2022
Arguably, one of the most influential inventions of the late 19th- / early 20th century was the one that gave mankind control of the air - the airplane!
If you ever have the opportunity to travel to the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast, a stop at Kitty Hawk, at the Wright Brothers National Memorial is certainly a fascinating visit. This is the place where, on December 17, 1903, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful flight of a powered airplane.
Having had success in the bicycle business in Dayton, Ohio, the Wright Brothers’ mechanical interests led them into experiments with aviation. After much research, design and engineering work, the brothers ventured east to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, due to the remote area’s reliably breezy conditions, soft sand and privacy from reporters. (Both Ohio and North Carolina lay claim to the Wright Brothers’ achievement by claiming to be “First in Flight”)
As you enter the site, you may notice a large monolithic monument at the crest of a hill to your left - this is Big Kill Devil Hill. Rather than go immediately to the Visitor Center and Museum, we drove toward the monument for a closer look. The monument hill is encircled by a one way road running counter clockwise with various places to pull over and park your car in order to venture up to the monument via one of the looping walkways.
The monument site atop Big Kill Devil Hill is impressive and features separate bronze busts of Orville and Wilbur Wright along with inspiring inscriptions engraved on the massive granite monument.
There are spectacular views of the surrounding areas and the Atlantic Ocean, and one can really get a sense of what it must have felt like to be airborne above these windy dunes.
A few hundred yards to the south of the hilltop monument is the December 17, 1903 Sculpture.
This bronze and steel sculpture is a “please touch” sculpture that features a snapshot of what it might have looked like as the first successful flight left the ground. Being able to walk around and interact with this sculpture really allows you to feel immersed in this historical moment.
Driving back down from Big Kill Devil Hill, we now park at the Visitor Center and Museum.
Inside there are exhibits detailing the Wright Brothers’ early years and their progression into becoming the most influential pioneers in aviation. A large hall in the museum features a scale replica of the Wright Brothers’ airplane simply named the “Flyer”. Cloth-covered wings and large wooden propellers really seem to symbolize the transition from the agrarian age into a modern age of technology.
Leading away from the Visitor Center a winding walkway takes you to a reconstruction of the Wright Brothers’ “camp”. A simple barn-like structure gives a glimpse into the workshop and shelter the Brothers used during their aviation experiments.
A few steps further on this pathway brings you to a large granite boulder adorned with a bronze plaque indicating the exact site of the first powered flight.
A steel rail sits where the original takeoff rail was placed (the Flyer was launched from a rail, and had no wheels), and as you follow the sightline of the rail you can see 4 granite markers - each one marking the actual distance of the first 4 successful flights.
These distances seem tiny, but as you stand in this historic spot and look skyward at the contrails left by commercial jets, or you look at the satellite view on your Google Maps app, you might just take a moment to appreciate the place and the pioneers that made all of that possible.
Definitely worth a visit to this awe-inspiring place!
The visitor center and the monuments show what can be done best out of an open barren land to commemorate a historic scientific event.
Both the memorial and the airplane models look decent and fascinating 👍
Superb photos @MattGatlin
Thank you for the kind comment. I agree about the memorial’s use of empty land. When the Wright Brothers were actually working at that site, it was nothing but sand dunes. The National Park Service had to build up Big Kill Devil Hill and plant vegetation all over the site to keep it from eroding away!
