NINETY-three years ago today, at 10.35 am, Wilbur and Orville Wright assured their place in history by achieving controlled and sustained power-driven aeroplane flight for the first time. The 32-year-old Orville flew the chain-driven Flyer I over a distance of 120 feet on a beach near Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, and thereby ushered in the age of aviation.
Wilbur and Orville were the sons of one Bishop Milton Wright, but rather than follow sedately in their father's holy footsteps, the pair were called to the bicycle trade in Dayton, Ohio - a living which turned out to be extremely lucrative. At first they merely sold the machines, but then they began to manufacture them to their own design, and in due course the funds from this thriving business allowed them to pursue their real vocation.
In 1896, seven years before the events at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers had read of the death of the German aviator Otto Lilienthal in a gliding accident. Far from being deterred, they tried to improve on Lilienthal's designs. The latter, for example, had controlled his glider by shifting his body weight from side to side; the Wrights began to study birds in flight to find a better way, and noticed that the eagle twists its wing-tips in order to retain its balance. They translated this technique into their most significant innovation to the technology of aviation the introduction of moveable wing tips to control the aeroplane in flight.
The next step, of course, was powered flight. The Wrights' decided that a petrol engine was the most suitable source of power, but since none of those available at the time measured up to the specifications they required, they built their own, and succeeded in achieving a power-to-weight ratio higher than any obtained before.
The site for the proving flight, near the ominously named Kill Devil Hill, was carefully chosen, and having performed a great many experiments in a home-made wind-tunnel the brothers were aware of the critical importance of a strong but steady breeze. On the morning of the flight, a strong anticyclone dominated the Mid-West of the United States, and the north-easterly airflow along its eastern flank provided the steady wind required. Four short but successful flights were completed before the weather rather unsportingly intervened to spoil the fun in the guise of a gust of wind to overturn the aircraft; the damage was minor, but it was sufficient to bring to an end the activities of that eventful day.