Wright brothers fly first motorized plane 1903
Photo: Wright Brothers' first flight

Orville and Wilbur Wright were inspired by Otto Lilienthal, a German glider pioneer. Though he crashed to his death in 1896, the Wrights were amazed with flight. They working out ways to control a glider's tendency to pitch up and down, roll side to side, or yaw left and right. By the third glider they built, they had solved most of these problems of steering and stability.

To make a powered airplane, they needed to develop a very light engine and a propeller. By December 1903, their first airplane (Flyer I, later renamed Kitty Hawk) was ready to test. It had a 14-1/3 feet wingspan, was 21 feet long, and weighed about 605 pounds without the pilot. It was powered by the Wrights' 12 horsepower gasoline engine. The Wrights tested their work at Kill Devil Hill near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Kill Devil Hill was know for its’ superb weather conditions.

The first day's attempt was screwed. A few days later Orville flew the plane 120 feet, which took 12 seconds. They made several more flights that day, the longest being 852 feet in 59 seconds. Many people just didn't believe the Wright brother claim to have flown even though there were five witnesses at the time of flight.

Orville later wrote:

"With all the knowledge and skill acquired in thousands of flights in the last ten years, I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a 27 mile wind, even if I knew that the machine had already been flown and was safe. After these years of experience I look with amazement upon our audacity in attempting flights with a new and untried machine under such circumstances. Yet faith in our calculations and the design of the first machine, based upon our tables of air pressures, secured by months of careful laboratory work, and confidence in our system of control developed by three years of actual experiences in balancing gliders in the air had convinced us that the machine was capable of lifting and maintaining itself in the air, and that, with a little practice, it could be safely flown."