“SUCCESS FOUR FLIGHTS THURSDAY MORNING ALL AGAINST TWENTY ONE MILE WIND STARTED FROM LEVEL WITH ENGINE POWER ALONE AVERAGE SPEED THROUGH AIR THIRTY ONE MILES LONGEST 57 SECONDS INFORM PRESS HOME CHRISTMAS.”    

It was a telegram, with the original misprint, from Orville Wright to his father, December 17, 1903

About 10:35 AM on Thursday, December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright and five local witnesses poised, ready to make history, is a flimsy, odd-looking machine-made from spruce and cloth in the form of two wings, one placed above the other, a horizontal elevator mounted on struts in front of the wings and a double vertical rudder behind the wings. A 12-hp (horse power) engine is mounted on the top surface of the bottom wing, facing into the brisk and cold December wind. Behind him rotate two ungainly looking airscrews driven by two chain and pulley arrangements connected to the same engine. The machine begins to move along an 18 meter launching rail on the level ground. Wilbur Wright runs along the right side of the machine, supporting the wing tip so that it will not drag the sand. Near the end of the starting rail, the machine lifts into the air. The machine flew unevenly, rising suddenly to about 3 meter, then ducking quickly towards the ground. This type of erratic flight continued for 12 seconds, when the machine darts to the sand, 36 meter from the point where it lifted from the starting rail.

The flight on that cold December 17 was momentous: it brought to a realization the dreams of centuries, and it gave a new birth to a new way of life. It was the first genuine powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine. With it, and with the further successes to come over the next five years, came the wright brothers’ clear right to be considered the premier aeronautical engineers of history.

Without the ingenuity, dedication and persistence of Wright Bother, we would have never been able to fly for a “THOUSAND YEARS…!”