'A flight very modest compared with that of the birds.' - Wilbur Wright

History's first manned, powered, heavier-than-air flight lasted 12 seconds and traveled 120 feet. Now they're hitting golf balls 350 yards. Many people can throw a baseball farther.

Orville Wright launched himself into a 27 mph wind at 10:35 a.m. on December 17, 1903. The biplane pitched and bucked for 120 feet above the Kill Devil Hills, south of Kitty Hawk, N.C. The skeletal contraption of spruce wood, muslin cloth, and piano wire was built for about $1,000 at the Wright Brother's bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, and shipped to North Carolina.

They were exploring an uncharted and dangerous horizon. Seven years earlier, the news of German glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal's death after his unpowered craft plunged to Earth had aroused their interest in aviation. Avid self-educators, Orville and Wilbur discovered the vital role of wing warp and built a wind tunnel in Dayton to revamp Lilienthal's accepted calculations for lift. They'd made hundreds of glider flights, starting in 1900, at Kill Devil Hills. It was a site chosen for its strong and steady winds, after consulting the U.S. Weather Bureau.

"If ever there was a turning point in history, it was this," viewers of "The Wright Stuff" video are told. Although the 1903 aircraft never took wing again after that day, it truly opened the door to our global village. The three principles of flight mastered by the Wrights - lift, power, and control - still propel the jumbo jets vital to the tourism industry that many localities depend on. The Boeing 747 has a wingspan longer than the first flight, yet has some of engineering genes from the 1903 plane in its design. So do the supersonic warplanes capable of raining destruction in a flash.

Both Ohio and North Carolina herald the legacy of the Wright Brothers. North Carolina license plates bear the motto "First in Flight. Ohio plates bear "Birthplace of Aviation". Both state's quarters in the 50 State Quarters Program of the U.S. Mint bear the 1903 Wright Flyer. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington is opening a new exhibit in October, "The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age", that will feature the 1903 aircraft displayed at floor level for the first time.

Nine decades after the flight, a piece of the wing fabric flew with John Glenn on STS-95.

Jack Schnedler, Universal Press Syndicate, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/18/2003, pg. K1, K7-9
Sen. John Glenn, Parade magazine, 6/29/2003.