The First Flight

A True Story

Wilbur and Orville Wright were brothers. They lived in Ohio. They fixed and sold bikes in a small shop.

The brothers had a big dream. They wanted to build a machine that could fly. Nobody had done it yet.

They read about birds. They watched how birds tilt their wings to turn. The brothers got ideas from that.

They tried gliders first. A glider has wings but no motor. The brothers tested them on sandy hills.

Then they built a motor and two propellers. They put them on a flying machine. They called it the Flyer.

They took the Flyer to a beach in North Carolina. The place was called Kitty Hawk. The wind there was strong and steady.

The day was December 17, 1903. It was cold. The brothers set the Flyer on a long wooden track.

Orville lay down on the lower wing. The motor roared. The Flyer rolled along the track.

Then it lifted off the ground! It flew for twelve seconds. It went about one hundred twenty feet.

That is not very far. But a pilot had flown a plane with a motor. It was a first for the world.

The brothers did not stop. They flew three more times that day. Wilbur flew the last time.

His flight lasted almost one minute. It went more than eight hundred feet.

Soon after, a gust tipped the Flyer over. It was broken, and its flying was done.

But the brothers had shown that people could fly. Soon planes flew farther and higher. It all began with twelve seconds.