Wright Brothers
December 17, 1903. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville Wright makes the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air aircraft flight — 12 seconds, 120 feet. Four flights that day. The longest: 59 seconds, 852 feet, Wilbur at the controls.
In the aeromythological timeline, this is the Breakthrough Node — the moment where myth becomes mechanism. But the story is contested: Gustave Whitehead reportedly flew a powered aircraft in Pittsburgh around 1901 or 1902, predating Kitty Hawk. A competing claim also comes from Georgia in the 1880s. The mythology of “who flew first” is as aeromythologically rich as the flight itself.
George Cayley — The Theory Before the Flyer
Before the Wrights, George Cayley (1773–1857) identified the four fundamental forces of flight: weight, lift, drag, and thrust. He also developed the wire wheel — the tension-spoke wheel used in bicycles, later in landing gear. The Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics who applied Cayley’s aerodynamic principles with mechanical precision. The theory preceded the machine by fifty years.
Tags