Hope everyone remembers today.

December 17, 1903. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. First powered flight by Orvile and Wilbur Wright, two bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio.

I remember it like it was yesterday! #:-)

Really though, an amazing 100 years.

Steve

When you think about it the progress made in such a relatively short time is amazing. The shame of it is that a large amount of this development came about due to 2 world wars.
I cannot help but think that with the withdrawal of Concorde and no replacement it is a step backwards.

Here is some food for thought on this great accompishment.
Living here in North Carolina this thing has been covered from every angle. The shows have been on the history and dicovery channels ( at least here anyway). The thing that sticks out to me is that noone as of yet has been able to reproduce a Wright Flyer that can actually fly like the original one.
They had a re enactment yesterday at Kill Devil Hills on the anniversary of a Wright Flyer and they could not get it off the ground.
Now you figure with the engineers involved and technology being what it is this should be a challenge, but doable thing. I mean with today's technology you can get a washer machine off the ground.
This to me anyway shows the real magnitude of The Wrights accomplishment on that Dec day.
Just thought I would throw that one out there for some thoughts.
Paul

Amazing accomplishment considering neither went to college and were basically bicycle builders. I watched a lot of the History chanel stories of them. Not just the first flight, but all the rest of ther work for the next 5 years that really made the airplane more than just a stunt, but a true CONTROLLABLE flying machine