NASA HISTORY: 113th Anniversary of Orville Wright’s First Powered Flight In North Carolina

first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

ABOVE VIDEO: Today, December 17, marks the 113th anniversary of Orville Wright’s first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. Humanity’s first controlled powered heavier than air flight.

(NASA) – Today, December 17, marks the 113th anniversary of Orville Wright’s first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. Humanity’s first controlled powered heavier than air flight.

Since 1899, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright had been experimenting with flight.

However, they were not the only ones – Samuel Langley had been working on an airplane for many years and made a second attempt to fly his Aerodrome just days earlier, on December 8.

The brothers decided that a coin toss would be the fair way to decide who got to fly first. Wilbur won the toss on December 14, 1903, and, unfortunately, climbed too steeply, stalled, and crashed into the sand.

After repairing the airplane, Orville got his try at flying 3 days later – and he had learned from Wilbur’s mistake.

In 12 seconds, he flew 120 feet at 10.9 km/hr (6.8 mph).

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