When man took to the skies: one hundred years ago this month, in Kitty Hawk, N.C., the Wright brothers gave the world powered flight.

On Dec. 8, 1903, Samuel Langley watched helplessly as 17 years of hard work crashed into the Potomac River near Washington. His winged "aerodrome," shot over the water from a catapult, briefly soared upward, then plummeted backward into the waves, The pilot barely escaped.

As secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, Langley was considered the most likely inventor to create the first powered airplane. But his botched experiment was the latest in a string of failures.

By 1903, flops by many would-be aviators had convinced skeptics that powered flight by humans might never take place. In October, a New York Times editorial said: "The flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to 10 million years."

TWO BROTHERS FROM OHIO 

Unbeknownst to most of the world, that flying machine was being readied near Kitty 11awk, N.C., by two brothers named Wilbur and Olwille Wright, bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio. They had struggled for four years to create a workable airplane. On the day of Langley's December disaster, they were a little more than a week away from proving that powered flight was indeed possible.

The Wrights' interest in flight was first stirred about 1878, when Wilbur was 11 and Orville 7. The boys' father had brought home a toy helicopter powered by robber bands that they played with until it fell apart. (Real helicopters didn't come into regular use until the 1940s.)

The boys became self-taught tinkerers and inventors. In 1892, a bicycling craze prompted them to open their own bicycle shop in Dayton, which was successful enough that by 1899, when Wilhur was 32 and Orville 28, they could turn their attention to powered flight.

Humans had been flying since the French brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier invented hot-air balloons in 1783. However, balloons relied on lighter-than-air gases like hydrogen and could not be steered with any precision. There had also been some successful hights of gliders since the 1890s. But no one had been able to put an engine on an aircraft and send it aloft with a person on board.

CONTROL WAS THE KEY

When the Wright brothers began studying the problem, they found that even the experts didn't know very much. Most inventors focused on an aircraft's shape or the size of its engine. But the Wrights saw that controlling the craft was the bigger issue.

To test their theories, they headed to Kitty Hawk, an isolated stretch of North Carolina's barrier islands, in September 1900. It was a great place for flying gliders: It was private, with good wind for takeoffs and sand for soft landings. By the end of the Wrights' first two seasons in Kitty Hawk, they could get their glider airborne with one of them on board, but still had trouble controlling it. On the way back to Dayton in i901, a discouraged Wilbur declared that humans would not fly for another thousand years. Once they got home, the gloom subsided as the brothers began using a homemade wind tunnel--a six-foot-long box with a fan on one end. It showed them how different model wings would perform.

With precise data from the wind tunnel, the next glider soared around the dunes near Kitty Hawk in the sum met and fall of 1902, It allowed the Wrights to refine their theories about controlling aircraft, in part by bending the wings and using a tail rudder.

Designing a suitable engine and propellers took months of work back in Dayton, The Wrights returned to North Carolina on Sept. 25, 1903, ready to make history. Unfortunately, bad weather and mechanical problems dogged them for weeks.

Finally, on Dec. 17--nine days after Langley's failure--the plane was ready and the weather clear. A coin toss determined that Orville would go up first. With some local men helping, the Wright Flyer was set on a 60-foot launching track, and at 10:35 a.m. Orville took off. The plane rose slightly and then bucked as high as 10 feet in the chilly wind before landing 12 seconds later. It had flown 120 feet. The brothers made three more flights that day the longest--by Wilbur--lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet.

Press reaction to this momentos event was muted, to say the least. A few newspapers carried stories, but most not run them prominently. The Associated Press ran an item about a month later, after the Wrights sent out a press release to correct errors in several newspaper accounts. The Times did not run a story about the brothers until May 1904, when it reported on a subsequent test of their "airship."

The Wright brothers were initially less concerned with publicity than with perfecting their designs and keeping them secret, says Peter L. Jakab, curator of the aeronautics division at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. "By 1908, they had their patent secure, they had contracts for the sale of the airplane, and that's when they made their first public demonstrations and became world famous overnight," he says.

Less than a decade later, the first fighter planes and bombers were in the skies during World War I.

Nobody watching the Wrights' early, tentative flights could have foreseen that with in 70 years, planes would largely replace ships for long distance travel, the sound barrier would be broken and men would walk on the moon. But the Wrights understood dearly that their invention would change everything. "I cannot but believe that we stand at the beginning of a new era," said Orville, "the Age of Flight."

quick facts

1927: Charles A. Lindberg completes the first solo transatlantic flight, from New York to Paris.

1952: The predecessor of British Airways inaugurates commercial jet service, from London to Johannesberg.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Suppose you could meet the Wright brothers today. What questions would you most like to ask them?

* In what ways has the development of aviation made positive contributions to human development? In what ways has it made negative contributions?

TEACHING OBJECTIVE

To help students understand the Wright brothers' physical, emotional and intellectual struggle to perfect the world's first powered and controllable airplane.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

CRITICAL THINKING: One important lesson students should learn is that inventions--whether of the airplane, automobile, television or whatever--are rarely solitary undertakings.

Students should understand that in most cases inventors stand on the shoulders of others whose theories were helpful but failed to produce inventions. Tell students that the idea of piloted flight goes back centuries. Leonardo da Vinci (i452-1519) produced sketches of flying machines, including a helicopter.

Have students reread the experience of the young Wright brothers at ages 11 and 7, playing with a toy helicopter. Did that experience enable them to make the intellectual leap from toys to full-scale flying machines?

CRITICAL THINKING/WRITING: The article notes that few people at the time understood the significance of the Wright brothers' bold step forward. Ask students to think about another scenario. Tell them to imagine that they are newspaper reporters and that they can enter a time machine and travel back to December 1903.

Their job is to write a brief newspaper article or a letter to Wilbur and Orville Wright. Each article or letter should be titled "A Letter From the Future." In their article or letter they must explain the rapid development of aviation, especially what commercial aviation--and space exploration--is like 100 years after the Wright brothers' first powered flight.

WEB WATCH: For a time line of important developments in aviation history between i903 and 1986, go to www.aviationhistory.org/ah_aviation_ timeline.html. There are also links to other aviation facts and photos.

FAST FACT: The first U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, was named for the Wright brothers' rival, Samuel Pierpont Langley.

Upfront QUIZ 3

DIRECTIONS: Circle the letter next to the correct answer.

1. What experience is believed to have first stirred the Wright brothers' interest in flight?

a They read stories about imaginary flight.

b They played with a toy helicopter.

c Their lather encouraged them to become inventors.

d They learned about weather patterns at school.

2. The Wright brothers were not the first humans to fly; in 1783, two French brothers invented

a human-powered kites.

b gliders.

c hot-air balloons.

d mechanically powered birdlike machines.

3. The Wrights were the first to understand the critical role of

a aircraft size.

b propellers.

c cockpit design.

d aircraft control.

4. The Wrights used a homemade wind tunnel to help design

a wings.

b propellers.

c landing gear.

d instruments.

5. The Wright brothers chose a North Carolina beach for their test flights because

a they had friends and relatives in the area.

b it was a fairly easy trip from their home.

c it was a popular vacation spot.

d it provided good winds and safe landing areas.

6. Why did the Wrights not publicize their historic flight?

a They were not certain they could repeat it.

b They feared the flight might have violated the law.

c They knew they had to increase their flight time.

d They were less concerned with publicity than with perfecting their designs and keeping them secret.