Flying the Strand | Part 2, "Achieved by Dauntless Resolution"

"With a short dash down the runway, the machine lifted into the air and was flying. It was only a flight of twelve seconds, and it was an uncertain, wavy, creeping sort of flight at best; but it was a real flight at last and not a glide."

-- Orville Wright, describing the first flight on 17 December 1903.

"Achieved by dauntless resolution."

Day 1: The High Road To Kitty Hawk

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
30 Jul 2023	N21481	CPK (Norfolk, VA) - FFA (Kill Devil Hills, NC)	1.0	2682.9

From above, there is nowhere else quite like the Outer Banks. On intercepting the delicate filament of barrier islands off the Atlantic seaboard, it is difficult to imagine such a fragile strand surviving the ocean's relentless battering. Despite their longevity, history of the Outer Banks reveals that inlets between the islands have opened and closed over the years. The islands persist, but in a dynamic state.

Off Chesapeake Regional, we turned to a southeast heading and made for the barrier islands. From there, navigation became a simple matter of following the slender arc of land southbound to our destination in Kill Devil Hills, NC. It was probably very close to the same route that I flew with my family a decade earlier.

To clear up any cartographic confusion, Kitty Hawk, NC is famously the the location of the Wright Brothers' triumph. It was thoughtfully chosen based on (1) Weather Bureau data showing that Kitty Hawk had strong steady winds and (2) widely available sand dunes for making soft landings. The Wright Brothers set up shop south of Kitty Hawk near a series of large, moving sand dunes. The largest, now stabilized by the Army Corps of Engineers and topped with the Wright Brothers National Memorial, is known as Kill Devil Hill. As the region's population grew, a town near that hill was incorporated as Kill Devil Hills in 1953. Thus, while the first flight occurred just south of Kitty Hawk in 1903, that location is now part of today's Kill Devil Hills.

Wind streaks on the surface of Currituck Sound and an absence of whitecaps suggested a wind speed of roughly 10 knots.

We passed the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla, NC.

Duck, NC is easily identified from the US Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility pier. Our friend and fellow club member Dave P was staying at his house in Duck at the time and I resolved to check in with him once we landed.

Aviator's Mecca

First Flight Airport and the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

On left downwind for runway 3 at First Flight.

I landed on runway 3 and rolled all the way to the jug handle loop at the far end of the 3000 foot long runway. There is no parallel taxiway and with Ed, Gilead, Dan, and a fourth pilot in a Cessna entering the pattern in trail behind me, I did not think it was safe to back taxi on the runway to parking on the south end. I pulled off onto the loop and waited for the others to arrive.

First Flight Airport photographed 31 August 2013 by Kristy. This shows the
loop on the north end and the previous runway designation (20 versus 21).

After the trip, I realized that the runway numbers had been reassigned owing to the movement of magnetic north since my last visit. A decade earlier, the runway was designated 02-20 rather than today's 03-21. 

From the end of runway 3, I could clearly see what the Wright Brothers referred to as "The Big Hill" topped by the Art Deco monument to Wilbur and Orville's accomplishments. A landing at First Flight Airport is a landing in a national park; the airport is owned and operated by the National Park Service.

Ed and Tom clearing the runway at First Flight.

As I waited, the other Williamson Flying Club aircraft touched down and taxied past to clear the runway. Over the next several minutes, we accumulated five aircraft at the end of the runway waiting for a break in traffic to back taxi to parking.

Photo by Tom.

While we waited, Tom clambered out of Four Four Papa and took this picture of Ed's Archer and my Warrior with the Wright Memorial in the background.

Photo by Dan taken from One Delta Tango. Note that all planes were operating their Piper air conditioners (open doors).

Once the fifth aircraft landed, I led a southbound back taxi charge to the parking ramp. Like ducklings in a line we were.

We tied down overnight at First Flight. Airport rules specify that aircraft can stay no longer than 24 hours and may not spend more than 2 nights per month. 

"Wilber Would Have Liked This"

It is important to be clear about what the Wright Brothers actually accomplished and what they did not.

They were not the first to fly. Successful flights in balloons (lighter than air flight) began during the 1700s.  

The Wrights were also not the first to fly heavier than air gliders. In fact, they based their experiments on others' work with gliders, most notably Otto Lilienthal. 

They were not the first to attempt powering a glider with an engine, either. For example, Samuel Langley failed spectacularly in that pursuit with his cumbersome "aerodrome". Some claim that Gustav Whitehead flew a powered aircraft in 1901, two years before the Wright Brothers. While this is plausible, Whitehead's Number 21 aircraft did not have a proper system for steering, rather it relied on weight shifting like a hang glider. It was in no way the forerunner of a modern, controllable airplane.

Therein lies genius of the Wright Brothers, their devising of a means for controllable powered flight by developing a mechanism for banking the aircraft (wing warping). In the process, they significantly improved our understanding of aerodynamics through the creation of wind tunnels and balances applied to careful experimentation with various airfoils. These meticulous experiments corrected flaws in Otto Lilienthal's existing table of lift and drag coefficients with remarkable accuracy. The Wrights' contributions to the science of aeronautics not only facilitated their own experiments, but provided a solid foundation for aerodynamics research by others.

Having achieved success in controllable powered flight in 1903, the Wrights redirected significant time and resources toward protecting their patented wing warping design from use by others. One such foe, Glenn Curtiss of Hammondsport, NY developed the aileron as a way to circumvent the Wright patents. It is a simple, practical solution to aircraft control compared to the Wright's complex wing warping mechanism and, as a result, ailerons are still in use today. Despite mechanical differences, the Wrights claimed that ailerons infringed on their patents and a bitter legal battle with Curtiss ensued.

The first true airplane flight may be attributed to the Wrights, but Curtiss' work paved the way for practical aircraft designs. By attempting to impede progress of their competitors, the Wrights inadvertently fostered innovations that ultimately left them behind.

Litigiousness aside, the Wright Brothers made a quantum leap in the field of aeronautics among the dunes of Kill Devil Hills, land that is rightfully viewed as hallowed ground by most aviators.

The Wright Brothers National Memorial is unusual in that it was erected during the lifetime of one of its honorees. Although Wilbur Wright passed away in 1912, Orville was still alive when the monument was dedicated in 1932. Per a ranger that we met at the monument in 2013, Orville was asked to give a speech at the dedication ceremony. He stood before the assembled crowd, commented "Wilbur would have like this," and promptly sat back down. 

Around the base of the tower is inscribed:

"In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright

conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith."

Dan, Gilead, Ed, Tom, me, Scott, and Kim at the Wright Monument. Photo by Dan.

"In commemoration of the conquest of the air."

"Achieved by dauntless resolution."

Exactly, Scott!

The Learning Curve

"Success. Four flights Thursday morning all against twenty one mile wind started from level with engine power alone. Average speed through air thirty one miles. Longest [59] seconds. Inform Press. Home Christmas."

-- Telegram from "Orevelle Wright" (a transcription error) dispatched from Kitty Hawk to Dayton.
Punctuation added for clarity.

This plaque, positioned next to a replica of the rail from which the Flyer launched, marks the spot where those flights on December 17, 1903 occurred.

Granite monuments chronicle the learning curve of the Wrights as they gradually improved their mastery of the notoriously twitchy aircraft.

"End of 1st flight. Time: 12 seconds. Distance: 120 ft. Dec 17, 1903. Pilot: Orville."

"End of 2nd flight. Time: About 12 seconds. Distance: About 175 ft. Dec 17, 1903. Pilot: Wilbur."

"End of 3rd flight. Time: 15 seconds. Distance: About 200 ft. Dec 17, 1903. Pilot: Orville."

"End of 4th flight. Time: 59 seconds. Distance: 852 ft. Dec 17, 1903. Pilot: Wilbur."

Basking in history! Tom, Ed, Dan, Gilead, me, and Scott. Photo by Kim.

A hard landing at the conclusion of the fourth hop damaged the Flyer and prevented additional flights on December 17. As the modern saying goes, if any landing that lets you reuse the airplane qualifies as a great one, that fourth touch down was clearly not so great.

Roughing It

Orville and Wilbur's accommodations among the dunes could hardly be considered "glamping" as shown by this recreation of the campsite, but certainly beat sheltering in pup tents among the dunes.

An on-site museum includes a reproduction 1903 Flyer. Also on display are portions of the Flyer's original engine case and one of its propellers.

As we studied the reproduction Flyer, I recalled the summary words of a park ranger who presented on the Wright Flyer when we visited in 2013. "Sixty-six years from the dust of Kill Devil Hill to the dust of the moon!"

That is simply awe-inspiring.

Hops and Hallucinogenic Horses

After a thorough tour of the National Memorial site, we returned to the parked airplanes, gathered our gear, and hoofed it into town through the thick Carolina humidity.

Along the way, we paused to visit the 2003 Stephen Smith life-sized sculpture of the first flight that depicts Orville at the controls and Wilbur running alongside.

Photographed 31 August 2013.

Photographed 31 August 2013.

Photographed 31 August 2013

I paused to get chummy with Wilbur, then hurried to catch up with the others striding toward town.

Wow. That is quite a horse! Was I hallucinating from the early stages of heat stroke? I took a picture as objective evidence that the sparkly horse was not a hallucination.

The most NSFW storefront in all of Kill Devil Hills. An Outer Banks original!

We had dinner that night at the Outer Banks Brewing Station. We were joined by Scott's college friend Jesika and our friend and WFC board member Dave P, who drove down from Duck, NC. For my part, I found the Lemongrass Wheat Beer to be quite refreshing after all that time under the hot sun.

Here, the Outer Banks Brewing Station seems to postulate that the Wright brothers' work was motivated by something other than pure fascination with flight. I thoroughly enjoyed the whimsy, but do no think that this was how they rolled. They also probably never dreamed that their mastery of the air would ultimately lead to banner tow pilots dragging advertisements through the sky along the Outer Banks, but that is exactly what happened.

It was a long, hot, exciting, and beautiful day spent with great people. Having completed an exploration of unique Tangier Island and a pilgrimage to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, we ended the first day of our trip well accomplished, if exhausted. I barely noticed that my bed had the firmness of a sheet of plywood.