, they succeeded in creating a system to control their glider, and in 1903, after several years of research and testing, they designed Flyer. In order for their plane to fly, they build their own propeller engine.
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| A Wright glider (source:Wikipedia ) |
An incredible success
On December 14, 1903, the two brothers made a first test run of their machine, but the attempted theft ended after only 3 seconds. At 10:30 a.m., the Wrights installed the aircraft on its launch rail. The engine is on and the plane takes off. They finally made the first powered flight on December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The device rises to 3 metres from the ground and travels 260 metres in 59 seconds. In total, the plane makes 4 flights.
After Flyer's success, the Wrights make the first turn of an aircraft in the air with Flyer II. It was therefore on December 20, 1904 that the first closed-circuit flight took place. The Wrights continued to create new and ever more sophisticated prototypes. Thus, Flyer III, in 1905, made the first controlled flight, lasting 39 minutes and Flyer Model A showed the know-how of the two engineers.
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| Flyer II, made by the Wright Brothers (source: Wikipedia) |
The Wrights travelled to France to show the Flyer III, in front of Louis Blériot and René Gasnier, two members of the Aéro-club de France. Despite an incredible success, the two Wright brothers were eventually overtaken by the appearance of new aeroplanes, those of Blériot, Curtiss, Voisin, Farman and Antoinette. According to some, Gustav Weisskopf is the real author of the first powered flight in history, even if no photograph shows it. He would have done so on August 14, 1901. However, the Smithsonian Institution has always denied the truth of such a theory.
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